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
Care To "Clown Around" For A Few Minutes?
3 years ago
10 comments:
Welcome to the blogosphere! Look forward to your expose(s)!
A belated thanks, Rose (I'm just getting the hang of all these various blog features, like "WHAT button is THAT that I must push to uncover--and answer--comments from cyberspace??)
....Anyhow, I believe anyone with a semblance of common sense and conscience will be roiled to the rafters by what Stan Nelson and other cult apologists are trying get away with.
The only question is: Will we let them??
Mr. Kinsolving,
I have great interest in the history of the PT, especially as it pertains to Tim Stoen, & appreciate the information available on your site. I look forward to your future postings.
Robin Shelley
I'm so glad to hear from you, Robin. Yes, Tim Stoen, indeed. Now there's one of the most baffling questions anyone could continue to throw at Director Stanley Nelson and his wife, Marcia Smith, who wrote the story for the film. My father, Les, and I confronted Nelson at one of the film's premiere's last June one why Stoen was never even mentioned.
Here was a man who, as Jim Jones's top legal henchman, ensured that my father's S.F. Examiner Temple expose series was extinguished half-way through in 1972. In 1975, on Jones's orders, Stoen struck again, terrorizing several California newspapers into censuring fresh Temple exposes from my father--all of this, while the vaunted investigators Kilduff(who shamelessly continues insisting he had the first expose), Reiterman, and other California reporters were doing not a damn thing.
Stoen's place in the Temple cult, his ranking on the Planning Commission, his key actions rigging the San Francisco mayoral race, plotting a murder (my father's), all of this--suppressed in this supposedly revealing and amazing "documentary" from Stanley and Mrs. Nelson?
It was, after all, Stoen's struggle to rescue his young son out of that hellhole called Jonestown which played a significant role in the last days. Anybody that knows this story could tell you that. But somehow, like Orwell, Stoen has been "erased".
Stan said there just wasn't enough film to fit him in.
Hmmmmm. Oh, yes. Some docugandas have all prefabricated round holes, others, square ones.
Sorry about that, Square Stoen.
Tom,
I read your father's account of the Q & A session with Nelson... interesting that you were censored there. Who are Nelson & Smith, anyway & what is their interest in this story? Money? Personal experience with the PT? Family in the PT? Are they friends of Stoen? Did he silence them with threat of a lawsuit? That's his style.
I haven't seen the film yet but if such an important & major character as Stoen is omitted then "the truth" is not what motivated Nelson & Smith to make this film. It would be impossible to tell the story of the PT without mentioning Stoen.
The passage of time has helped Stoen to effectively downplay his role in PT & he has been perfectly happy to help the media rewrite the history of that organization. One of the most blatant examples of that whitewashing appeared on the front page of The Del Norte County Triplicate on Feb. 23, 2002 during Stoen's run for the state assembly. Staff writer Jennifer Grimes obviously knew nothing about Stoen or the PT nor did she do any independent research before interviewing him. Stoen was obviously her one & only source & either she didn't listen when he talked or he lied to her. A letter I wrote to The Triplicate citing 11 factual errors in her article was not printed nor was any correction ever made. The people of Del Norte County were left with a very heroic impression of Tim Stoen. I suspect this same thing is happening all over the country.
Robin Shelley
With his experience, why did your father write an article for Word Net Daily which covered for Moon's Washington Times? When Moon was crowned in DC and it looked like there might be some scrutiny of he and his organization, your Dad quickly popped out a piece full of Pruden's BS about the WT being independent of Moon's world plot. That is just not true and he should know better.
Try watching this panel of conservatives who worked for Moon, they know the story and your Dad should also. The WT is integral to Moon's vision for a right wing extremist and increasingly theocratic America. Anyone who spends five minutes reading about Moon knows that he does NOTHING that it isn't designed at its core to mold the nation, the world and bring him influence. That is all he does. He has been very successful, why did your Dad cover him?
Please ask your Dad to watch this.
Who does he believe, Moon and his spinners or people who were there from the start and have retained their souls?
good site
http://www.childplanet.us/
Who is this "child" (above) & what's wrong with their site?
Hey Thanks you for commment my blog on "what really happened to jonetown". Listen, I don't agree with the movie and what the director is trying to portray. MK Ultra is REAL! Million of people were involved. Check this out!
MK Ultra
I stumbled onto your site and needed to say this: You're piling an awful lot of accusations at the Moore family. I've spoken with them. I believe that they are nice, good hearted people, who thought they could save their daughters not by fighting against the cult, but trying to stay in contact with their children, to keep a hand "inside" in order to try to pull their kids out; not by condoning the group but by trying to maintain peaceful communication with them in order to not alienate them. They were scared for their children and the goal was to try to keep them from getting sucked under. They had no idea of what was about to happen. It's a common technique of family members of people in cults. It didn't work and there were devastating results. They're beyond broken hearted. The academic work of Rebecca Moore is a result of a woman trying to make sense of what happened to her sisters. Of course she wants to sympathize with them. She's human. I think you're account here is unfair, and I'm sure, uninformed. I shouldn't try to speak for the Moore's but this family has been trashed and hurt and devastated for so long, that it seems like insult to injury for you to sling more mud at them here. Consider the fact that you're talking about people, please, who honestly aren't all that different from you.
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