Posted on 11/14/2018 10:01:21 AM PST by detective
“We didn’t commit suicide,” Jim Jones insisted 40 years ago this Sunday. “We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.”
The transition from idealism to nihilism that the American Left experienced in a few short years during the 1970s finds expression in that short, peculiar phrase. Apart from encapsulating the decline of the Left, revolutionary suicide also advertises the link between the Black Panthers and Peoples Temple, Huey Newton and Jim Jones, the murder of a cop in Oakland in the fall of 1967 and the murder of 909 communards in Jonestown on November 18, 1978.
Jones utters some variant of the expression four times on Jonestown’s death tape, which concludes with his followers imbibing grape Flavor-Aid laced with less than a penny’s worth of cyanide per serving. The phrase strikes as idiotic as the act it gave its name to. But to Jim Jones, and the ’60s icon who gave him the idea, revolutionary suicide impressed as the next big thing in Marxist thinking.
In 1973, the year Jim Jones a tract of land in northwestern Guyana, Huey Newton published a book called Revolutionary Suicide. “The concept of revolutionary suicide is not defeatist or fatalistic,” Newton maintained. “On the contrary, it conveys an awareness of reality in combination with the possibility of hope—reality because the revolutionary must always be prepared to face death, and hope because it symbolizes a resolute determination to bring about change.”
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Parents poisoned their children first, which sapped a will to live from the adults. What outsiders later clearly saw as an act of nihilism, the cultists regarded as an act imbued with profound meaning. Jim Jones told them that they gave their lives for the glory of Communism."
Jim Jones and the People's Temple were the main force which changed California from Reagan influenced conservative to leftist Democrat.
Nancy Pelosy, Jerry Brown, Willie Brown, Harvey Milk and many other California Democrats were supported by Jones and the People's Temple. The admired him and owed their careers to him. He supported them financially and had his many followers vote for them.
They were before my time - can you explain in more detail how did a suicide cult change CA’s politics after their death? It seems counterintuitive.
“Jim Jones and the People’s Temple were the main force which changed California from Reagan influenced conservative to leftist Democrat.”
How do you conclude that? That seems like a big stretch. The mass suicide was in the news a few days and was then quickly forgotten. I’ve lived in CA for 45 years and that event was a tiny blip, nothing more.
It’s possible it tied into some larger baleful spiritual movement. But we didn’t need them to tell us that. The bible could tell us.
Anyhow, I get a sense that God is drawing nearer, and in doing so will destroy many works of the Evil One, such as this irrational exaltation of communism (which is a human exalted aping of the God given ideals of Christendom).
This happened before the Guyana business.
Jones was a player in SF politics and his Peoples Temple muscle was used to grab control of the local Democratic party establishment through stealing elections and organizing graft.
The piece de resistance was stealing the SF mayoral election for Moscone.
The new party establishment installed with Jones’ help included Moscone and Milk, who brought in the next generation of SF pols, which included many who later went on to power later.
Oddly enough, the real kingmaker of the time, Willie Brown, does not seem to have had much to do with Jones.
Bookmark
Interesting.
did not know there were ties to the demdogs.. ping
https://calwatchdog.com/2013/12/18/actually-jim-jones-cult-was-bay-area-democrats/
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Jones-Captivated-S-F-s-Liberal-Elite-They-were-2979186.php
http://blogs.christianpost.com/thinkingoutloud/background-checks-on-pelosi-and-feinstein-15603/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzyXNWYmfXg
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/jim-jones-harvey-milk-cult-city-secret-history/
https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/03/jim-jones-california-liberals/
https://www.salon.com/2012/05/01/jim_jones_sinister_grip_on_san_francisco/
See post 9.
And I’ve been wondering how Jackie Speier stayed a RAT...
But he certainly had a lot to do with Kamala Harris.
Weird how all our favorites tie back to that guy, isn’t it?
Main political force, yes.
But they needed statewide voters: Enter Reagan and Amnesty.
With friends like that...
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LOL..... Willie was too male and too busy grabbing the young ladies ...... including little, sly Kamala.
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Tolkien .... a sadly insecure man.
Some blame his poor attitude to the baboon spider bite. Poor boy.
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