Where did 'Drink the Kool-Aid' come from?

MSNBC ^ | Oct. 15, 2008 | Stephen Stept

[ari-freedom]

“Drink the Kool-Aid” has long been a part of the vernacular, used in both a positive and negative sense when we talk about following a mission or philosophy; that is, “buying the program” or “swallowing the party line.” But its origin lies in the 1978 tragedy at Jonestown, where over 900 members of Peoples Temple took poisoned fruit punch at the behest of their leader, Jim Jones.

For those connected personally to this horror, the ubiquitous “Kool-Aid” metaphor, often used frivolously, recalls an unending nightmare. One little known footnote: the fruit drink actually used at Jonestown on that day was a British product, Fla-Vor-Aid. In Guyana, it was cheaper than Kool-Aid.

[oblomov]

I thought everyone knew this already.

[GnL]

Apparently the clowns at MSNBC had to do some research on it.

[Riley]

I heard some lefty on Hannity who seemed to think that it meant that Sean was mocking people who could only afford Kool Aid.

I was shouting at the radio. Sean either didn’t notice it or didn’t want to go in for the kill.

[caver]

It must be terrible to be an MSNBC writer. They don’t have an original thing to write about. Next weeek, we’ll be given a list of spelling words to study.

I am going on a new trend. I will not be clicking on any MSM websites just to deny them web traffic. If enough of the article is not posted to read, then I can do without it.

[ari-freedom]

Witness to Jonestown was a good show. I was able to see most of it tonight

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Very well then;

“Now, drink your FLA-VOR-AID! All your problems will be over in a few moments.”

[Battle Axe]

Jim Jones in Guiana.

[caver]

Witness to Jonestown was a good show. I was able to see most of it tonight

I’d like to see that show.

[gridlock]

MSNBC, the deepest and most enthusiastic drinkers of Kool-Aid, are trying to shame people into not using this phrase, because they know it describes them so well.

Well, just so there is no confusion, when I say that MSNBC “drinks the Kool-Aid”, I am saying that MSNBC is unquestioningly accepting the orders of their masters in the DNC, to the point of suicide, because they are completely enthralled and have lost the power of independent thought.

Given the Jonestown origin of the term, I think my usage is spot-on.

[Thrownatbirth]

MSNBC is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Cultish Personality Worship.

[Shery]

From Jonestown, when about 900 people followed their leader and drank tainted Koolaid, to commit suicide together.

[Riley]

Next weeek, we’ll be given a list of spelling words to study.

Libs make me feel like I'm being lectured by the slowest kid in the class- who's blissfully unaware that he's way behind everybody else.

[visualops]

Kinda petty for them to say in the sub-header that koolaid isn’t accurate. Koolaid is a brand name that has become a generic term, much like bandaid and kleenex. I don’t know if they said that to undermine the term, since IIRC it began in reference to Clinton supporters and then generalized to encompass all the useful idiots of the Left, or just to show how clever they are they discovered that irrelevant detail.

[Emperor Palpatine]

The History Channel did a much better doco about a year or so ago. They’re showing it again Saturday 11/22.

http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=207672

I mentioned in another thread that nothing about Jonestown will ever come close to frightening portrayal of Jim Jones by the great actor Powers Boothe in “Guyana Tragedy”.

[ETL]

"In 1951, [Reverend Jim] Jones (Jonestown) began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[4] Jones became flustered at harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[4] particularly, regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.[5] This, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones where he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."[5][4]"

"In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 900 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after media pressure built.[25] Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read Jones an article by Marshall Kilduff to be published detailing allegations by former Temple members.[25][16] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, 'I believe we’re the purest communists there are.' [26] Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."[26] Jones wanted to construct a model community to show others and stated that Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham 'couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism.'[27] 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.[28]

Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (often misidentified as Kool-Aid) along with a sedative.[39]

One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.[39] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."[39] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die" and, regarding death as "just stepping over into another plane" and that "[death is] a friend."[39] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."[39] Children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. The mass suicide had been discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis, while members drank liquid Jones first told them was poison during at least one of those White Nights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

[caver]

“Libs make me feel like I’m being lectured by the slowest kid in the class- who’s blissfully unaware that he’s way behind everybody else.”

I like your analogy.

[hershey]

MSNBC has decided to put Jonestown and Koolaid to bed once and for all. God forbid anyone notice the glaring parallels between Jones and our new ‘ruler’. (Speaking style — ‘gimme that ol’ time religion’, plans, content, empty promises, Marxist philosophy, outright lies, demonization of those who oppose him, and the mindless euphoria of hapless followers, etc..). Oh, and evil. We should be able to recognize evil when we see it, but Satan is clever. He cloaks evil in empty promises aimed specifically at your needs.

That story by Stephen King,
Needful Things, is eerily prophetic. A woman at church yesterday said she didn’t like Sarah Palin. (She looked guilty, frankly, and said we needed to pray a lot. This was about abortions, evidently. I think she voted for Obama. She has a special needs child, and was thinking of medical bills she’ll be faced with forever. He’s attention deficit, hyperactive. God bless her, she does her best to keep him under control. He’s about six. I suspect a great many voted for Obama because of medical expenses...socialized medicine seemed the perfect answer.

[Carley]

Someone ought to let this so called journalist know that there is nothing frivolous about the use of the phrase Kool Aid drinker.

Millions of Americans are lined up for their sip.

Heaven help them.

[ETL]

I thought everyone knew this already.

But few know Jonestown (Peoples Temple) was set up as a communist community. Most docs make little if any mention of it. Also that Lee Harvey Oswald was a devoted communist. Or that the kidnappers of Patty Hearst were communist revolutionaries allied with the Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army (Wright's Black Liberation Theology) and the Weather Underground. Even Sean Hannity had/has a hard time referring to the Weather Underground as communists. Yet they, like Rev Wright, were proponents of Black Liberation Theology.

________________________________________________________

"Their founding document [the Weather Underground's] called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be allied with the "Black Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial" movements[1] to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism."..."-Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 95.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_Underground#cite_ref-Berger_0-0

Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (Paperback) by Dan Berger
http://www.amazon.com/Outlaws-America-Underground-Politics-Solidarity/dp/1904859410

________________________________________________________

From the New York Times, August 24, 2003

"they [the Weather Underground] employed revolutionary jargon, advocated armed struggle and black liberation and began bombing buildings, taking responsibility for at least 20 attacks. Estimates of their number ranged at times from several dozen to several hundred."

Article: Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn't Faded
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E4DE1539F937A1575BC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2