A different kind of "Inconvenient Truth"

"JONESTOWN" DIRECTOR NELSON DISCOVERED ACCUSED OF "GLOSSING OVER OF FACTS" IN ANOTHER FILM;
VISITS UC-SANTA CRUZ THIS WEEK TO LECTURE STUDENTS ON "HOW TO WRITE HISTORY" IN DOCUMENTARIES....

There he was, smirking and bantering about the usual edifying subjects, such as tossing trash in movie theatres. It was more than a mild shock to see my favorite comedian, the sometimes "master of his domain" walk out on that stage at the Kodak Theatre to take charge of a very special nomination list on Hollywood's holy night.



That list Jerry Seinfeld read at the Academy Awards on February 25 named the five nominated best documentaries of 2006, out of which, of course, "An Inconvenient Truth" got the Oscar. The ultimate winner was the Academy itself, and all of us.

Unlike the Grand Army of the Obtuse that makes up nearly all of our film critics, Academy voters had the wisdom to give thumbs down to a piece of cult apologist cinema that's brought new meaning to the reckless disregard for another "inconvenient truth."

In reality, a multitude of inconvenient truths are suppressed ruthlessly and repeatedly--in "Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple"

Director Stanley Nelson's editing tricks in his "Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple" easily sent nearly every movie critic swooning, yet another reminder about film's power over those ignorant of history.

Nelson's film is a potent propaganda showcase, largely owing to its subject matter, of course. No questioning his craft, folks. This is one gunslinger that doesn't miss his mark: He fuses together enough of the "correct" film clips of the cult; enough of the "correct" heart-wrenching, toe-tapping music; and enough of the "correct" interviews rigged to paint a portrait of a cult that was, as one interviewee claims, "vibrant" right up to the day before mass-murder in Jonestown.

"Vibrant?" So the forced labor, malnutrition, and torture (which started in California, protected by the media), was secondary. "Vibrant" isn't the only superlative our "documentarian" has cherry picked from carefully screened interviewees in redecorating what social psychologists have concluded as one of history's most destructive cults.

In Nelson's 90-minute window dressing, this group of brainwashed people that burned little children with cattle prods -- for years, in California, while the "crusading media" did nothing-- has a whole lot more than "vibrant" attached to it.

Here are some of Nelson's sweetened-up interview samplings: „"..People's Temple truly had the potential to be something big - something powerful" "As soon as I walked in (the Temple), I was home""...Every single person felt like they had a role there." Everyone felt like they were exceptionally special..." "There were many reasons to love, admire, overlook, and excuse the things Jim did."

Yes. Of course. While a gang of your frenzied fellow cultists are electro-shocking your five year-old for being "naughty, you just keep countin' ALL the heart-wrenching reasons to admire the great social activist, "Father" Jones. Not a big problem, though, since this perverted version of a rainbow coalition mutated out of the deadly efficient mind control and terror tactics employed by Jones', with an always helpful little nudge from those Temple "Angels of Death" (his gun-toting enforcers).

Nelson, however, doesn't see the need to go through the motions of excusing such inconvenient truths. For instance, his documentary remarkably covers up ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER of the horrendous children's torture feature, "Blue Eyed Monster," practiced by the People's Temple, in the California years, which he instead has papered over in some of the most disgraceful, dishonest film making on record.

Card stacking

Insidious, but a tried & true method in many scenarios. Nelson used one of the oldest tactics in a playbook traditionally employed by conmen strictly out to make a buck - "card stacking," - defined as follows:

Card stacking refers to the method of intentionally deceiving people so that they will support a cause or ideal in which the propagandist strongly believes or from which he or she will realize financial gain. The term originated from the magician's gimmick of "Stacking the deck," which involves presenting a deck of cards that appears to have been randomly-shuffled but which is, in fact, in a pre-conceived and logical order. The magician knows the order and is able to predict or control the outcome of the trick; the audience is unaware of the gimmick. In poker a deck can be 'stacked' so certain hands are dealt to certain players.

Card stacking is full of half-truths, outright lies, omissions, and distortions.

Of course, Stan's in this mainly to score points as the genius film maker he is, on behalf of what he's digested from his meals at Becky Moore and Mac McGehee Jonestown Institute Inn. They happily held his hand and guided him in finding the "right" info and interviewees, and, yes, would include token citations of those unsavory sides of the cult, but in "just the right measure."

Take the interview of the married male cult member who related the time a young male made an announcement regarding "Father" Jones' sexual predations on the other men. Nelson finishes the scene with the interviewee laughing and making light of it.

Stack a card, Stan.

Another interview, a cult member recounts one of the cult's physical tortures carried out, "the boxing punishment." He told about throwing water on someone he had beaten unconscious, and then being forced to beat him further. He then related how "tiring" it was having to fight five people in one night.

Once again, like the sexual predation scene, Nelson films the cult member laughing over this horrifying ordeal. Once again; is this something a responsible director edits into making light of? Minimize--the facts (and these are just a bare few of the unsavory that are disclosed) of a boxing torture and Jones sexually preying on males?

Stack another one, Stan.

On the other hand, the "positives" are hand-dipped in super-sweet seductive coating. You only have to see the film's trailer on Nelson's website, showing that staged clip of smiling, hugging, laughing, happy Temple folks to realize something is amiss. That is, unless you have some notion that destructive cults deserve a second look. It is safe to say that you (a) were too young too recall the People's Temple, (b) are a fanatic in the "New Religious Movements," or (c) should do some homework.

While Stan boasted openly about making "somewhat objective" documentaries this year to the New York Times, he and wife/writer Marcia Smith's credibility was called into question three years ago for another of their films, "Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise," in a May, 2004 Washington Post Live Online program.

A caller from Austin, Texas had caught them ˜playing fast and loose with history..." "I honor and understand the meaning of Brown vs. Topeka board of Education," said the unnamed caller, "However, I do not understand the glossing over of facts to sell the story."

In a November, 2006 KQED (San Francisco) Radio interview, Nelson trumpeted for the umpteenth time the Big Lie that he has so cleverly mesmerized much of the public with in his film. People's Temple, you ask?

"They delivered on their promise," said Stan, of the cult that practiced forced labor, death threats, malnutrition, extortion, child abuse, torture, all occurring in California.

"They shared a lot of love," said Stan.

Media knuckle-heads like Pittsburgh Post-Gazette critic Barry Paris are enchanted by the Temple "delivery," with enough superlatives to get Jonestown Apologists CEOs Becky Moore and Mac McGhee worked up into a fever-pitch Irish jig just in time for upcoming St. Patty's Day.

"Jones, after all, was a bona-fide civil rights pioneer..." gushed Paris, "...He built a congregation that promised food, clothing, shelter and retirement homes to its people and delivered. Sure, folks had to give a 20-percent tithe (which evolved into giving all their money and possessions) to the church, but that wasn't so unusual and they did it voluntarily. In the utopian-community, a deal's a deal."

"A deal's a deal." That's right. And like the rest of our witless media "pundits," Paris is completely enamored by the Nelson's "revolutionary" film making process, and just can't be bothered with the possibility of any missing pieces. I wonder if Paris, for example, has ever even heard of Father Divine. Or does he even give a damn about it.

Nelson surely has. In fact, his wife Marcia mentioned Divine at the world premiere of their film, way back in January, 2006, in Salt Lake City, Utah, when they gathered with, oh, that's right, Becky Moore of all people! Salt Lake City, of all places, too. Home base of the Mormon Church. Not that this would be construed as some strategy to "snuggle up" our hard-working cult apologists (NRM's) with an established church, oh, Lord no.

Father Divine was an African-American cult leader in the 1930s, who established a famed interracial "flock," which Jones modeled himself after. Nelson has completely suppressed any mention whatsoever of Divine in his film, another of these dazzling "card-stackings" in his film's fixed deck. Why? Because the ruthless tactics Jones acquired from observing Divine in a 1957 visit to his Philadelphia cult center would simply not fit in with the notion of pre-Guyana "love-love-love" and "delivery of promises." (Jones, moreover, later tried to steal membership from Divine's cult, unsuccessfully---YET ANOTHER FACT SUPPRESSED BY NELSON. Why??)

"A turning point in JJ‚s career was his meeting with Father Divine, the legendary black pastor from Philadelphia," writes Maurice Brinton, author of "Suicide For Socialism." "Jones was vastly impressed both by his spell-binding preaching techniques and by the total control he still exerted on his congregation (which consisted mainly of elderly black women). From Divine, Jones learned all about "organizing congregations‚" about how to use an "Interrogation Committee‚" He saw the Committee as the logical extension of his grip on his flock."

In Indianapolis, Jones started to surround himself with a group of "totally loyal‚" men and women, black and white. They would watch and report to Jones on the other parishioners. This was probably the first instance in history of a totally integrated, "non-racist‚" Secret Police. Thomas Dixon, one of the early members of the Temple, broke with JJ on this issue. "The Committee‚" he said, "was primarily to deal with those who disagreed with Jones. Whoever was summoned by the Committee was grilled for hours on end with questions such as "Why are you against the Reverend?"

Integration, especially pre-Civil Rights era, was a bold, brave act, absolutely. But AT THIS COST? This, in essence, is the utter disgrace of Nelson's film - his deliberate cover up of Father Divine's critical impact on Jones and Jones's totalitarian savagery that began percolating all the way back to the Indianapolis years and grew exponentially as the cult drifted to California, and to its final tragic end in Guyana.

But our stunningly astute in Pennsylvania critic swallowed Stan's Subterfuge like a four-year old would gobble down a bowl of sugar pops.

"Watching footage of Jones‚ congregants building their church and homes and tilling the soil in their communal farm in Guyana," wrote Paris of Pittsburg, "we see that most of them are clearly quite happy. The irony is that, in many ways, Jonestown was succeeding, not failing and Jones had done an impressive job of carving out a self-sufficient collective community there."

Clearly quite happy?? As, say, the Jonestown children being repeatedly dunked at the bottom of community well (Jonestown's "Big Foot" attraction), screaming over and over in the middle of the night for a mommy or daddy to rescue them. But who never arrived, thanks to the "impressive" effects of being drugged, beaten, starved, brainwashed, and forced back by gunmen.

The reality of course was that Mr. Green Jeans Jones' little ol' "communal farm" (thank you, "Jonestown Institute" Bank of Depraved Euphemisms) was nothing more than a gulag. Nice work Stan--Paris is convinced he was looking at scenes from Disney's Frontierland.

Perhaps Paris Hilton could give a more reliable assessment the next time.
















ALERT:

Now here's a news flash for all of you in California who'd like to have a genuine crack at this big rotten egg that the Nelsons have laid. Tomorrow and Wednesday, March 6 and 7, none other than Stanley and Mrs. Nelson will be making a personal appearance at the Univ. of Calif-Santa Cruz campus. On Tuesday evening, at 7 p.m., at Classroom Unit 2, there will be another of their free screenings (get yer free cult conditioner narcotics, students!....Time to alert CultsOnCampus.com)

The day after tomorrow, Wednesday, March 7, Stan and Marcia will appear at noon in the Mural Room at Oakes College Campus, to participate in a conference. This will be the real entertainment. If you've seen the film by now, you should have more than enough inquiries to present Mr. and Mrs. Nelson about this putrid blob of revisionism. Don't expect any straight answers, of course, but at least they can face more than the mush the media reviewers have been offering them. And the topic of the conference is a downright scream (Ah, "Hello, is Orwell in the House??!!"):

"How To Write History: Research and Representation in the Historical Documentary." Okay, so we all now know the folks at UC-Santa Cruz have a good sense of humor. Twisted, but rousing.

In another, more serious milieu, a Nelson-attended conference might better be titled "How to Write Sophistry: Faulty Research and Card-stacking Technique in a Historical Documentary." What is vitally important is that students and visitors not give the Nelsons a free ride, like the critics have.

Get out there and grill them with questions, people!

Besides the major role of Father Divine, you could ask Nelson:

Why did he leave out the role of Tim Stoen, Jim Jones's top enforcer? Without Stoen's legal terror tactics, exposes long before 1977 would have been published that would have put the cult out of business. Stoen later lied publicly, long after Jonestown, about having been in Jones's "inner circle," in a self-serving ploy to get his old job back in the Mendocino District Attorney's Office.

Nelson, predictably, will have some flimsy excuse for censoring Tim Stoen. Last summer when confronted by my father and me at a film screening, he claimed it was "another one of the stories that we wish we had been able to include."

This is where Nelson jumps from disingenuous into Stoen's camp outright lying. I doubt there was even the slightest shred of desire to include Stoen. And that is yet another in this parade of countless outrages.

Suppose Nelson had presented us with a film, "Steel Revolutionary: Life and Death of Stalin." And he had, time after time after time, deleted, embellished, minimized, and sugar-coated this monster's rise and fall. (No, of course, Jones didn't kill as many or rule a nation, etc. - but he ruled his little empire like a Stalinist.)

Millions deliberately starved to death in the Ukrainian forced famine. But what if Nelson shows footage of families happily working in the fields. Millions are sent to forced labor camps. Nelson's footage shows dancing Russians, and kids getting free schools and medical care.

Such lethal omissions about history can have devastating consequences on the future. You know what the saying is about not learning the lessons of history and its consequences--made famous on that forboding sign in that horrifying pavilion.

Here's another hypothetical in a Nelson film on Stalin: Our "revolutionary" director decides to leave the audience almost completely in the dark about Leon Trotsky. Trotsky, who was Stalin's rival, later assassinated, might have succeeded in stopping the monster in his assent to power, had he been more astute politically and made certain Lenin's Testament had been read publicly.

But Trotsky never did. The Testament was censored in the USSR. And he, and millions of people, paid dearly for it. Still, Nelson decides, "Well, I just don't have room for Trotsky in this story, sorry about that....!" Responsible, accurate way to "write history"??

Some directors, it seems, are more than willing to leave out key facts as such, if it suits their "ideology agenda." You can love Michael Moore or hate 'em; his film "Fahrenheit 911" had a couple of scenes that stick out as some of the most appalling instances of this syndrome. The first scene has an American soldier in Iraq singing to a heavy metal song, "...let the motherf----- burn, burn motherf-----, burn..." The other shows, just prior to the U.S. invasion, Moore's POV (point of view - film jargon, that is) of Saddam's brutal regime: Kids are playing, a wedding, and people are laughing. No scenes of Saddam's torture chambers in the montage.

This--a "documentary?" Oh, almost forgot. Nelson worked for Moore one time.

But then, it would be unfair to pick on just poor ol' Stan. No, indeed. As said at the start, this People's Temple Rogue's Gallery is enormous. There are so, so many more to discuss and confront. So many that helped that Beast Jones, who they DEFENDED and PROMOTED SHAMELESSLY ...reporters, columnists, editors, talk show hosts, clergy, lawyers, state assemblymen..it is mind-boggling. Many of them have turned revisionists, like Nelson, and lie compulsively, like Nelson, in order to maintain their place in the limelight.

Truly sickening. It's time to set the record straight.

The next Jonestown Apologists Alert will premiere a special series of stories, exposes that you, the public, should and must read. The San Francisco Examiner, when it was still a "functioning" newspaper, published a three-part series back in November, 1998, on the 20th Anniversary of Jonestown.

It was called "Days of Darkness." Then-Executive Editor Phil Bronstein made the following breath-taking promise:

"The Examiner owes it to its readers ...to publish a series that goes far beyond a recollection of what happened. What we hope to do in these stories is raise and answer key questions that still haunt us all about Rev. Jim Jones and the tragedy that befell his followers˜and all San Franciscans˜two decades ago."

But of course predictably what Bronstein, now at the S.F. Chronicle, then offered up was the same, tired old fabricated garbage the California media has continued spewing out non-stop for what is now close to 30 years. This heap of self-congratulatory drivel is designed to cover up their weakness, stupidity, and cowardice in not shutting down Jones and his Temple Mafia when they easily had the chance. Bronstein, you--and the rest--STILL OWE.

When there was still time to do it. A time such as September, 1972, when my father, Les Kinsolving, was honing in on them like a Hellcat fighter in the Pacific.

He had eight exposes set to run in the Examiner of the fraudulent, menacing cult. Four, however, never saw the light of day, thanks to Jones enforcer Tim Stoen (who later apologized for his actions, whose motives are still unclear).

The first expose, "The Prophet Who Raises The Dead," ran on the front page of The Examiner, Sunday, Sept. 17, 1972. Those that have wanted it, or the other three, never published again, for their own self-serving, immoral reasons, will now no longer have their way. These, and the other four exposes that were originally censored under the threat of Jones and Stoen's law suits, will be published in their chilling entirety right here.

Then you'll understand that one of the greatest crimes was simply that the Jonestown Massacre never needed to happen, only for the fact that the Examiner, and the rest of the California media lost their backbone in 1972--but will still not own up to it. And it's clear that our Cult Appologist film maker has thrown that one, as well, into his cinematic chamber of secrets. He's consistent, people.

Stanley Nelson, in his KQED program, proclaimed that [not until 1977] "Marshall Kilduff rang the first alarm about People's Temple!"

Tomorrow and Wednesday, when Nelson appears at UC Santa Cruz, and gives instructions on "How To Write History: Research and Representation in the Historical Documentary, " will he continue displaying the same level of candor?

"Jonestown" Director's Phone Isn't Ringing....

Lucifer shifts uneasily in his overheated throne, watching with grave concern as the oversized sunglasses of one of his favorite tenants are steaming up like a Turkish Bath. The “pastor,” as they all call him down here, has been raging all day. And there’s nothing bunkmates Mao or Stalin can do to calm him down.

Another milestone erupts in the world of unmitigated hell for Jim Jones.

It’s old news, but still riling him. Jones continues struggling with one of the debilitating, widely-shared post-People’s Temple era maladies: Denial. He just cannot believe that his crafty, devoted director Stanley Nelson has really been shut out of what was sure to be—HAD TO HAVE BEEN--a no-brainer Oscar nomination for Stan’s docu-ganda, “Jonestown: Life and Death of the People’s Temple”! A great wailing, gnashing of teeth, moaning, groaning and, the repeated question, over and over: Impossible--how the Devil could this happen??

“Tell me, please!” shrieks Jones, yanking himself free from the usually restraining steel grip of Stalin’s one good arm. “How am I going to sit and watch Stanley sweat out yet another week—from today--just to see them Academy Awards folks all gather on February 25th and collectively turn their backsides on our cult’s magnificent apologist tribute??!!”

Rev. Jones’s great horned god of “apostolic socialism” glowered, then slowly leaned forward and chastised his incurably upstart retired cultist with the razor-slicing paternal tones Jones had so expertly used in Indiana, California, and Guyana.

“Listen, and listen well, Jimmy,” assured the Prince of Darkness, “did I not promise you, just before your final departure from the Jonestown, that you would have your own apologist web site, hmmm?”

“Yes…..you did,” Jones sighed, “I haven’t forgotten, Oh Great One. The Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple website has surpassed all my expectations. Has all the requisite qualifications—it’s mind-blowing. My PR reps, Becky Moore and Mac McGehee, have pulled off a spectacular coup, masterfully redecorating our Temple portrait with a breath-taking tapestry of “positives."

“The impact has been staggering, as if we’ve been serving all our official media “pundits” a second batch of Flavor-Aide spiked with LSD!! Bravo, Mac & Becky….”

“Damn straight, pastor,” seethed Satan, kicking up a cloud of brimstone in Jones’s direction, “so show a little more gratitude and less whining over that fact that we can’t win ‘em all. Some of our tactics can go only so far. In this case, the Academy voters walked through that field and smelled Nelson’s apologist propaganda like fresh fertilizer. Deal with it, Jimmy."

“But cheer up. Because often enough, too, it can be a ‘Lose the battle, win….”

“…..the War,” finished Jones, as the steam suddenly vanished from his sunglasses, revealing demonic, narrowing eyes. A grotesque grin began spreading across Jones’s face, the kind he wore on special occasions, such as during the San Francisco Chronicle-owned KRON-TV interview promoting his “good works” in September, 1972. Those were the proverbial good ol’ days, when his power mounted exponentially, thanks to having all the California reporters—save one--portraying him as hero, crusader, activist, year after year after year, until he escaped to his Guyana prison fortress .

The rush. He could feel it surge once again. Yeah. First thing they had to do was tell Stanley to get over Oscar.

“Father,” he beamed, as they began their afternoon walk, “Our film is still sweeping through theaters across the country. In April, we’ll enter millions and millions of homes through the family television, courtesy of that “liberal” media outlet, PBS. And God help ‘em—heh-heh-heh—when it gets loaded onto that marvelous, portable weapon, the DVD, where Stan has promised to pack in for us even more apologetics!”

“The DVD, eh….??,” cracked Satan, as they strolled around the shore of his favorite lake of fire, “…..Devil’s….Video….Deception…”


This was the second installment of our Jim Jones allegory. The People’s Temple cult, nevertheless, remains under revisionist siege despite the Academy of Motion Pictures astute decision to drop-kick “Jonestown: Life and Death of People’s Temple” off the nomination ballot.

True, this particular battle, the first big one, was a decisive victory. The Cult Apologists Pagans were driven back from the gates. When the Big Night arrives in Hollywood next Sunday night, a 10,000 decibel applause should be given to the Academy for not being taken in by Nelson’s outrageously fraudulent portrait of this criminal, child-abusing, destructive group.

But make no mistake. The Nelsons remain a formidable weapon. Stanley’s potent, emotionally-charged directing of what he calls his “somewhat objective” documentary was expertly scripted by wife/writer Mrs. Nelson (Marcia Smith), who did the following to the loads of People’s Temple history that didn’t fit into her and Stan’s left-wing “literary license” framework.

They censored it. Totalitarian style. Well, then again, it is a “somewhat objective” film about a Stalinist cult leader, isn’t it?

In perfect Sgt. Pepper harmony, Stan got by “with a little help” from his friends. Yes, our very own “Jonestown Institute” operators, Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee, were there in force, as they were for the recent television docudrama, “Paradise Lost,” In fact, I received this bizarre, taunting confirmation on January 24, via e-mail:

“…..Would it interest you to know that your main punching bag these days cooperated as much with ‘Paradise Lost’ as we did with Stanley’s film? Check the closing credits, next time it comes round on your TV.

Your whipping boy, Mac

Fielding M. McGhee III
The Jonestown Institute”

Interesting self-appointed nicknames, Mr. McGhee. Beyond this is the real issue of your “cooperation” with film maker Stan. It doesn’t take much at all to taste the identical rancid flavor in both of your cult apologist side shows.

Scores of especially glaring samplings are available in the “FAQ” section about “Who Joined People’s Temple,” of Moore and McGhee’s website, which claims the cult comprised “idealists trying to create a perfect society. In one respect, they succeeded: the community at Jonestown was inter-racial, inter-generational, and more or less classless, although a few people may have had privileges that others did not share….”

Yes, a few people may have had privileges that others did not share….at Jonestown. Incredible.

But it doesn’t stop at their website. Oh, no, one of California’s own university libraries has decided to host the following fairy tale that could be called the perfect primer for the Nelson Fiction Fest:

Peoples Temple Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, Library and Information Access, San Diego State University.
Provenance
Gift of Dr. Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee III, 2003-2004.
The collection is open for research.
Historical Note

In 1954, a young preacher in Indianapolis, Indiana named James Warren Jones left his position with the Laurel Street Tabernacle of the Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church over the church’s inability to accept racial integration. Together with other disaffected congregants, Jones founded a new, more open church named the Wings of Deliverance Church. As the congregation grew and gained mainline church affiliation, it adopted a new name: Peoples Temple Christian Church. Peoples Temple emphasized the need for racial integration and made social welfare projects its primary focus. As its views expanded, the congregation met much resistance from the public and thus was forced to move the location of the church numerous times. Eventually, Jones decided to leave Indiana. He chose the rural area of Redwood Valley in northern California as his destination after reading an article in Esquire magazine, which described it as one of the few places in the world that would survive a nuclear holocaust.

Redwood Valley and its nearest town, Ukiah, were idyllic, but they weren’t perfect. Almost all-white, the area had difficulties of its own with a multiracial church. Jones acquired church facilities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, urban areas that were both more accepting of the Temples members and where the social services that the church offered were more needed. Jones eventually moved the main headquarters of the church to San Francisco but continued to minister in all three locations, sometimes during the same weekend.

Jones’s sense of mission was not complete, however. Haunted by what he perceived as the inevitability of Americas nuclear annihilation and confronted on a daily basis with the inescapable racism he saw in American society, Jones looked elsewhere to build a utopian society which he referred to as the Promised Land. Its location was in Guyana, an English-speaking, black-governed socialist democracy on the north coast of South America. Beginning in 1974, Temple pioneers worked to construct the community formally known as the Peoples Temple Agricultural Mission, but better known as Jonestown, and leaders of the group planned for a slow, steady migration of Temple members to begin in mid-1977.

About that time, however, the Temple began receiving unfavorable news coverage generated by some of its apostates. The same disaffected members also filed lawsuits to reclaim property which they had previously donated to the church, as well as court petitions for custody of their relatives still in the church. Their allegations, and the press coverage of them, led to investigations by various federal and state government agencies, including ones that threatened the church’s very existence, such as Internal Revenue Service. Jones response was to speed up the migration to the Promised Land. What once was planned to extend over many months was reduced to a six-week period in late summer 1977.

Jones problems didn’t end there, though. The same Temple defectors, now united in an organization called Concerned Relatives, continued to call for government investigations and to press for decisions by American courts on their petitions. They also lobbied for congressional action, bringing their pleas to the attention of Leo Ryan (D-CA), the representative of several Temple members and families.

Congressman Ryan agreed to conduct a neutral, fact-finding mission in November of 1978 to assess the situation at Jonestown, but he took a number of Jones antagonists with him. Jones immediate inclination was to decline permission for a visit to the community, but his lawyers prevailed upon him to relent, and the Ryan party arrived in Jonestown on November 17. The visit seemed to go well on the first day, but on the second day, a number of Jonestown residents, unhappy with living and working conditions in the Promised Land, asked to leave with Ryan.

The events of the next few hours remain shrouded in mystery. What is known is that the Ryan party, now enlarged by 16 defectors, returned to a jungle airstrip at Port Kaituma, about five miles from Jonestown, in preparation to return to Guyana’s capital of Georgetown and then back to the U.S. Shortly after their arrival at the airstrip, a tractor towing a flatbed trailer pulled up at the other end of the airstrip, and men on the trailer started firing weapons. A few minutes later, Ryan and four others were dead, and a half dozen more were wounded.

Meanwhile, back in Jonestown, Jones proclaimed that all was lost, and that when Guyanese military forces soon invaded the community, they shouldn’t find anyone alive. According to a tape made during the final hours, Jones warned that they would be tortured, and that it was better to die by their own hands. Some of the few survivors deny that the deaths were by suicide, and point to the presence of guards and the injection marks found on many of the bodies. Whatever the circumstances, the results shocked the world: 909 dead at Jonestown, five dead at Port Kaituma, and four Temple members dead in Georgetown.

Well, that certainly wasn’t fair—the Temple “receiving unfavorable news coverage generated by some of its apostates.”! The nerve. [What is really unnerving is that a state university would exhibit a statement containing so many outrageous, absurd fabrications. Who is in charge there?]

There is so much more to this story, however, that a legion of future postings will be needed to cover all the squalid details, including:

• How Rebecca Moore’s former college roommate, Denise Stephenson, manages the People’s Temple archive collection at the California Historical Society, where Stan Nelson researched his film. She also assisted in the research for a 2005 play that whitewashed the People’s Temple.

• The army of “New Religious Movements” to which Moore is aligned, which includes the co-editor of her “Nova Religio” journal, Catherine Wessinger, a notorious cult apologist. Wessinger has claimed, “If Jones and his community had succeeded in creating their Promised Land, they would still be here. But due to the attacks and investigations they endured, they opted for the Gnostic view that devalued this world.”

As for Stan Nelson, despite most of the critics fawning over his work, some have been getting suspicious.

“It would be nice to report,” wrote Washington Post critic Stephen Hunter, “that director Stanley Nelson comes up with something new, some illumination, some revelation, some heretofore unglimpsed irony, but he doesn’t…..he fails to grasp a larger point.”

Baltimore Sun Critic Chris Kaltenbach is similarly unimpressed with Nelson’s shallow approach: “But the film never gets behind the chill,” observes Kaltenbach, “it paints Jones’ People’s Temple as a utopian idea gone terribly wrong, but it never gets a handle on how things went so bad so quickly. What made people follow Jones so blindly?”
And, the most significant, chilling question about Nelson’s cult apologist offering, why it should be thrown out like last week’s garbage, as stated by Kaltenbach:

“More problematic, it leaves too many questions unanswered.”

As for Stan, he’s resigned to the reality that the Academy got wise to all the unacceptable “unanswered questions” in his docu-ganda and booted him off Oscar’s door step, as it well should have.

In a nauseating puff piece by San Francisco Chronicle critic Ruthe Stein, Nelson was asked how he “put together films.”

“I do things a little differently than many documentary filmmakers,” admitted “Revolutionary Stan, “If I’m doing something historical, I prefer not to interview historians…..”

Oh, but of course. Something about history? Right, ignore the historians.

And if it’s something about cults, definitely ignore the social psychologists. Good job, Mr. Nelson.

On the other hand, Stein’s final cotton candy question might serve as more than just food for thought for this amazing director. Perhaps there’s a lesson here in the making, though he still appears sadly oblivious. Maybe it’s the cultist company he keeps.

Steine asked: Did the acclaim for “Jonestown” open any doors in Hollywood?

“Not really,” lamented Lord Nelson, “No opportunities. I don’t know why that is. My phone doesn’t ring for anything. I have to pretty much make my own way. If I sat here and waited for my phone to ring, I would starve.”

Or try a Jonestown diet, Stan.

"Jonestown: Paradise Lost:" Antidote to Stanley Nelson's Cult Apologist Snake Bite

If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure not to miss this Saturday’s History Channel docudrama, “Jonestown: Paradise Lost,” a gripping look at an abominable cult’s final four days culminating in one of the most infamous mass murders on record.

Some suicides, yes—but the simple, ugly reality is that these men, women, and little children were brutally murdered, through mental and physical coercion. Consider the body discovered of the woman with nearly every joint in her body yanked apart in a desperate attempt to escape the grasp of cult thugs poisoning her.

Guyana’s Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. C. Leslie Mootoo, accompanied the teams that counted the dead hours after the massacre. He found fresh needle marks at the back of the left shoulder blades of 80-90 percent of the victims he examined. Others had been shot or strangled.

Some of you may have this to compare with the images presented, or reported by some witless film critic, in Director Stanley Nelson’s, “Jonestown: Life and Death of the People’s Temple.” This stark contrast of a film winds down, featuring some poignant music accompanying a narrative of “The Final Note,” written by a doomed cult member—either Dick Tropp or Marceline Jones--on the day of the slaughter of these 913 Americans.

“A tiny kitten sits next to me,” are some of the lines read, “Watching. A dog barks. The birds gather on the telephone wires. Let all the story of this Peoples Temple be told….” Of course, consistent with the rest of Nelson’s revisionist opus, is Mrs. Nelson’s (wife Marcia Smith, his script writer) impeccable editing OUT of some of the appalling cult ravings contained in that “Final Note,” like the following:

“….We hope that the world will someday realize the ideals of brotherhood, justice and equality that Jim Jones has lived and died for. We have all chosen to die for this cause.”

He (Tropp) or she (Mrs. Jones) was speaking on behalf of the 276 murdered children, we presume.

What’s critical about “Jonestown: Paradise Lost,, besides being well-done, is its value as a partial antidote to the horrendous cult apologist propaganda of Nelson’s film. No, it’s not a perfect film. The most egregious error is the one made by just about everyone dealing with the subject, either out of sheer ignorance or inexcusable dishonesty.

That error, of course, is the claim in the film that “At the height of his power….Jim Jones’s ‘dark’ side emerged.” Hogwash. The director presents a copy of the New West article, as if to suggest it was The First Expose of People’s Temple; we’re supposed to assume the Temple was not all that beastly until at least the mid-70’s; and that the public shouldn’t be concerned with those collaborators—the public officials, politicians, clergy, journalists—that aided and abetted Jones, unwittingly facilitating the impending November, 1978 bloodbath, should not be given their just recognition?

Marshall Kilduff, co-author of this New West article, is every bit as reprehensible as the reporter featured in the program, Tim Reiterman. While Reiterman surely deserves praise for risking his life going to Guyana, he disgraces himself with fabrications in his People’s Temple book, “Raven” debunking my father’s 1972 Examiner People’s Temple expose series--a time period in which he and Kilduff did nothing but sit on their supercilious duffs.

There’s enough sordid details in the Kilduff & Rieterman sideshow that these two—like the other upcoming exhibits this People’s Temple Hall of Shame—will be awarded a posting all to themselves. Coming soon.

Jonestown survivor Stephan Jones provided some of the most compelling impute in “Paradise Lost,” revealing the pain of having a hideously deranged father. “I knew he was sick from very early on,” said Stephen, citing how the “Marxist” Jim Jones had “demoralized, malnourished, and exhausted a population,” utilizing widespread “abuse, theft, and torturing of children.”

Another cult survivor, Vernon Gosney, related how he had gone to live in Jonestown for, among other reasons, to become “a good socialist.” Socialist. That’s the time-worn euphemism used by that breed of tyrants such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro; his fan Rev. Jones, along with ardent California supporters such as Angela Davis, used it like a mantra.

And, lamentably, this film doesn’t show Fidel, Angela, or the freighter-load of other People’s Temple cheerleaders, like famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who assured Californians in 1977 that Jones, who was dunking children down into wells, was “doing the work of the Lord” in Guyana. Oh, yes, that’s right; Nelson, Lord of the Cult Apologists, also somehow left all this (and much more) out in his film, too.

Shocker.

As the docudrama shows enthralling reenacted scenes of a young Gosney plotting his escape from the Stalinist prison camp, it then takes the viewer back up to present-day, where the real-life Gosney makes this revealing statement.

“Conditions at Jonestown,” he said, “were not conducive to think clearly.” A little later on in the film, Gosney again commented on the sensation — “I wasn’t thinking clearly”--as he desperately tried to figure how to get out safely with Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation.

Not “thinking clearly”?

Herein is the clue on how Jim Jones controlled his “flock.” It is what the cult apologists, from Rebecca Moore to John Hall and all the rest, are frantic about, because it signals the effects of the obvious:

Mind Control. Thought Reform. Brain Washing.

This is about as close as the “Paradise Lost” film comes to providing viewers something of an accurate picture of the People’s Temple, and all destructive cults, for that matter. It is a great movie for its humanity in showing, yes, these were human beings, trapped by a monster.

It would have been helpful if the producers could have had Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton discuss the landmark research in his book, “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China.”

They might have also turned to an expert on the work of the late psychologist Margaret Singer, author of “Cults in our Midst.” Singer cited the six conditions that create an atmosphere where minds can be controlled:

• Control a person’s time and environment, leaving no time for thought
• Create a sense of powerlessness, fear, and dependency
• Manipulate rewards and punishments to suppress former social behavior
• Manipulate rewards and punishments to elicit the desired behavior
• Create a closed system of logic which makes dissenters feel as if something was wrong with them
• Keep recruits unaware about any agenda to control or change them

They could have consulted with other cult experts, such as Rick Ross or Steven Hassan, the latter whose book “Releasing the Bonds” describes the mind control model, BITE, in which a cult leader creates dependency and obedience through control over:
• Behavior
• Information
• Thought
• Emotions

Of course, none of this was discussed in the film. It’s not nearly as exciting. Nonetheless, “Jonestown: Paradise Lost” had a thousand times the integrity of Stanley Nelson’s “Jonestown: Life and Death of the People’s Temple.”

Maybe the biggest problem was Stanley’s shocking naiveté entering the portals of the Temple. He looks at it like it’s some kind of “social activist revolution” that “brought people together,” almost as if he has 60’s brain-lock. Here is what he told interviewer Susan Gerhard last October in her “SF360” web log:

“I went into it knowing so little about it,” admitted Nelson, “I didn’t know that Jim Jones was such a part of the political social establishment of the Bay Area. I didn’t understand how he was coddled and courted by politicians.”

Funny thing, too, how Nelson refused to examine that most vital part. Without all that “coddling and courting” (Jones did some of it himself, too, especially with cash payoffs to the newspapers), the road to the Jonestown Massacre would have never been built.

The next part of his statement, however, truly reveals Stan’s Alice in Wonderland perception of the story:

“In the bigger pictures: I learned why and how people would join Peoples Temple and why and how they would stay and hold on to this thing, even thought they saw it going wrong."

“They wanted to hold onto this dream,” reasons the director of this “acclaimed” film, “they held on as it led to disaster.”

Held on to it. As tightly as, say, those Temple cult killers held down and yanked out all the joints in that doomed woman’s body on November 18, 1978 in Mr. Jones’s gulag.

Stanley Nelson—the same one they’re talking about giving an Oscar nomination to tomorrow?

Keep prayin’, one and all.