"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.

An Appeal To The Academy...

The deadline is over. Best Documentary nominations, and the rest, were all due in yesterday, 5 p.m. It’s time now for a lot of genuine faith, which fits right in with the subject matter, after all.

Just please say it ain’t so, voting members of the Academy. This obscene con job of a film that slithered onto the short-list—“Jonestown: Life and Death of the People’s Temple”—you couldn’t have put this thing into the final five.
image source
The “New Religious Movement” hordes naturally have other designs. They must be chanting now, humming, clanging tambourines, and rattling e-meters over the thought of Director Stanley Nelson’s cult apologist film capturing an Academy Award.

We now wait while they count, until January 23. That’s when the official five nominations are announced. Then we’ll have one more sign if the moral depravity meter has risen another notch.

So please focus, all ye readers of sound mind…. Pray that enough Academy members were not lured in like throngs of cult captives or mindless film critics. Grant that the voters fled far and away from this fetid Potemkin Village that Stanley built.

A handful of the critics did, in fact, manage to send a couple of warning flares about “Jonestown.” The media “too-little, too-late” People’s Temple rerun features Newsweek headliner David Ansen, whose ground-shaking revelation was that his favorite films of 2006 “blurred the lines between reality and fiction.”

Bravo, Sir David. No, he didn’t quite come out and say Nelson served up the public a “faux-documentary.” He didn’t need to. Director Stan did it for him. In a recent New York Times interview, Nelson glowed, “What’s fascinating about documentary today is the different ways to approach it.”

He went to qualify exactly what he means: Historical accuracy, in a Nelson-mutated documentary, will be relegated in place of “advocacy.” You see, big change is coming your way. Objectivity…is on the official endangered list.

Image Source
“Just by being somewhat objective,” said Nelson, “We were being revolutionary.”

“Somewhat objective”?

Yes, that means if you have any understanding about the principles of cult dynamics, or know the background of the unembellished, uncensored history of Jim Jones and the full horror he unleashed, Lord Nelson’s expert sanitizing will disabuse all that. True enough, he IS required to mention some of the requisite “negatives.” But the most destructive cult in American history? Oh, my heavens, no—far be it from that, according to our budding social scientist.

“What I learned from doing this film,” Nelson told Stylus Magazine in an interview last October, “was that one of the most dangerous things is when you join these communities and they deliver on their promise. I think People's Temple delivered on what it promised people. It promised them that they would be part of a big family and live a new way. And it delivered. That’s why they stayed.”

Well, how about that. Yes, “delivered.” It would be interesting hearing reputable cult experts in the field—the late Margaret Sanger, Robert Lifton, Philip Zimbardo, or any others—comment on Professor Stan’s assessment. Closer to the case is Dr. Keith Harrary’s analysis is of this “big family’s new way.”

Dr. Harrary had worked as counseling director at Al and Jeannie Mills’s Human Freedom Center in Berkeley, California, where they offered help to suffering People’s Temple defectors, as well as those from other cults ranging from the Moonies to Hare Krishnas.

[Al and Jeannie Mills (along with their daughter, in 1980, murdered by unknown assailants) had been top defectors themselves, but have been censored in the film—one of scores of the missing pieces in Nelson’s “somewhat objective” history.]

What does Dr. Harrary say about how “motivation” was instilled in someone, so they could continue enduring unspeakable brutality—in California, long before “Dad” shipped them off to his Guyana Gulag?

“Jones had forced them to prove their loyalty by signing blank pieces of paper,” wrote Dr. Harrary in a March, 1992, Psychology Today article, “blank power-of-attorney forms, and false confessions that they had molested their children, conspired to overthrow the U.S. government, and committed other crimes while members of the cult. It was the sort of thing Jones did to control people, like the time he tricked a member into putting her fingerprints on a gun and told her he would have someone killed with it and frame her for the murder if she ever left the group.”

And what about Nelson’s claims of this wondrous “new way,” which he insists was fulfilled in “the beginning,” and masquerades on screen? Again, in the Redwood Valley years well before Jonestown came about, the “new way” was something altogether different.

“There was a deliberate malevolence about the way Jones treated the members of his cult that went beyond mere perversion,” stated Dr. Harrary, “It was all about forcing members to experience themselves as vulgar and despicable people who could never return to a normal life outside of the group. It was about destroying any personal relationships that might come ahead of the relationship each individual member had with him."

“It was about terrorizing children and turning them against their parents. It was about seeing Jim Jones as an omnipotent figure who could snuff out members’ lives on a whim as easily as he had already snuffed out their self respect."

“In short, it was about mind control.”

Mind control. Find any cult apologist on your block, say this phrase three times fast, and they might just slowly spasm up the nearest wall like a crazed spiderman. Pepper them liberally with “cult”--a four-letter profanity spice to which they are allergic--and you got a real spectacle. But be prepared, audience: If you have the odd notion that Nelson’s “documentary” about one of history’s most notorious cults has ANY INFORMATION WHATSOEVER about cults or mind control, forget it.

The script says it was a “church,” okay? A “revolutionary” church, kind of like Stan’s “objectivity.” Written by Marcia Smith (Mrs. Nelson) and Noland Walker (who had family members in the cult and attended services), they provide Nelson some extra left-wing sizzle—as if he needs more—by incorporating a second official academic cult apologist in film. The first comes from Rebecca Moore, who teaches religious studies at San Diego State University. The second sound bite comes from John Hall, who dishes out his cult apologetics at UC Davis. The following, an excerpt entitled “The Collectivist Reformation,” from Hall’s book, “Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America,” might be the best explanation for Stanley and Mrs. Nelson’s bizarre vision:

“Where People’s Temple deviated much more dramatically from conventional social practice,” writes Hall, “was its members’ high rates of tithing, unsalaried labor, and donation of real and personal assets. In turn, these differences were part of a more profound difference—replacing individualism and the family unit with the communal equation of an organization that pooled the economic recourses of its most highly committed members, and in return, offered them economic security, an extended collectivist ‘family,’ and the opportunity to participate in a politically meaningful social cause larger than themselves."

“Balancing that equation, the Temple demanded commitment, discipline, and individual submission to collective authority.”

Oh, of course, Professor Marx. Logically stated. A “cause larger than themselves.” Today they have to listen to that hooey in those totalitarian hell-holes called Cuba and North Korea. Which is precisely what Jim Jones was for the captives of the Peoples Temple—a modern-day Stalin, whose mandated foreign language lesson of the day in Jonestown was, yes, Russian.

But, once again—Stanley, Mrs. Nelson, and their little comrade, Noland—somehow “forgot” to inform their audience of this little bit of trivia. And a shameful bit more.

Cult apologist, revisionist history with a vengeance. This, a short-listed nomination for Best Documentary of the Year??

Somebody ought to call Hollywood 911.

Tune in to "JONESTOWN - Paradise Lost"

Tune in to the History Channel
tomorrow (Monday) night
Check your local listings for times
JONESTOWN - Paradise Lost
Framed by recently released, U.S. Government information and eye witness accounts, this special follows Congressman Leo Ryan's fatal journey into "Jonestown", a community carved out of the jungles of Guyana by the followers of messianic/charismatic pastor, Jim Jones. Using extensive and fact backed dramatic re-enactments, as well as archival footage, and heart-rending interviews, we go beyond "official reality" and deep into the inner workings of this tragic cult and its apocalyptic end.
Rating: TVPG V
Running Time: 120 minutes

Here are other viewing times:
Monday, January 15 09:00 PM
Tuesday, January 16 01:00 AM
Saturday, January 20 08:00 PM
Sunday, January 21 12:00 AM
Saturday, January 27 05:00 PM

The Devil's Blueprint

Devil's Blueprint for an Apologists Playground

Imagine peering into a special cult crystal ball that captured a scene from the final, terrible twilight hour of Jonestown on November 18, 1978—and suddenly witnessing this foreboding dialogue of things to come in the new millennium.

You first see the slowly undulating man, languishing like a mortally wounded king cobra. Jim “Dad” Jones, totalitarian ruler of People’s Temple, naturally destined as one of the last official departures from this nightmarish gulag he so proudly created. So he sits out his final minutes on his infamous wooden “throne,” in that horrendous death-filled pavilion, waiting for his final special medication. No painful cyanide for him, of course. Just like a previous dictator, in Germany, he’ll opt for a bullet through the head.

But just before he’s about to “step across,” the defeated cult leader gets a friendly tap-tap-tap on his slumped over shoulder. It’s a very familiar friend. Jones is ecstatic. His prayers have been answered.

“So, my son,” says Lucifer, “Before you join your brethren below, what exactly are your three wishes to bestow here on Earth? Remember not to make them in haste, like some of your political friends did. Stalin—don’t even get me started. I mean, the guy wanted a permanent iron curtain across Europe! Now look at the place. So, ‘Reverend’….just be sure your three wishes are practical ones…..”

“Not a problem, pop,” replies Jones, “Got the perfect blueprint. My first wish: Replenish and rally our Cult Apologists Armada. I know my massacring babies, children, etc, has left them in something of a full retreat…. True, I’ll be long gone by the time they hit full speed again. But time is on our side. We know full well that older memories fade and younger ones can be corrupted. I’m sure of one thing, or I never would have gotten this far: In the next millennium, it’ll be a revisionist paradise.”

“Cult apologists, hmmm…..” grins the Beast, flashing his great canines, “….always so accommodating. And such superlative aim with those devilishly pleasing ‘religious freedom’ smoke bombs covering for our pals. Well, Jimmy, it may very well take close to a generation but, yes, your wish is granted. We will, however, have to come up with a nice lovable euphemism for our cronies carrying on the cult torch.”

“Okay….let’s see,” Jones thinks, “….we could call it…..’NEW…..”
“…..RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS’!!...” the Devil finished for him. The title was insidious. Perfect. Who could possibly take issue with the great champions of “New Religious Movements”? That would be anti-First Amendment, Un-American, and Un-Godly, after all. It was the proverbial stroke of wicked genus.

“Now, your second wish, faithful student?” asks the Fallen Angel.

“Well, I’m not quite sure yet,” replied the Pastor, who is feeling increasingly feverish as he’s edging towards the brink. “But I do want to have some future personal spin doctors pop up and wallpaper over all this with tales of the “positive” and “egalitarian” and “beautiful” realities of the People’s Temple.”

“Your wish is my command, James,” smirked the horned one. “You don’t know the half of it, but the future shows not only personal computers in nearly everyone’s home, but where people can have what are called websites, promoting any and all subjects.”

“ANY subjects??” said Jones.

“That’s correct, my boy…..even somebody like you,” answered Satan. “And guess what---you’ll even have your very own People’s Temple website that’ll feature the brilliant Stalinist accomplishments of your ‘Apostolic Socialism.’”

“Magnificent!” said Jones. Now, with the sound of the bullet now being loaded into the gun chamber, the soon-to-be extinct tyrant had just enough time for his third wish. This website thing really got him going, but it would still never eclipse his excitement for show business, which could provide a whole new realm of immortality.

He couldn’t resist. “The third wish,” he said, “is to put me in an award-winning documentary!!”

His master looked at him for a moment, as the gun barrel now slowly pressed up against Jones’s tortured skull. All this horror, tragedy, and carnage—in a documentary??

“…..and only if my film has all these NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS ‘production values’, Father….” pleaded Jones, as the trigger slowly moved backwards.

“Agreed!” answered the Prince of Darkness, just as the sound of a single gunshot erupted, echoing throughout the new ghost town in the Guyana Jungle.



Editor’s Note: The above allegory is a warning, essentially on the dangers posed by cult apologists, e.g., assorted “scholars” and other supporters that include prominent film makers. Cult apologists are the well-financed (sometimes by terrorist cults, it seems) defenders of so-called “New Religious Movements” (NRM). There is an abundance of information detailing their activities on my website links, such as Steve Hassan’s Freedom of Mind Center and the Rick Ross Institute.

The point about the allegory’s three wishes Jim Jones made to the Devil is that…..they have all now frighteningly become reality today.

There is, in fact, a website exclusively devoted to People’s Temple and Jonestown, run by one of the lesser known of these apologists, Rebecca Moore, who like a lot of “NRM” sages, teaches religious studies in a university (surprise, surprise). Along with her husband, Fielding 'Mac' McGhee, they have a clever fusion of “bad news”/”good news” about the People’s Temple, but ultimately their goal is to “recondition” the public toward a more “optimistic” view of this monstrously destructive cult

Take a look and decide for yourself:
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple

There is, for instance, this comment from Rebecca Moore’s “Katrina and Jonestown: A Commentary”:

“First, the situation of desperate poverty experienced by African Americans seems not just unchanged, but even worse in 2005 than in 1978. The message of hope, the overcoming of racial inequality, and the level of security which People’s Temple provided would be just as appealing today as it was back then.”

“Level of security”? This just has to beg that familiar question of “What Were You Thinking When You Wrote This?” Level of security?? Let’s see what child advocate and journalist Kenneth Wooden revealed about how this applied to the young cult captives, in his landmark book, “Children of Jonestown”:

“Physical abuse of the young was part of the routine at People’s Temple. As Jones began to exercise control, children were beaten if they failed to call him Father or were otherwise disrespectful or if they talked with peers who were not members of People’s Temple. Belts were used at first, then were replaced by elm switches, which in turn were replaced by the “board of education,” a long, hard piece of wood, swung by 250-pound Ruby Carroll.”

Message of hope? Wooden goes on to describe how this message was conveyed:

“Mild discipline gave way to making young girls….take cold showers or jump into the cold swimming pool at the Redwood Valley Church. Unequal boxing matches gave way to beatings with paddles, then electric shock, and finally something [Jones] called ‘blue-eyed’ monster, which hurt and terrorized the younger ones in a darkened room…..These abuses occurred while the People’s Temple was in California and regularly winning praise from newspapers and politicians.”

The last sentence should outrage every citizen in California, and everywhere else for that matter. Those elites still swaggering around should be confronted for aiding and abetting such crimes. Of course, that would likely not phase J. Gordon Melton, founder of the Santa Barbara-based Institute for the Study of American Religion, one single bit.

“This wasn’t a cult,” said Melton, commenting on the People’s Temple, “This was a respectable, mainline Christian group.”

Mind you, Melton claimed this in early 1988, nearly 10 years after the Jonestown Massacre. It’s no surprise he’s known as the “father of cult apologists.” And, yet, he sponsors religious conferences and defended the terrorist Aum Shinrikyo cult—receiving travel expenses from them in exchange-- in Japan (which launched a poison gas attack on a Tokyo subway in 1995).

But Melton is insignificant compared to the Devil’s third kept promise to Jim Jones in the allegory. Throughout the nation’s theatres, and now on the“short list” for a possible ”Best Documentary” Academy Award nomination, is Stanley Nelson’s “Jonestown: Life and Death of the People’s Temple”.



The award-winning Nelson is an amazingly talented film maker, although he really ought to give just a little more spotlight to his wife, Marcia Smith, also an award-winner, as she wrote the “story” for the film.



After seeing this astounding collage of unabashed cult apologist tripe, it’s fitting indeed that quotation marks hang over Mrs. Nelson’s “story”-telling. She admitted in an interview with the Writer’s Guild of America the following:

“I view my work as advocacy…..yes, they’re [documentaries] supposed to be based on fact, but you always have to make a choice about what part of the facts you’re going to put in a film.”

Yes, ma’am. And with such a skilled director as your husband, whom I’m certain has the same passionate view on “advocacy” and “fact deletion” as you, it’s no wonder we’ve come up with this breath-taking movie that surely has Jim Jones dancing in his grave, giving thanks to the unholy one—in our allegory.

Writer Bettina Drew of “The Nation” (presumably a sympathetic “advocacy” publication) provides one of the most ghastly of all accounts of life for the mind-controlled, now physically imprisoned cult members in the Guyana gulag, in her article “Indiana Jones’ Temple of Doom”:

“Like a plantation, Jonestown was closed, semi-self-sufficient agricultural world, with a sawmill, a school and a medical unit. Transplanted from their homes, their family relationships sundered, most of the able-bodied were made to work in the fields from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week, and on Sundays, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., while living in crowded, tin-roofed wooden barracks containing bunk beds for scores of people.

“They toiled in gangs observed by armed guards said to be for their own protections, and were physically abused if they slacked in their work or were defiant. Offenders were assigned to a socially segregated “Learning Crew”, which had to work double-time, heavily guarded, in the fields. There were also isolation units and an “Extended Care Unit”, where Thorazine, found in quantity, was said by a nurse and others to keep the truly backward sedated; for recalcitrant children, there were horrifying well-dunkings. The all-night harangues and Jones’s incessant voice over the loudspeaker were a psychological constant for a population that grew thin and susceptible to diarrhea on an inadequate rice-based diet.

“And Jones kept his followers in ignorance by selectively editing and delivering himself any news form the outside world. Though Jonestown wasn’t racially based, he re-created New World plantation slavery in Guyana. For, like slaves, Jones’s people were there to serve his vision, yet they were central to his identity.”

Isolation units? Slave labor and starvation diets? Totalitarian oppression?? Oh no, well that surely wasn’t compatible in Stanley and Mrs. Nelson’s Little Storyboard World. No doubt they torpedoed one freighter load of facts after another in their quest to get full sail with the rest of the Cult Apologist Armada.

But don’t fret--we’ll delve into all the things that Stan and the Mrs. censored, such as Jim Jones’s ex-enforcer Tim Stoen, who almost caused the mass murder to happen a year early. What’s more, how the Academy could possibly consider a Documentary Oscar for someone with the following mentality about one of the worst human rights atrocities in modern American history:

“I see them in Jonestown,” related Nelson, in an interview with Greencine Magazine, “and part of me sees a huge party, you know what I mean? When I see clips that NBC took of that last night, when they got that band playing…..and they’re in the middle of the jungle, and—you think about that—that band can play as late as you want them to play. They can party as hard as they want. All the people are there, everybody that you know and love, you can go put the kids to bed, and they’re safe in their beds, and you can come back and party all night long. Hey. Looked fun to me.”


Ah-huh. A whole lot of fun in Jonestown. Hopefully, Stanley and Mrs. Nelson will make public the exact reasons why they have so unconscionably exploited the American public with this screen derivative of Rebecca Moore’s appallingly twisted “Sympathetic History of People’s Temple”.

Photo source Photo source

Stanley Nelson's "Jonestown:" Cult Apologists' Propaganda Paradise

Just past a hill on the distant side of a cemetery in Oakland, California, they gathered recently around a humble gray tombstone that stands over a mass grave of more than 400 people, most of them children.

Like last year, and so many consecutive years before that, the grieving relatives returned for another November 18th remembrance of their loved ones that perished in the 1978 Jonestown Massacre. It appears our Big Media couldn't be bothered with this memorial, so you didn't hear a word. To be crowned officially newsworthy, we must have the requisite number pop up - 30th anniversary - and then maybe Jynona Norwood, who lost 27 of her family, can share a new vision (or by then perhaps unveiled it): The Guyana Memorial Wall.


Image source

More than a shame, the memorial service mass media blackout. And another thing: this very same somnambulant media--most in California--still can't, and won't, manage to wake up to accept ugly, incriminating realities about this tragedy. Their own role in cowering before master manipulator Jim Jones, foolishly allowing this fanged faith healer to pillage and plunder at will until that fateful, climactic date.

Yet, amazingly, reporters, especially those that worked during the People's Temple years, continue churning like buttermilk their own wildly successful myth about "no one having anything on the People's Temple," until, SUDDENLY, 1977--an expose in New West Magazine.

Wrong. Appallingly wrong.

San Francisco Examiner columnist Les Kinsolving--my father--and Indianapolis Star reporter Carolyn Pickering had the goods on Jones years before that. If publishers and editors had just had the backbone in 1972, or even 1975, there most surely wouldn't have been a Jonestown massacre. But none of the "media pundits" want to admit it, any more than the atrocious new cult apologist "documentary," Stanley Nelson's "Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple."

You might even feel the cringe meter fly into the red when you discover the real "untold story" that our Jonestown cast of characters prefers remain untold. Reporters Tim Reiterman and Marshall Kilduff, the two most dashing People's Temple rescuers, lead the "too-little, too-late" pack of California newshounds. Gosh almighty, how they love the Official Story.

Don't get me wrong, now; credit to them for their solid work in 77. But when Kilduff writes preposterous lies now about having pursued Jones "early and often," it's beyond inexcusable. It's delusional. The man needs to 'fess up.  Listening to him today, or Reiterman, or any other shameless wonder that snoozed on the Jones Express Hell Ride only until the cliff drop is like hearing a rewrite of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Details?  All there in the "Madman In Our Midst" link, with the complete chronology.

    Moreover, legions of public officials faithfully guarded the gates of the People's Temple while the demon Jones was busy inside enjoying his kingdom of hell. The California media have given them the velvet glove treatment, for precisely the same reason as the rest of the disgraceful local journalist community, as lazy and derelict as Reiterman and Kilduff, have contrived their Official Story.

"I have been deeply impressed with what I have seen there [in Jonestown] - the closest thing on earth like paradise I have ever seen," was a one-time endorsement by prominent ex-Temple lawyer Mark Lane, who was scheduled as a featured speaker at this month's memorial service. Photo Source

Another Jones PR man, Methodist Rev. John Moore, who lost two of his three daughters--who were in the cult "inner circle"--at Jonestown and is a regular at annual memorial services, gave this plug in May, 1978 for the Temple's Guyana gulag that, along with other horrors, locked away "misbehaving" children in small plywood boxes for weeks at a time:

"We came away from the People's Temple Agricultural Project with a feeling for its energy and enthusiasm, its creative, wholesome ways." This man of a clearly degenerate cloth failed to show an inkling of Norwood's fortitude. Where she managed to rescue her son from Jones's clutches, Rev. Moore was a People's Temple collaborator who is suspected of turning over copies of a reporter's--my father's - investigation notes to Jim Jones in 1975.

1975. Once again, years before New West, an opportunity to stop the cult nightmare was lost, thanks to unscrupulous characters and cowardly newspapers.

These two notorious Jones propagandists, Lane and Moore, will be featured in their own hall of shame segment later in this series in the Jonestown Apologists Alert. They'll be among lots of friends, so they won't be lonely.

Now, some really dire news. But first, a message from our sponsors at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema:

"FREE KOOL-AID WITH EVERY TICKET!"

Fancy that. It seems that only two short days after the grieving relatives had paid their respects at that mass grave in California, some 1800 miles away in Texas, Drafthouse Cinema owners Tim and Karrie League apparently thought this little Kool-Aid pitch would be a fun way to get customers into their very special film showing on Nov. 20-22.

Yes indeed, a "special" film it surely is: Director Stanley Nelson's "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple." In fact, MacArthur "genius" fellow Stan has created an undoubtedly ingenious bit of work. It's something, however, that you really ought to see only after a requisite review on cult social psychology.

Photo Source
Then again, you can follow Tim and Karrie's advice. Just do the now-popular toast-of-the-town, "drink the Kool-Aid" and climb aboard Lord Nelson's cult apologist love boat. Then you'll find out, through a gamut of expert editing, how "Dad" Jones' "promises" of A BETTER COMMUNITY were, contrary to popular wisdom, actually honored by "Father" Jones. Well, essentially honored, that is, until there was the problem of Jones's abusive proclivities, paranoia, and all the rest that ultimately led to the slaughter in Guyana.

The New York Times, like just about all the other media, is doing double somersaults of approval over Nelson's crafty little sideshow, which sounds eerily like the same song they sang while doing absolutely nothing--along with 99 percent of the rest of the media--to investigate left-wing activist Jones in the early 1970's, when he could have been stopped, and lives would have been spared.

"In exchange for their life savings, church members happy to work 20 hours a day for the cause were provided comfortable accommodations and given allowances," wrote the Times. "The documentary has clips of euphoric Peoples Temple celebrations in all three locations. [Redwood Valley, San Francisco, and Guyana]"

Church members "happy" to work 20 hours a day? Provided "comfortable" accommodations? Given "allowances"?

Really amazing, the power of film. Nelson has really pulled off a coup and the critics, almost universally, have given him a free ride as he's presented this utterly astounding cinematic mirage!...Yeah, there were isolated deviant aspects to the People's Temple, true. but it really was on the whole a fulfilling, integrated, communal joy, ya know. yeah, got spoiled by Jimmy's "bad side" but things only really got BAD at the very end, at Jonestown!

Mister Kilduff, step aside. Emperor Nelson has a sparkling new set of clothes to show off.

Conservatives have complained often and loudly about liberal bias in the mainstream media. After seeing the Times review, one of the more restrained, I start to wonder. Have ANY major media critics done their homework and confirmed that this film fails the smell test like bad Limburger cheese?

It appears at least one does have his suspicions; Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman, who dismissed "Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple" as a "slipshod doc" that offers "not much insight" and "leaves you with more questions than you went in with."

An understatement, if there ever was one, Owen. But a refreshing departure from the chorus of media knuckleheads taken in by masterful, manipulative editing that could have been done by Rev. Jones himself. And now the "buzz line" out of Hollywood has this thing on the "short list" for nomination contenders for Documentary Academy Awards next year. Suggested inscription on Master Illusionist Nelson's statue, should the L.A. Narcissists Society give him this tribute: Most Grotesque Cult Apologist Film In Recent History.

"In docu-ganda films, balance is not the objective," an expose of this phenomena by writer Daniel Wood, the author measures what looks a lot like the Nelson Cinematic Yardstick.

"The new, one-point-of-view documentary made its first commercially successful debut in 1989, when Michael Moore's, Roger & Me‚ explored the effects of General Motors Corp. on Flint, Mich," wrote Wood, "Since then, Mr. Moore has been turning out personal-viewpoint books and films that continue to produce accolades from liberals and clenched fists from conservatives - Fahrenheit 9/11 - about the Bush administration's march to war after the 9/11 attacks, is the largest-grossing documentary film of all time.

"Moore's success, followed by the growth of independent theaters and the development of alternative means of film distribution such as the internet and DVD, has led to a groundswell of similar films. Media observers generally welcome the new diversity of viewpoint, even as they urge viewers to beware."

Hmmmm, did he say Michael Moore (another "Moore"?) Maybe somebody could ask Nelson in his next interview about the enhanced personal-viewpoint on-the-job documentary skills he learned being one of Moore's producers on the "TV Nation" television series.

Nelson's company, Firelight Media, issued a "Jonestown" news release that addressed, among other issues, any incoming accusations of his putting a "positive spin on this terrible incident." Nelson insists "our role was not to editorialize. It was to uncover the facts and to present them."

Of course, Stan. I just wonder why on earth your "documentary" hid so carefully under the covers so many, many of those "little details" of things at Jimmy's ideal community. Not one word of mention about this "love-filled family's "Blue-Eyed Monster."? You think your audience might have taken some interest in this account from ex-Temple member Jeannie Mills's book, "Six Years With God," who described the "Monster," as related by a 5 year-old kindergarten age girl who had come back into her care.

"I got in trouble in the church because I lied, and Father (Jones) said I'd have to go to the Blue-Eyed Monster. Then they took me in this dark room, and the monsters were all over the room. They said, "I am the Blue-Eyed Monster and I'm going to get you..‚ Then a monster grabbed my shirt and tore it open‚" Then all of a sudden the monsters started to say, "I'm going to get you again‚ and then one hit me right here,‚ she said, pointing to her chest. ‚Then it felt like a knife was going right down to my back, and my body started to shake back and forth like this... Then my teeth were tied together so I couldn't open them... I couldn‚t believe it--it hurted so bad."

What the little girl had been describing was a darkened room filled with adults armed with cattle prods (which explained the blue electric light). They zapped the child with the cattle prods, then the impact of the electric current would lock the child's teeth together as they were propelled across the room to be hit yet again.

This, of course, all took place in California, years before Jonestown, where it evolved into a new torture: "Big Foot," a horrendous series of well-dunkings for the children. So, as Nelson wants us to believe, the cult members (which he rarely, if ever, calls them, you'll notice) while "sharing a lot of love" and having "Dad" Jones "delivering promises" were TORTURING CHILDREN on a regular basis with their "Blue-Eyed Monster."

".....people went along with it because it was a small part of their lives," claims Nelson, regarding "Jim's" (as Nelson likes to call him) behavior, in an October interview with Newsweek.  Okay, hate to bring it up again, but this is yet another of those publications the conservatives have branded with "liberal bias." isn't it?

Just look at the way Newsweek, a Washington Post-owned publication, soft-peddled this clearly left-wing activist director, allowing him to get away with outrageous falsehoods such as describing the cult's phase in California, where there was fraud, abuse, and torture.

Behavioral scientists, from Milgram to Zimbardo, Lifton to Singer, have all conclusively demonstrated how a single person or entire group can be subjugated by a well-structured mind control environment. George Orwell illustrated how this plays out on a grand scale, with the nightmare of an all-out totalitarian society. His inspiration was based a good bit on an iron-fisted leader named Stalin.

The demonic Cult of Personality phenomenon. Model for a lot of little Stalins that emerged later, some to rule nations, others to start their very own cults, or in cult apologists' newspeak, "New Religious Movements"

Could it have mattered that Jim Jones started admiring Stalin and studied his totalitarian ways while a college student in Indiana? Certainly not to Historian Nelson. He made sure still another piece of the real puzzle be covered over by his own "intepretive" piece, sprinkling in another euphemism: "Socialist". Careful, though; don't confuse it with the real thing, like practiced in some northern parts of Europe. No, try again, and take a peak at northern parts of Korea.

This "socialism" is the jingle that our totalitarians Stalin--and Jones--used as window dressing for the ongoing hell inside their houses. In the People's Temple, long, long before Guayana, Stalinist Jones had triumphed, precisely because he had expertly perfected his own cult of personality, and enslaved his flock through relentless mind control and brutal maintainence tactics.

I interviewed ex-member Jeannie Mills in California, about two years before she was killed. She explained how easy is was for anyone, rational or not, to fall victim to cult mind control, and to be trapped. In her book, she explained her plight:

"We had to face painful reality. Our life savings were gone....Our property had all been taken from us....We thought we had alienated our parents when we told them we were leaving the country. Even the children whom we had left in the care of Carol and Bill were openly hostile toward us. Jim had acomplished all this in such a short time! All we had left now was Jim and the Cause, so we decided to buckle under and give our energies to these two."

Amazing. One would get the impression that this revealing testimony, even if recounted second-hand (since Mills is diseased), would be an important part of a documentary purporting to show an inside look at what drove these cult members.

But Doctor Stan? Naaaw. He knows better than to cloud up his revolutionary view with such needless static. So, his "reality" of the cult that died was, for the most part, quite normal. And cheery, too.

"It was something that was sane, rational and made people feel good"  Nelson claimed, "He [Jones] told people to invest their welfare check or Social Security check and he would turn it into something that would be so much better than being taken care of by the government, and he did that. That's why sane people joined and stayed."

    Newsweek joins the herd of other select media sheep in a grim confirmation of that now-infamous sign in the Jonestown Pavillion about history. They still haven't learned, and continue repeating the lesson that con artists--religious, film, or otherwise--are teaching them in gullibility.

The only thing that seems to make sense, after watching Nelson's free hogwash tour in interview after interview, is that too much of our media elite simply can't help themselves, and won't suppress self-serving instincts or these allegedly "progressive" biases. Thus, the pathetic lack of any substantive follow-up inquiries that our Mr. Nelson so desperately needs, which would expose his reprehensible whitewash of, for starters, the media's past complicity in helping Jones build his empire; Jones's unmentioned Stalinist overtones; and, most significant, the social psychological dynamics of a cult.

    At this point, I wouldn't expect a cover story any time soon. Likely the best we'll get is a Nelson "Every Cult Has A "New Religious Movement" Silver Lining!" sequel.

In the upcoming next posting, more provocative aspects of the Stanley Nelson cult film folly will be discussed, all the other critical elements of the People's Temple "life and death" that Nelson inexplicably "forgot" to mention.

Then again, maybe not so inexplicable after all.  Extremist activists have bad habits of chopping facts in half, out altogether, or radiating them with "interpretation." The same can happen with mainstream media pundits, as we've seen. This is obviously dangerous to an uninformed audience, whose history will either stagnate in fallacy or do a permanent tailspin thanks to some ruthless revisionist.

And worth noting, while on the subject of ruthless revisionists, was a curious addition to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's online advertising of Nelson's film.

   It was a paragraph providing details about a lady named Rebecca (are you ready for this??) Moore--one of the film's interviewees--and her devotion to "New Religious Movements", as well as her "interpreting" People's Temple and the events at Jonestown. Impressive indeed. Rebecca's father, interestingly enough, is none other than the Rev. John Moore. Yeah, the very same John Moore, Temple Propagandist, suspected of helping Jim Jones stop a newspaper investigation, two years before New West.

And, oh yes--Moore's daughter"Interpreting" People's Temple? Are she and Stan up to something here??

Stay tuned.

                                   By Tom Kinsolving

Salutations

At this writing, in the dawning hours of November 18, 2006, are two milestones.

The First: But of course, it's the Apologists Alert official blast-off into this tumultuous brave new blogosphere world. Must confess, am both exhilarated and, yeah, anxious. As much as I am impressed with this user-friendly "create your own website in a jiffy" package, somehow, somewhere, it just feeeels like one of these "friendly" little icons will lunge forward and begin munching away at 29 hours of my "creation".

I'll get over it. Probably 29 hours from now. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled about interacting with all manner of humanity, on issues affecting our lives in overt and subtle ways. They cannot continue to always be shunted off into convenient pigeon holes by know-it-all media pundits. This is what is so invigorating about blogging: it has provided great promise to us, the public. Now, no longer can corporate communication chiefs muzzle citizens at will (which, with the increasing gobbling up of independent news services by media giants, is more critical than ever.)

The Second: It's no accident that I'm launching this site today, November 18, the date of a horrendous anniversary. Before September 11 had occurred, did you know that today marks the day--28 years ago, in Guyana--of the greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster? Lamentably, it's a good bet that most of these people tossing about the macabre "drink the Kool-Aid" slang are oblivious that today was the day it happened.

A deplorable irony. But even more appalling is that a big part of the lesson of this utterly preventable Jonestown Massacre (not a mass suicide, but largely a mass murder) remain clouded. Critical components continue to be buried away from the public. If you think you'll find them in director Stanley Nelson's crafty little new film "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple", forget about it. He's done some real handiwork, this "pronounced liberal activist". Not only has he condoned the army of shameless public figures that helped create the Jim Jones Frankenstein, but Nelson actually does a brilliantly executed positive spin on all this. Apparently, he was deeply enamored by "Jim's" (as Nelson has referred to him) great dedication to social activism. Thus, a reprehensible cast of "Jonestown Apologists" continue promoting denial about the full reality of Jim Jones's nightmarish cult.

Along with director Nelson's disgraceful fraud of a "documentary" film, two of his cronies, Rebecca Moore and Fielding "Mac" McGhee, run the "Jonestown Institute". Becky (whose two sisters that perished at Jonestown were top conspirators with Jones) and the Mac are amazing. Their Ministry of Cult Apologist Propaganda website is impressive, with an inclusion of useful, historical archives, woven around endless breath-taking arguments that People's Temple was, well, really not actuuualy cult, but just a bit of an unconventional church.....and Jonestown was, yeeees, metamorphosing into Shangri-La. (Problem was just that the racist, tyrannical outside world wouldn't "leave them in peace"--yes, Jones did say that, but he was--gulp--not alone in this view.)

Like editors of National Enquirer, Moore and McGhee have cooked up a spectacularly corrupt blend of fantasy and reality.

As this day progresses and the grieving relatives share their pilgrimage to Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California to remember their loved ones, from the babies to the elderly that were senselessly slaughtered in South America, I begin work on a series of exposes.

The first will spotlight Lord Hollywood Nelson's cinematic smoke & mirrors that reveal his subtle church pastels softening the harsher edges of the Jones Gulag, sweetened up with a foot-stompin' score of gospel and R&B tunes. The Cult That Rocked?

There's so much more in this sordid saga--a house bursting with many, many other unscrupulous, deluded characters, past and present, that have stowed away here in this People's Temple Hall of Shame.

Prepare yourself.

Tom Kinsolving

November 18, 2006