Posted on 11/13/2008 10:56:48 AM PST by autumnraine
The key to understanding the tragedy that was Jonestown lies in the oratory skills of the Peoples Temple founder, Jim Jones.
"He was very charismatic," Leslie Wagner-Wilson, a Jonestown survivor, says of the Rev. Jim Jones.
With the cadence and fervor of a Baptist preacher, the charm and folksiness of a country storyteller and the zeal and fury of a maniacal dictator, Jones exhorted his followers to a fever pitch, audiotapes recovered from Jonestown reveal.
As he spoke, they applauded, shouted, cheered. One follower who survived the "revolutionary suicide" at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, said that Jones was the most dynamic speaker he had ever heard.
Like all powerful speakers, Jones' greatest asset was his ability to determine what listeners wanted to hear and give it to them in simple language that appealed to them on an almost instinctual level.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“Does this sound familiar?”
Now if his crowd would drink the real “Jim Jones” Kool-aid...
“young people think he is “cool”.
My 20-something son says he can see the affect of Rev. Wright on O’s speaking patterns. He says it has a church sermon cadence to it. I think young people voted for him because he was Black and being Black is cool, according to all the pop culture images they get. The MSM made even a humorless and pedantic Black guy into “cool.” People my age with money voted for him to show how “open-minded” they are, and probably to assuage their white guilt.
Before they loose consciousness after consuming the Kool Aid, they should turn out the lights. Since we have electricity prices tripled, Government offices will be expensive to run, especially when empty.
Is Jonestown the source of that term ("drinking the kool-aid")?
Is Jonestown the source of that term ("drinking the kool-aid")?
Jim Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_jones
Building the Temple
[edit] Indiana beginnings
Further information: Peoples Temple
In 1951, Jones began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[12] Jones became flustered with harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[12] particularly regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.[13] He also became frustrated with what he perceived to be ostracism of open communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.[14] This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself “how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church.”[13][12]
Jones’ interest in religion began during his childhood, primarily because he found making friends difficult, though initially he vacillated on his church of choice.[3] Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped Jones to get a start in the church even though he knew Jones to be a communist and Jones did not meet him through the American Communist Party.[14] In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, but left that church because its leaders barred him from integrating African Americans into his congregation.[12] Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at the Seventh Day Baptist Church.[12] He observed that it attracted people and their cash and concluded that, with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals.[12]
Jones then began his own church, which changed names until it became the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.[12] Jones sold pet monkeys door-to-door to raise funds for his church.[15]
Jones moved away from the American Communist Party and Maoists when ACP members and Mao Zedong became critical of some of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's policies.[14]
[edit] Integrationist
In 1960, Indianapolis Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones as a director of the Human Rights Commission.[16] Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.[16] When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, Jones resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and climaxed with “Let my people go!”[17]
During this time, Jones also helped to integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.[12] After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting African Americans and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight.[18] Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve African American customers.[18] Jones wrote American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media.[19] When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, Jones refused to be moved and began to make the beds, and empty the bed pans, of black patients.[20] Political pressures resulting from Jones’ actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.[20]
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.[12] White owned businesses and locals were critical of him.[18] A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile and a dead cat was thrown at Jones’ house after a threatening phone call.[19] Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them.[19]
[edit] “Rainbow family”
Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying leader Jim Jones as the father of the “Rainbow Family.”Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his “rainbow family,”[21] and stating: “Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future.”[22] That comported with Jones’ portrayal of the Temple overall as a “rainbow family.”
The couple adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry: Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie. Jones had been encouraging Temple members to adopt orphans from war ravaged Korea.[23] Jones had long been critical of the United States’ opposition to communist leader Kim Il-Sung’s 1950 invasion of South Korea, calling it the “war of liberation” and stating that “the south is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome.”[24] In 1954, he and his wife also adopted Agnes Jones, who was partly of Native American descent.[22][25] Agnes was 11 at the time of her adoption.[26] Suzanne Jones was adopted at the age of six in 1959.[26] In June 1959, the couple had their only biological child, Stephan Gandhi Jones.[25]
Two years later, in 1961, the Joneses became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt an African American child, James Warren Jones, Jr.[27] Marceline was once spat upon while she carried Jim Jr. [19]
The couple also adopted another son, who was white, named Tim.[25] Tim Jones, whose birth mother was a member of the Peoples Temple, was originally named Timothy Glen Tupper.[22]
[edit] Asylum
Belo HorizonteRio de Janeiro
Jones’ Brazil locationsAfter a 1961 Temple speech about nuclear apocalypse,[20] and a January 1962 Esquire Magazine article listing Belo Horizonte, Brazil as a safe place in a nuclear war, Jones traveled with his family to the Brazilian city with the idea of setting up a new Temple location.[28]
On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip into Guyana.[29] After arriving in Belo Horizonte, the Joneses rented a modest three bedroom home.[30] Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, though language remained a barrier.[31] Jones was careful to not portray himself as a communist in foreign territory, and spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than Castro or Marx.[32]
After becoming frustrated with the lack of resources in the locale, in mid-1963, the Joneses moved to Rio de Janeiro.[33] There, they worked with the poor in Rio's slums.[33] Jones also explored local Brazilian cults. [34]
Jones was plagued by guilt for leaving behind the Indiana civil rights struggle and possibly losing what he had struggled to build there.[33] When Jones’ associate preachers in Indiana told him that the Temple was about to collapse without him, Jones returned.[35]
[edit] California Eden
Los AngelesSan FranciscoUkiahBakersfieldFresnoSacramentoSanta Rosa
Some of the Peoples Temple's California LocationsFurther information: Peoples Temple
After Jones’ return to Indiana from Brazil, in 1965, Jones claimed that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war on July 15, 1967, that would then create a new socialist Eden on earth, such that the Temple must move to Northern California for safety.[36][12] Accordingly, the Temple began moving to Redwood Valley, California.[12]
While Jones always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s Jones chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism.[12] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing in Temple sermons his “Apostolic Socialism” concept.[12] Specifically, “those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism.”[37] Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that “If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin.”[38]
By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as “fly away religion,” rejecting the Bible as being white men’s’ justification to subordinate women and subjugate people of color and stating that it spoke of a “Sky God” who was no God at all.[12] Jones authored a booklet titled “The Letter Killeth,” criticizing the Bible.[39]
By the Spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.[40] Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, by 1977, Marceline Jones admitted to the New York Times that, as early as age 18 when he watched his then idol Mao Zedong overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion.[36] She stated that “Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion,” and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling “I've got to destroy this paper idol!” [36]
[edit] Move to San Francisco
Main article: Peoples Temple in San Francisco
Seal of the San Francisco Housing AuthorityThe move of Peoples Temple headquarters to San Francisco in 1975 invigorated Jones’ political career. After the Temple served an important role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.[41]
Unlike most other figures deemed as cult leaders, Jones was able to gain public support and contact with prominent local and national United States politicians. For example, Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election and Mondale publicly praised the Temple.[42][43] First Lady Rosalynn Carter also personally met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters where Jones garnered louder applause than Mrs. Carter.[42][44][45]
In September 1976, Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and other political figures.[46] At that dinner, while introducing Jones, Willie Brown stated “Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours ... Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein ... Chairman Mao.”[47] Harvey Milk, who spoke at political rallies at the Temple,[48] and wrote to Jones after a visit to the Temple: “Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.”[49][50]
In his San Francisco Temple apartment, Jones regularly hosted San Francisco radical political figures such as Angela Davis for discussions.[51] He spoke with friend and San Francisco Sun-Reporter publisher Dr. Carlton Goodlett about Jones’ remorse regarding not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the Soviet Union.[52] After his criticisms caused increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, Jones spoke at a huge rally healing the rift between the two groups in the Los Angeles Convention center attended by many of Jones’ closest political acquaintances.[53]
While Jones forged media alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets,[54] the move to San Francisco also brought increasing media scrutiny. After Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff encountered resistance to publishing an expose, he brought his story to New West Magazine.[55] In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to the Temple's “Agricultural Project” in Guyana after they learned of the contents of Kilduff’s article to be published in which former Temple members claimed they were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused.[56][45] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.
[edit] Jonestown’s formation and operation
JonestownGeorgetownKaituma
Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (”Jonestown”, Guyana)Main article: Jonestown
Jones had first started building Jonestown in 1974 as a means to create both a “socialist paradise” and a “sanctuary” from the media scrutiny which had started in 1972.[57] Regarding the former goal, Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, “I believe we’re the purest communists there are.”[58] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.[59]
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones’ authority waned after he moved to the isolated commune, because he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members.[60] In spite of the allegations prior to Jones’ departure to Jonestown, the leader was still widely respected by some for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged; 68 percent of Jonestown’s residents were black.[61]
[edit] New children
Further information: Timothy Stoen
Kimo (left) and John (right) (photo: Jonestown Institute)Jim Jones claimed that he was the biological father of John Victor Stoen, although the birth certificate lists Grace and Timothy Stoen as the parents of the boy.[62] The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Temple member Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace Stoen to keep her from defecting.[63] After Grace Stoen later defected in 1976 and began divorce proceedings against Tim Stoen in 1977, in order to avoid potentially giving up the boy in a custody dispute with Grace, Jones ordered Tim to take John to Guyana in February of 1977.[64]
After purported father Tim Stoen defected from the Temple in June 1977, the Temple kept John Stoen in Jonestown.[65] The custody dispute over John Stoen would become a lynch pin of several battles between the Temple and the Concerned Relatives.[66]
Jim Jones also fathered a son, Jim Jon (Kimo), with Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, a Temple member.[67]
[edit] Pressure and waning political support
Further information: Timothy Stoen and Peoples Temple in San Francisco
While most of Jones’ political allies broke ties after Jones’ departure,[68] some did not. As a show of support, Willie Brown spoke out against enemies at a rally at the Peoples Temple, also attended by Harvey Milk and Art Agnos.[69] Most importantly for Jones and the Temple, Moscone's office shortly thereafter issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws.[70]
In the Fall of 1977, Tim Stoen and other relatives in Jonestown formed a “Concerned Relatives” group.[71] Stoen traveled to Washington D.C. in January 1978 to visit with Congressman, including Leo Ryan and State Department officials, and wrote a “white paper” to Congress detailing the dispute and pressing for Congressional correspondence.[72] Stoen’s efforts aroused the curiosity of Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen’s behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.[73]
Amidst growing pressure in the United States to investigate the Temple, on February 19, 1978, Harvey Milk wrote a letter of support for the Peoples Temple to President Jimmy Carter.[74][75][76] Therein, Milk wrote that Jones was known “as a man of the highest character.”[76] Regarding the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown, Milk wrote he was “attempting to damage Rev. Jones reputation” with “apparent bold-faced lies.”[76]
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an “Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones” to the Peoples Temple, members of the press and members of Congress.[77] In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown. [78]
Facing increasing scrutiny, in the summer of 1978, Jones also hired noted JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a “grand conspiracy” by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple.[79] Jones told Lane he wanted to “pull an Eldridge Cleaver”, referring to a fugitive Black Panther that was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.[79]
[edit] Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders and mass suicide
Main article: Jonestown
Entrance to Jonestown (photo:Jonestown Institute)In November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.[80] Ryan's delegation included relatives of Temple members, Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers.[81] The group arrived in Georgetown on November 15.[80] On November 17, Ryan's delegation traveled by airplane to Jonestown.[82] The delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife.[83] The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end.[83] Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave.[84] At that time, Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure.[85]
Dems are drinking the kool-aid but who are those that refuse to drink and get a bullet instead?
Those are definitely relevant factors.
Obama tends to wrap self promotion with vague promises.
Weird but his disciples are addicted.
Actually, Obama doesn't qualify as a mulatto. According to Louisiana usage, a mulatto is 50% black, 50% white. Quadroon is 25% black, 75% white. Octaroon is 12.5% black, 87.5% white. As I understand his lineage, he fits in the last category.
Obama won because he said he was going to cut taxes on the middle class, poor and give them 'change.'
He sounded more conservative then McCain with his huge bail out of the banking industry. If it was right or the wrong thing to do it doesn't matter the image of Republicans helping the rich was disgusting.
He’s nowhere on the level of Regan or Hitler. Reagan was a warm speaker, Hitler was a passionate speaker. Obama comes across as dull and phony. Gee, sounds like Kerry or Gore. He only won because of his race and the economy.
Am I the only one who shudders at the sound of O’s voice.
It’s the cadence that is particularly disturbing to me.
One of the tell-tale signs of a child abuser is charm — they are CHARMING. It’s a game they are good at. Hitler was a good speaker.
Give me a tangle-tongued person who speaks his OWN mind any day.
There was a link on FR in the past couple days about Obama using hypnosis techniques. Cadence is one of them.
My very limited story about Jones - here goes. . . about 34 or 35 years ago, Jones was passing through Southern towns. Why I do not know. He was posing as an evangelist and holding meetings in local churches. Of course, my mother-in-law wanted to not miss any “charismatic” meeting held by any traveling “preacher”. Jones had secured a local downtown church building to hold his meeting in. I went with my MIL who had seen his ad in the local newspaper. Well, he got in the pulpit and started telling his stories, preacher fashion, only with no Bible reading that I can remember. I vaguely remember something about him telling some story of him trying to drive somewhere, but the devil caused an accident and tried to kill him. (I suppose now, in retrospect, I’d say he was acting rather paranoid and megalomaniacal.) Other than that I remember very little. No socialist rhetoric, just loosely preacher style talk. No usual “churchy” stuff. No singing. Just a sermon (I guess you’d say if you don’t need the scripture to be dominant.). Then him at a table in the vestible selling tapes of his “sermon”. No recruiting. I’m sure he passed the collection plate and made a few bucks on the tapes. My MIL bought a tape. I had very little money back then, so if he got a dollar off me, he did good. Of course, us Southern “hicks” always honor the collection plate.
A year or so after that, the “Jonestown” deal happened; but it didn’t hit me the guy was one in the same that we had seen until much later.
Churches ought to watch who they allow in their pulpits.
Exactly. This is one of the reasons that you are never shown the full films of his speeches with translation. They like the cuts where he’s vehement and agitated and, of course, his anti-semetic rants but, in general, media controllers do not like his messages about the threat of international communism, social decay, cultural ideals, nationalism or other infectious ideas to spread.
Not really, unless Jim Jones was reading from a teleprompter...
I Agee. I might also add: They hate the UNITED STATES.
And yet they want to be rich.
The left has multiple personality disorder.
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