Remembering Jonestown

[Tina-Kate]

Hard to believe it was 30 years ago today, over 900 people died pointlessly in Guyana due to megalomaniac Rev. Jim Jones, including an incredibly brave US congressman who tried to help them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03694.html

[SallyG]

Wow...hard to believe it's been that long. I remember it well. What amazes me still is how many people willingly went to their deaths, and took their children with them.

[Tina-Kate]

Not everyone was so willing...tho they had been brainwashed, so to speak. Jones told them if they didn't do it, enemies would parachute in on them within days & the consequences would be much worse than death. Instead, they should choose to martyr themselves. At least twice before, they had conducted "loyalty tests" during which everyone drank small doses of fruit drink that was not poisoned.

There was a 2 hour doc on Canadian TV last night, which included eye witnesses. One was Jones' son, who was away with some others participating in a basketball tournament. They were ordered to go back to Jonestown but didn't.

Jones was such a coward, he didn't want to go thru the poisoning death and ordered someone to shoot him, tho some reports have stated he shot himself. Some who did not die fast enough or put up a fuss were shot with guns or injected with cyanide thru a syringe.

Just a horrific event.

So ironic is the sign they had posted on the stage of the "pavilion": "THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT".

[Kat]

Thanks for bringing this topic up, TK!

I watched that documentary "Witness to Jonestown," I think around November 9 or 10. It was so compelling, I watched it twice on 2 occasions.

Very good show- actual witnesses, survivors, and as you said, Jones' son. It has stayed with me to the point of my thinking about starting a topic. You read my mind (again).

If it repeats, you'all may want to catch it.

[Tina-Kate]

You're welcome, Kat. I remember being very affected by it when it happened. Altho horrible, it was very interesting to hear a more complete story many years later.

I felt very bad for Vernon Gosney, the single father who miraculously escaped death at the airstrip shootings. Altho he was able to get out, he had been so "brainwashed" he had left behind his son because his son was black & he felt Jonestown would be better for him because of the racial descrimination in the "outside world". The poor man now has to live with his choice.

The whole thing was just awful.

[augusta]

I think I saw the show, too. I saw it in pieces - parts of it one nite and even more another nite. That Congressman - it is incredible that he was shot and killed. They were supposedly a religious organization. People sure can twist the Bible into meaning anything they want.

I never can understand how these cult leaders justify having sex with others (some even with children). What the heck can they be telling their 'flock' to show them that it's right to do?

There was a movie made on it that was good, which starred Stacey Keach as Jim Jones. Boy was he good in that.

So Jim Jones did not drink the poison?!! That is sickening. He was insane. It was an incredible, horrific event. It's too bad that cults still exist and the government cannot easily step in.

[doug65oh]

Odd thing is, I could almost swear I remember seeing these folks profiled on 60 Minutes, maybe a year or so before the massacre. The thing I remember most watching that profile then was that it made my gut crawl. They interviewed one of those folks (a black feller, around 65 or so if I recall correctly) and he kept referring to “Dad” almost every other sentence. Everyone they interviewed did that. It was one of the most unsettling scenes I think I’ve ever witnessed – definitely left me thinking ‘Boy, am I ever glad you’re over there and I’m over here!’

As far as the justifications are concerned, think of it like this – paraphrasing Jim Jones’ own words here: ‘There are some of you who might see me as your father. If that’s what you want, I’ll be your father. Others of you might see me as your God; if that’s what you want, I’ll be your God…’ What are we taught virtually from the beginning but to obey our parents, etc. etc.? You find a crack big enough to wiggle your toe through the door first of all… Hitler did the very same thing in the early 1930s, playing on basic fears and needs.

If you think about it, physical, emotional, and spiritual domination was the key that made Jones the puppet master. The Bible and religion were only the bait I think. From what some of the survivors have said, Jones used them only long enough to serve his purpose then threw them away – almost literally. One of those folks has talked about the night Jones threw a Bible. It hit the floor, nobody said a word for several seconds. The next thing Jones said was something along the lines of ‘Now, did you see God come strike me dead for doing that?’

You take the foundation of someone’s belief, manipulate it to your own purposes and when the time is right…poof.

What was it the one feller said after he saw Jones’ body, that his first thought was “the <expletive deleted> didn’t even have the courage to die like everyone else did…” ??

The Gosney feller was right about one thing: Poor Congressman Ryan was clueless until it was too late. It’s rather ironic (I think, anyway) but the seat Ryan once held in Congress is now occupied by Ryan’s aide Jackie Speier, who succeeded to that office following the death of Congressman Tom Lantos earlier this year.