Manson, Jones, And Koresh: MSNBC's Halloween Banquet Of Cult Horror

Some TV network execs have apparently now been bitten by the cult bug.

More than two weeks ago, long before the November anniversary marking the tragedy, CNN rebroadcast Soledad Obrien's "Escape From Jonestown".

Now, tonight on MSNBC, we're getting served a triple entree of cult crazies. From 7 to 9 p.m., the saga of those ferociously poisonous flower children is being presented in "Will You Kill For Me? Charles Manson And His Followers."

Between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., we'll see the replay of last Sunday's "Witness To Waco," detailing the horrifying end to David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult.

In 2003, ten years after the Waco holocaust, Cult Expert Rick Ross wrote an expose in his Cult News Network about one of the many cult apologists that continue making excuses for Koresh's slaughter of nearly 80 men, women, and children.

Her name is Catherine Wessinger, a professor of religious studies at Loyola University. Ross reported the following:

"It seems Wessinger can be depended upon for an apology no matter how bizarre and/or destructive the cult. Today in the Waco Tribune-Herald’s second installment of its nine part series about the Branch Davidians she once again offers her unique spin on a cult’s demise.

What does Wessinger make out of the Davidian cult tragedy?

Well, she says it was largely about 'the militarization of law enforcement and the problems … and abuse that arise from such militarization.'

Right.

Apparently this college professor doesn’t wish to acknowledge the implications of a purported 'psychopath' leading a cult group. Wessinger admits, 'I’m not trained in psychology so I don’t articulate those opinions....I’m sure he [Koresh] had some psychological issues.'

What an understatement.

Wessinger offers her usual apologetic spin. She has previously attempted to explain away cult tragedies such as Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown. Wessinger once said, '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.'

Again, no meaningful blame is placed upon the deeply disturbed cult leader and the inherent destructive dynamics of his control over the group. Apparently almost any cult and/or cult leader’s behavior may be largely excused according to Wessinger’s reasoning under the general heading of 'persecution'....

Koresh broke the law, failed to comply with a warrant, murdered federal officers and then refused to surrender for 51 days, despite the repeated pleas and guarantees of law enforcement. In the end he chose instead to kill himself and all his followers within the compound.

The cult leader’s behavior had little if anything to do with 'biblical prophecy' and his 'work' was really more about criminal violations of gun laws and sexual abuse than the 'Book of Revelation.'

However, 'apologists' like Wessinger apparently ignore such facts in favor of speculation based upon specious, but supposedly 'politically correct' views, instead of reality."

You'll see Ross interviewed in the documentary. If Wessinger shows up, we'll know there's something amiss.

Oh yes, and that leaves the hours, 9:00 to 11:00 p.m.--what notorious cult show might be sandwiched between the twin terrors of the Manson Family and the Branch Davidians?? Why, it's yet another "witnessing," like Waco, entitled "Witness To Jonestown."

Thaaaaat's right, people. The Good Reverend and his Temple of--at least, of course, til the very end--Good Works. After this program ran last year, one of my readers, "Dave," had this to say about MSNBC's distorted reporting:

"I observed all the same criminal omissions. The most glaring being the way they always present the People Temple's accommodation of old people and children as 'humanitarian' and ignore that it was the primary source of income. (California child welfare and social security checks were coming in at the rate of $65,000 per month)....."

Dave also had some rather harsh criticism of a certain religious studies professor that runs a particular "institute" all about Jonestown and the People's Temple cult. Except it's not a cult!!, sayeth Dr. Rebecca Moore, of San Diego State University.

"Moore and her ilk," charged Dave, "have reduced the label for these destructive, con-games-on-a-massive-scale to the word 'cult' and have then dismissed the word.

She should be ashamed of herself.

As a religious scholar, she needs to know that putting cults and the worship of God on the same plane diminishes religion. Period."

And here's an utterly amazing coincidence: Blue Ribbon Jonestown Apologist Becky juuuuuust so happens to be a real good buddy of our Koresh Booster, Cathy Wessinger. In fact, they both co-edit the insidious "New Religious Movements"(translation--CULTS) propaganda journal, "Novo Religio."

The lady scholars get a little help from a third flaming cult apologist named Douglas Cowan. He runs the online "Religious Movements Homepage Project," currently under renovation. Cowen is celebrated for his crafty embellishments of virtually any and all cults, no matter how ruthless or rapacious.

That's probably why Becky and Cathy have Cowan helping to co-pilot their barge, U.S.S. Apologia. In a 2004 academic paper, Cowen announced the very destructive Scientology "has an image problem."

Image problem?



Oh, yeah. That sometimes happens.

High Politicos Continue Milking The Man That "Gave Hope" To A Doomed Cult

The Harvey Milk shrine gracing the top of San Francisco City Hall's grand staircase has an inscription from the late supervisor's famed speech claiming his election "gave young people out there hope. You gotta give 'em hope."

Hope clearly is fast gaining steam in some quarters now that this new & improved milk propaganda blitz has hit the stratosphere. Last Tuesday California Gov. Schwarzenegger followed Pres. Obama's lead in deifying the Jim Jones accomplice, with the signing into state law "Harvey Milk Day" every May 22nd. This comes on the heels of Governor Musclehead's plan to induct the Milk Man into the California Hall of Fame in December.

That next side show will follow the month after another Jonestown Massacre anniversary, which Harvey also gets a bow for being one of the preventable tragedy's most notable official facilitators.

Sure, there's some folks that continue taking issue with me here, some of them who just can't resist playing apologists for all the brazen allies of the torturers & murderers that ran the People's Temple cult. One of my readers, "Emily," wrote in earlier this year (and PLEASE do excuse me for letting some of the comments fall through the cyber cracks!) pleading compassion for the self-serving slobs, living and dead, who have Jonestown blood-stained hands.

Emily, an apparent fan of fictional bio-pics, set the record straight about the "Milk" movie:

"Come on. Even Ryan himself was initially fooled by the supposed utopian socialist paradise while he was standing within its very walls. Jones was a masterful con man and was very, very deft at appearing kind to outsiders. Even initial criticisms and reports of abuse could have been disputed as a disgruntled or intolerant agenda against what, from the outside, very easily could have appeared to be nothing more than a loving group of people committed to a self-sustaining lifestyle apart from the real world.

Yes, you and I know that was far, far from the case now, but we have history on our side. It's very easy to sit back in judgement when you know what was going to happen next.
Do you honestly think any of those people would have been complacent and done nothing if they had hard, factual evidence that there was extreme abuse that would result in everybody in Jonestown being killed? Do you think nobody feels any guilt for being a part of what ultimately enabled Jones to get away with it all?

The movie is about Harvey Milk and his activism for gay civil rights, not Harvey Milk and everybody he ever knew in his lifetime. Introducing the Jones aspect would have been an almost awkward non sequitur that couldn't have been done in a manner that would do the severity of the subject justice, unless you made the entire film about that association. It's the stuff of dense biographies, not a two-hour biopic. Simply brushing over the subject as if it were not important would have been worse than not mentioning it at all.

A lot of people were fooled by Jim Jones. I can't condemn every last one of them for not knowing the horrific fate of his followers."

Emily, it looked like it was cinch for Harvey Milk to sing the cult praises as a "loving group of people committed to a self-sustaining lifestyle apart from the real world," just as long as he (A) kept on getting their invaluable election support and (B) averted his eyes to the continuing avalanche of substantiated reports of Temple fraud, abuse, slave labor, beatings, extortion, and death drills.

Not a problem either, for other shameless wonders like Willie Brown and Cecil Williams. They cheered on Jones right up to day of the slaughter in Guyana. And the film's fantasy Adventures In Milkville? Understandable. After all, a Hollywood saint's working relationship with a mass murderers might just be very "awkward."

I hardly agree with the right-wing on anything (left-wing, for that matter, too.) But once and while they actually manage to right a flagrant wrong. The issue of the culprits that had repeat dance cards with Jim J. Frankenstein, for instance. Author Daniel Flynn wrote the following in his devastating expose, "Drinking Harvey Milk's Kool-Aid," which appeared in the online City Journal magazine last May.

Hopefully Emily and others will consider Flynn's cogent warnings

against whitewashing/mythologizing--on or off the silver screen--people that have sinned something terrible. Even those no longer with us. It's bad for future generations.

As the ol' saying goes, "Those that do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them...."

".....Milk makes a rather unremarkable subject for the silver screen," writes Flynn, "In his seven years in San Francisco, he made four bids for elective office, only emerging victorious in his last—a 1977 run for city supervisor. For his persistence, Milk jokingly referred to himself as the 'gay Harold Stassen.' He served for less than a year.

In naming the onetime camera-shop proprietor one of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century, Time conceded, 'As a supervisor, Milk sponsored only two laws—predictably, one barring anti-gay discrimination, and, less so, a law forcing dog owners to clean pets’ messes from sidewalks.' Eleven months on the city council hardly seems the stuff of Hollywood legend.

So Hollywood invented a legend.

Rather than the gentle, soft-spoken idealist portrayed by Sean Penn, the real Harvey Milk was a short-tempered demagogue who cynically invented stories of victimhood to advance his political career. During his successful run for city supervisor, for instance, Milk’s camera store was the object of a glass-shattering attack by low-grade explosives.

Milk blamed singer Anita Bryant, the outspoken opponent of gay-friendly legislation. 'Years later friends hinted broadly that Harvey had more than a little foreknowledge that the explosions would happen,' biographer Randy Shilts noted. One friend explained to Shilts: 'You gotta realize the campaign was sort of going slow, and, well...'

The stunt would hardly have been the sole instance of Milk’s employing deceit to further his standing within the victimhood cult. In the upside-down world of San Francisco politics, Milk curried favor with voters by boasting that his homosexuality had resulted in a dishonorable discharge from the Navy in the dark ages before the sexual revolution. But far from the in-your-face, ponytailed 'Mayor of Castro Street' of the 1970s, Chief Petty Officer Milk of the 1950s was a closeted homosexual whose discharge papers reflected four years of honorable service.

Milk was far more cavalier about the privacy of others than he was about his own. When Bill Sipple became a national hero for tackling gun-toting kook Sara Jane Moore before she could kill President Gerald Ford in 1975, Milk anonymously leaked news of the former Marine’s homosexuality to the media. 'It’s too good an opportunity,' Milk reasoned. 'For once we can show that gays do heroic things.' Just as Milk anticipated the 'outing' tactics of ACT-Up and Queer Nation, his rhetoric, too, foreshadowed the hyperbole of AIDS activists of the following decade.

Milk liberally tossed the 'Nazi' label at opponents of various gay-rights proposals and even compared politically moderate homosexuals to Nazi collaborators. 'We are not going to allow our rights to be taken away and then march with bowed heads into the gas chambers,' Milk proclaimed at 1978’s Gay Freedom Parade in San Francisco.

Such unflattering details made neither the final draft of the 'Harvey Milk Day' legislation nor the final cut of the Milk biopic. Milk’s cheerleaders are guilty of sins of omission and commission. What the film and legislation insinuate--in an effort to depict Milk as a martyr for the gay rights movement on par with Martin Luther King’s martyrdom for the Civil Rights movement--is that homophobia killed Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.

But Harvey Milk’s homosexuality played about as much of a role in his murder as San Francisco mayor George Moscone’s heterosexuality played in his. Their murderer, troubled political neophyte Dan White, had donated $100 to defeat the Briggs Initiative, which would have empowered school boards to fire teachers for homosexuality. White hired a homosexual as his campaign manager and voted as a city supervisor to fund a Pride Center for homosexuals. White wasn’t driven to murder by Milk’s vision of gay rights but rather by something more pedestrian: the petty politics of City Hall. What makes for good history doesn’t always lend itself to good theater.

In a sign of the instability he would so dramatically display on November 27, a cash-strapped White had resigned his seat on the Board of Supervisors on November 10, only to demand four days later that the mayor reappoint him. Mayor Moscone publicly responded by saying that he still regarded White as a member of the board, handed back his letter of resignation, and promised him the seat.

Enter Harvey Milk, who saw White as an obstacle to progressive initiatives. As the movie depicts, Milk successfully lobbied Moscone to refuse to reseat the former policeman, fireman, and Vietnam veteran. Believing Milk and Moscone guilty of perfidy, the tightly wound, sore-loser White assassinated Moscone and then Milk.

Perhaps the most amazing historical detail of the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone is that their dramatic assassinations weren’t the biggest story to hit San Francisco in November of 1978. Bowdlerized from the Hollywood treatment is the role Harvey Milk played in the news story that eclipsed his own murder.

Nine days prior to Milk’s death, more than 900 followers of Jim Jones--many of them campaign workers for Milk--perished in the most ghastly set of murder-suicides in modern history. Before the congregants of the Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones’s deadly Kool-Aid, Harvey Milk and much of San Francisco’s ruling class had already figuratively imbibed.

Milk occasionally spoke at Jones’s San Francisco–based headquarters, promoted Jones through his newspaper columns, and defended the Peoples Temple from its growing legion of critics. Jones provided conscripted 'volunteers' for Milk’s campaigns to distribute leaflets by the tens of thousands. Milk returned the favor by abusing his position of public trust on behalf of Jones’s criminal endeavors.

'Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness,' Supervisor Milk wrote President Jimmy Carter seven months before the Jonestown carnage. The purpose of Milk’s letter was to aid and abet his powerful supporter’s abduction of a six-year-old boy.

Milk’s missive to the president prophetically continued: 'Not only is the life of a child at stake, who currently has loving and protective parents in the Rev. and Mrs. Jones, but our official relations with Guyana could stand to be jeopardized, to the potentially great embarrassment of our State Department.' John Stoen, the boy whose actual parents Milk libeled to the president as purveyors of 'bold-faced lies' and blackmail attempts, perished at Jonestown. This, the only remarkable episode in Milk’s brief tenure on the San Francisco board of supervisors, is swept under the rug by his hagiographers.


Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is as real as Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man.

Who has time for the sordid details of purportedly staged hate crimes and boosterism of America’s most prolific mass murderer when there is a gay Martin Luther King to be mythologized? Even the fervent atheist Milk understood the need for patron saints. When confronted by a jaded supporter over his fabricated tale that the Navy had booted him out because of his sex life, Milk responded: 'Symbols. Symbols. Symbols.' He understood his movement better than his movement did.

When the facts didn’t fit the script, both Milk and his present-day admirers adjusted the facts. As the elected sponsors of Harvey Milk Day realize, Californians are more likely to remember the celluloid hero they saw depicted by Sean Penn earlier this year than the obscure city official who walked largely unnoticed in their midst three decades ago.

The advocates of a Harvey Milk Day know box office. They don’t know the real Harvey Milk."

And the ones that did?



They're not talking.

An Early Anniversary Kick Off With CNN's "Escape From Jonestown" Laundering Of The People's Temple Saga

Looks like the annual People's Temple White Wash Festival arrives early this year.

Tonight, Saturday, at 8 p.m. EST, CNN will be rerunning Soledad O'Brien's "Escape From Jonestown" documentary shown during last year's 30th Anniversary of the massacre. Of course you wouldn't know it unless you've kept tuned to CNN for the past several days and seen the promos.

For some unfathomable reason, none of the TV listings off or online have the program listed. I had to call CNN headquarters, where their spokesperson admitted they had made a "boo-boo" and that it would be posted. Maybe, maybe not. Likely a lot of audience will miss out (unless, of course, the CNN rep got it wrong, and the TV promos were misplaced....)

Nope, surely not the first or last time for a Big Media screw-up. To err is human, the ol' adage says, but mass media behemoths have a whole lot of latitude. Save the day. Send multitudes into oblivion. The gamut has been long and wide, and just too often unaccountable when it came to things like the lethal sins of omission.

And then, what do ya know, this marvelous information highway shows up and all that fog wafts magically right out of the public eye!

This episode of abysmal failure to do their jobs to stop an utterly preventable slaughter of over 900 Americans was one of the most appalling in history.

It must be said that "Escape" is one of the better of the People's Temple retrospectives because there are some good solid interviews with survivors. Nonetheless, the cover up continues on the media's conspiracy of silence on the real evolution of the Crime of the Century.

See if you notice these choice excerpts from tonight's show:

O'BRIEN: By his own account, Jim Jones was born on the wrong side of the tracks, in a small Indiana town in the Depression years. By high school, Jones was going to a revivalist style church and preaching to others from the sidewalks of his hometown. At 21, Jones became a student pastor by taking a correspondence course. Within a few years, he had started his own church in Indianapolis, named it Peoples Temple and opened its doors to African-Americans.

He and his wife Marceline became an interracial family through adoption and embraced racial harmony in an era that resisted it. But even then, Jones preached of catastrophe.

G. PARKS: At that time, the cold war was going on. And he was yelling a bomb was going to fall and there would be a nuclear war.

O'BRIEN: In the mid-'60s, Jones moved his church outside the town of Ukiah in Northern California.

G. PARKS: So he got this revelation somehow to come to Ukiah, California. And there was a cave out here.

O'BRIEN: A cave in the hills around Redwood Valley that would shield everyone from nuclear fallout.

G. PARKS: I know now as sure as I'm sitting here -- and I knew, you know, I have for a long time, there was no such place. It was all one of his lies.

O'BRIEN: Jones built this church and offered sanctuary there -- a safety net to the elderly and poor, usually blacks from the inner city. They signed over their Social Security checks and the Peoples Temple cared for them for the rest of their lives....

"Offered sanctuary"? "A safety net"? "....Cared for them for the rest of their lives...."?? Interesting take on it, Soledad. Not a whole lot of discussion, though, about the fraud or extortion or electroshock torture carried out by those "caring" Temple folks on five year-old children.

Nothing, either, regarding the San Francisco Examiner's four page one 1972 articles on a host of nefarious activities occurring in this "safety net," part of a devastating series of exposes that would have obliterated Jim Jones's death camp march. Unfortunately, that came to a screaming halt when that grand Hearst newspaper decided that turning coward was easier.

So the Examiner ceased examining--for five long critical years.

No, such details are just too much of an "inconvenient truth" for CNN's, or any other Big Media Script.

Another excerpt:

O'BRIEN: Verne Gosney joined the church in California about that same time. He and his wife, an interracial couple, were welcome.

GOSNEY: The Peoples Temple was a rich tapestry of people. They were people who had survived adverse situations -- racism, discrimination -- just very difficult lives. And they had triumphed to that point.

O'BRIEN: In 1975, Jones moved his church headquarters from Redwood Valley down to San Francisco, to a larger stage, where he became a political force and a face in photo-ops....


Oh, come now, Verne. The cultists "had triumphed to that point"?

Was this before, or after, they had been bludgeoned and brainwashed into slave laborers??

This last O'Brien statement is the one parroted faithfully by just about every pundit head that runs around Investigative Reporting Wonderland:

O'BRIEN: "....In that summer of 1977, Jones was facing increasing criticism from some members who fled the church because they no longer believed in Jones. When 'New West' magazine published an expose article about church beatings, Jim Jones suddenly decided to leave the country...."

Keep the tradition alive. NO ONE in the Fourth Estate knew anything--until those sleep-walking crusaders Marshal Kilduff, Tim Rieterman, and others leaped out from under their rocks a whopping five years after the Examiner had exposed Jim Jones. Nice work covering their collective tails--err, tales, CNN.

Again, this is not to say that "Escape From Jonestown" doesn't have a lot of solid reporting. It does. But sadly, outrageously, there's enough of a credibility hole here to toss it in with all the other disingenuous servings on Big Media's "true story" slag heap about the People's Temple cult.

Oh, yes, there's also the little matter about the late Harvey Milk, who not only was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom over the summer but was also recently inducted into the California Hall of Fame, along with the great Carol Burnett, George Lucas, and Chuck Yeager.

They're even waiting for Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign into law an official "Harvey Milk Day" for California. Let's just hope that The Terminator can guess who--out of Burnett, Lucas, Yeager, and Milk--faithfully helped Jim Jones keep his flock for the cyanide slaughter in Guyana.


Coming up.....

Pres. Obama's Glittering Award For A Mass Murdering Cult Lord's Accomplice

The Rev. Jim Jones couldn't have asked for a more rousing endorsement.

This one, priceless: A letter from a big city official, addressed to the President of the United States.

And no ordinary politician, oh no. As one of the first openly elected Gay public officials in American history, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk surely had the attention-getting pull the People's Temple cult craved.

Milk was more than happy to dress up his ravenous wolf pal in a real nice sheep's vestment.

"There are some facts you should be informed of," he wrote to Pres. Jimmy Carter on February 19, 1978. "Rev. Jones is....a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness."

Mind you, Milk is writing this well after Jones had escaped the country to take refuge in his Guyana Gulag, long after all the evidence was out about his fraud, extortion, sadism, and suicide drills forced on cult captives.

No matter, the big city supervisor owed his good buddy who had garnered him votes. Clearly the men, women, children, and infants now trapped in the Guyana Death Camp--with just nine months to live--were expendable.

The thrust of his letter was a withering attack on two key members of the Concerned Relatives group that was desperately trying to rescue their loved ones, only to be repeatedly scorned by California's political (with the exception of Cong. Leo Ryan) and religious leaders. The Milk Man was on a whitewash mission. So he viciously denounced Tim and Grace Stoen, who were trying to get their son--that Jones claimed as his own--out of the cultist's murderous hands.

"Timothy and Grace Stoen, the parties that are attempting to damage Rev. Jones' reputation," Milk continued in his letter to the president, "and seriously disrupt the life of his son, John, have both already been discredited by the media here." Accusing the Stoens of everything from "blackmail" to "bold-faced lies," the supervisor added:

".....the life of a child is at stake....Mr. President, the actions of Mr. Stoen need to be brought to a halt. It is offensive to most in the San Francisco community, and all those who know Rev. Jones to see this kind of outrage taking place."

An "outrage." Interesting perspective, Mr. Milk.


Now, I just wonder. You think that "outrage" would have been the same sentiment of screen writer Dustin Lance Black and director Guy Van Sant had anyone even remotely suggested including anything that might have soured their 2008 silver screen canonization, "Milk"??

All the film's propaganda signs point to YES.

They clearly wanted under no circumstances a public that would get confused or find even the smallest speck of doubt about who was their real Harvey Milk. Yes, his untimely death, along with Mayor George Moscone, was tragic. His role in the Gay Rights battle could not be understated. These aspects of the film were of course dramatic and compelling.

Nevertheless, while audiences certainly deserved to learn about all this, it was unconscionable to deliberately present an distorted portrait. Especially in light of his criminal connection to Jim Jones.

Aiding and abetting. Obstruction of justice. Ironically, unlike just about all the other accessories to the Crime of the Century (Willie Brown, Rev. John Moore, Cecil Williams, et al), soon after Milk helped ensure the worst mass murder of Americans until 9/11, he received his own death penalty, along with George Moscone.


Harvey Milk's subsequent sainthood bestowed by Black & Van Sant did not go unnoticed by Pres. Obama. I voted for Obama and think he's more conscientious than most. But he still is what he is: Another politician. Currently Obama's got some serious problems to deal with, such as steadily slipping poll numbers; some of which is attributed to policy flip-flops and betraying promises made during an inspiring campaign. The latest is his shameful surrender, of we the people, back into the rapacious tentacles of our Big Insurance/Pharmaceutical Corporate Mafia.

Obama has also angered the Gay Lobby by not pushing for repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military, as well as not trying to get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that does not recognize same-sex marriage.

So it's predictable he tried to score whatever points he could by giving Harvey Milk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom last Wednesday. Please note carefully if you hear one word about Harvey's pal, Jimmy:



"Gotta give 'em hope," said Milk? "Hope"--for all those doing time in that forced labor camp called Jonestown, and for the children being tortured at night, in a deep, dark well his cult playfully named "Big Foot"??

Milk's nephew had the honor of accepting America's highest civilian award for his uncle. Again, listen carefully to the voice-over. The narrative might as well have been lifted right out of Van Sant's puff piece film:



Once again, that "H" word! "Hope," said Milk, "will never be silent." Except, of course, for 900 Americans silenced forever by the maniac that our Hope Merchant so faithfully promoted, while all the time privately admitting his feelings about the "dangerous" and "wierd" cult. What integrity, eh?

It would be fair to say that had Milk not aided & abetted Jim Jones (again, not the only crooked politico to do so), he would surely deserve this presidential award for all he did for his oppressed minority group.

"....This is a moment that will transcend identity politics," writes Chuck Wolfe, head of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, "because Harvey Milk represents the aspirations of all Americans. More than 200 years ago Washington, Jefferson and Adams fought to create a more perfect union. They probably had no idea that their vision would be embodied in the late 20th century by a gay, Jewish camera shop owner in San Francisco.

Milk's story, as recounted in last year's Academy Award-winning movie 'Milk' and books such as 'The Mayor of Castro Street', involves his struggle to become one of the first openly elected gay public officials in the U.S. His political ambitions coincided with the rising gay rights movement and resulted in him winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors."

Again, however, the roughshod side of Milk's politics, even beyond his sordid connection to a death cult, is something altogether different. And few want to talk about it for fear of deflating the myth.

Except for a highly irreverent fellow named "Molotov" Mitchell. He's a self-described Conservative Film Maker (watch out when they trumpet ANY title spiked with "conservative"!) that runs "Illuminati Pictures" out of North Carolina, in which he cranks out unorthodox, extreme right-wing videos. See a few of his videos and you might even suspect that he's actually a covert progressive doing needed parodies of this country's lunatic reactionary fringe.

Part of his mainstay is nonsensical smears of Barack Obama, Islam, and just about everything else not fitting snugly into a xenophobe's microscopic gray matter. One especially inflammatory incident said it all, when an episode from his weekly show, "Flamethrower," had Mitchell munching away at a specially prepared "Mohammad" cookie.

Hmmmmm--any investors out there interested in sending this enterprising fellow over to Saudi Arabia to run a cookie kiosk??

Even Faith TV, a national Christian Right network that runs Mitchell's show, had to censor the episode, "All Things Islam," because network president Jim West said "We feel this program just goes beyond the bounds of good taste." Now just why would a good Christian say such a thing?

But it has to be said that one of Mitchell's "For The Record" videos, replete as it is with trademark offensive, politically incorrect antics, happens to be a potent, much-needed antidote to our disengenuous left-wing Hollywood cover-up. Sit down with the rampaging Molotov as he provides an eye-opening serving of "Milk and Kool-Aid." And don't worry about those scattered moments when our host's horns and forked tail pop out....

On the other hand, and I'm gonna say PLEASE --for the record (mine)-- DISREGARD completely all the rest of the utterly inane, borderline insane DEN ("Domestic Emergency Network") videos attached at the end of the Milk expose.

Unless, of course, you're in the mood for some hardcore comedy.....



There was, of all places, something incriminating in a November, 2003 edition of "The Advocate"(The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine.) It was the 25th Anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre. The article was entitled: "Death of Dreams: in November 1978, Harvey Milk's murder and the mass suicides at Jonestown nearly broke San Francisco's spirit. Eerily, Milk knew and worked with Jonestown founder Jim Jones"

An excerpt:

"Milk was of two minds about the temple. He accepted temple members' help in his successful 1977 campaign for board of supervisors--which made him one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country and certainly the most popular. But he also reportedly said temple members were 'weird and dangerous.'

He was not alone in this assessment. As the temple grew in size and status, Jones faced increasing scrutiny from the press, which investigated reports of 'suicide drills,' physical and sexual abuse, and extortion. In August 1977 the San Francisco Examiner published a damning two-part investigation on its front page. The stories were headlined, 'Rev. Jones: The Power Broker, Political Maneuverings of a Preacher Man,' and 'The Temple, a Nightmare World.'

Under pressure, Jones and some 1,000 followers started moving to Jonestown in late 1977. A settlement in the Guyana jungle, Jonestown was promoted as a multiracial socialist paradise far from the racism and class oppression of American life. Many hundreds more temple members stayed in San Francisco, where services continued under the leadership of associate pastors. Milk spoke at a service for the last time in October 1978. He had been enthusiastically received at Peoples Temple several times before, and he always sent glowing thank-yon notes to Jones afterward.

After one visit, Milk wrote, 'Rev. Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something real today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours mad energy, placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.' Milk may have been disingenuous in his praise, or perhaps the rousing services at Peoples Temple made him feel a genuine bond."



I'll put my bets on the "disingenuous," despite the real possiblity this utterly unscrupulous man could have bonded quite nicely with the "wierd" and "dangerous" cultists to whom he so readily sold himself.

- END OF PART I -



Stay tuned for Part II, when we look at another sizzling expose that takes an even deeper look at the machinations and maneuverings of The Man Who Would Be Saint.

"Milk": Another People's Temple Political Strongman Gets The Whitewash -- And Just Maybe Even An Oscar Or Two?

Tonight the Academy Awards Community has to make a decision: Should they, or shouldn't they--despite the well-honed production--reward a film that both mangles history and portrays a man that deliriously supported a mass-murdering cultist?

How much longer will Harvey Milk's tragic murder continue to allow him this waiver, to the point to sanctifying him now in a multi-Oscar nominated film, that includes not just Best Picture and Best Actor, but a couple of other categories that seem to say it all:

"Best Original Screenplay" and "Best Editing."

Right. Very "original screenplay." The very "best editing."

But not for the same reasons that our august Academy members would say, of course. The "original screenplay" is an amazing thing, because it can give carte blanche to all manner of fictional add-ons, while the "best editing" is that enchanting process that, in equally unscrupulous hands, may produce small & large milestones in fantasy-turned-reality.

No one of course knows this better than the man running "Firelight Media," our acclaimed left-wing Producer/Director Stanley Nelson. With joyous and unlimited "expert guidance" from those rousing official National People's Temple Cheerleaders, Becky Moore & "Mac" McGhee, the three of them cooked up the most insidious cult apologist film in history, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple."

The good news is, folks: The Academy didn't get suckered in and refused Nelson and his revolting cult whitewash even a nomination. He does, however, manage to keep on getting film gigs in "fantastic fiction" documentaries, the latest of which is part of PBS's upcoming American Indian series. Nelson's fantasy segment is on the gun-slinging militant American Indian Movement (AIM) that blasted its way through a 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee Battlefield.

I'm suuuuuure that ol' Stan will, like he did with the People's Temple, provide ALL the relevant facts so that viewers have an sterling accurate portrait of history, with not a trace of leftest bias. Now if anyone out there has the slightest question about how Nelson manages his magic, I'd say just give him a call at the office:

STANLEY NELSON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FIRELIGHT MEDIA
Phone: 212-234-1324

You can also send Stan a fax: 212-234-6688 in case you want more
details about what he terms his "evocative technique" in film making.

I'm certain that Lord Nelson was more than pleased over any and all aspects of "Milk," even if he can't take credit. The important thing is that the Great Spirit of Obfuscation was in full cinematic force, right?

"Milk," of course, is a very interesting part of history, dealing with the very first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. It is a poignant story, and worth telling, no question. The big problem, however, comes with this "original screenplay" and "editing." And for that, all the rest of the awards should go out the door, just to teach these fabricators a lesson about telling THE WHOLE TRUTH.

The "whole truth"? What whole truth? What, pray tell, is MISSING from our Oscar-nominated film, that has such a spectacular performance, as is almost always the case, by lead actor Sean Penn.

Well, how about this little tidbit for starters.
It's a letter written to President Jimmy Carter, in February, 1978, by none other than St. Harvey himself. He wrote it just nine months away from the slaughter, but LONG after all the long-overdue 1977 exposes had finally told him, his fellow Temple boosters such as George Moscone, Willie Brown, and the rest of their degenerate San Francisco political cronies about Jim Jones's reign of terror, his extortion, fraud, torture of children, and all the rest.

And did Milk, or any of them--except for one courageous man named Leo Ryan--do ONE DAMN THING TO HELP THOSE POOR PEOPLE TRAPPED IN JONESTOWN?

More importantly: how much does the film "Milk," nominated for multiple Academy Awards tonight, have of this in the script?

25 minutes? No.

15? Guess again, people.

5 minutes?? You're gettin' warm.....think "Nelsonesque Film School" now.

Zero???

A "biopic" about a man that, while achieving greatness in fighting for his minority's rights, doesn't want you to know that before his own tragic murder, he aggressively aided in condemning over 900 Americans to death?

Incredible. Utterly incredible.

While Jones was busy in his Guyana Gulag dunking little children at the bottom of dark wells, confining others for weeks in a box, and doping up dissidents with heavy narcotics, Milk insisted on describing him as a "loving protective parent" and "a man of the highest character."

Gay activist and historian Michael Bellefountaine, who passed away in 2007 had been working on the final stages of his book "A Lavender Look At The People's Temple." A couple of years earlier, in the midst of all his research, the real picture of a far less saintly Harvey Milk appeared to emerge, as Bellefountaine explained in an article he wrote on the 25th Anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre.

"Harvey Milk’s name appears throughout San Francisco," wrote Bellefountaine, "A municipal railway station and plaza, a park and recreation building and one of the city’s most influential political clubs are all named in his memory. A local elementary school is known as the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, and the Eureka Valley Library is now called the Harvey Milk Branch.

"The theme for this year’s gay pride parade was 'give them hope,' Milk’s inspirational rallying cry from gays and lesbians in San Francisco to their brothers and sisters living in rural America. The International Gay and Lesbian Historical Society is producing an extensive exhibit of Milk memorabilia which includes the blood-stained suit he was wearing when he and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down in San Francisco City Hall on November 27, 1978. Twenty-five years after his murder, Harvey Milk has been catapulted to the level of gay martyr. Without question, he has left his mark on San Francisco.

"Despite all the exhibits and memorials of Harvey Milk throughout San Francisco, though, none of them acknowledges Milk’s relationship with Jim Jones and Peoples Temple....

"When Milk and Moscone were killed, San Franciscans were still reeling from the murder of Representative Leo Ryan and the news that hundreds of Jonestown residents, previously thought to have saved themselves by running into the jungle, were apparently willing participants in a suicide ritual. In the aftermath of their murders all mention of connections between Milk, Moscone and Jones were intentionally obscured.

"Out of respect for the politicians, their followers took all necessary steps to sever Milk and Moscone from the pariah Jones. It was not the only mass exodus of political support in the wake of the Jonestown tragedy. Politicians who once enjoyed volunteers, donations and votes from Peoples Temple, could not distance themselves from Jim Jones fast enough.

"Many of these people are still in politics today.

"....One story has it that Milk asked Peoples Temple to remove his name from the church’s list of supporters when reports of violence and theft first came to light, and that he was outraged when the Temple failed to comply with his demand. Eventually, history settled on an official story: Jim Jones was a master manipulator who used unwitting local politicians to gain power for himself.

"The politicians, including Milk and Moscone, used Jones for volunteers and votes, while remaining personally distant and blissfully unaware of rumors of Temple violence, abuse, theft, and even murder. The timing of Dan White’s murderous rampage was deemed coincidental.

"However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Harvey Milk was a strong advocate for Peoples Temple and Jim Jones during his political career, including the tumultuous year leading up to the Jonestown tragedy.

"Milk spoke at the Temple often, wrote personal letters to Jim Jones contacted other elected officials on the Temple’s behalf, and used space in his weekly column to support the works of the Temple, even after the negative New West article went to press. Milk appeared in the pages of the Peoples Forum, the Temple newspaper, and received over fifty letters of sympathy from the residents of Jonestown when his lover, Jack Lira, killed himself in September 1978.

"It is readily apparent from the letters and historical memorabilia that Milk and the Temple enjoyed a mutually supportive relationship until their concurrent deaths. Why then is the relationship such a secret, even taboo to discuss?

"The only biography of Milk to date, 'The Mayor of Castro Street,' by Randy Shilts, downplays the Milk/Temple relationship, even going so far as to paint Milk as one of the countless people who cruelly ridiculed and ostracized the surviving Temple members and their supporters. Like most historians, Shilts opted for an image of an expedient politician, instead of truthfully portraying how Milk worked with Peoples Temple until the end of his life."

Congratulations, Randy Shilts, you have have definitely earned your honorary membership in the People's Temple History Hall Of Shame.

Of course, your portrait will most certainly be in one of the lower tiers, Randy. There are too many others--sleazy politicos, scribes, academics, and wolves in clerical garb--whose depraved notion of ethics will forever ensure them top billing.

As for tonight's Academy Awards spectacle, should for some godawful reason the heavily whitewashed "Milk" take home even one golden statue, let's hope that someone includes in their insufferable acceptance speech a recognition of just how St. Harvey traveled on Beatification Highway.

Reflections Of Fading Anniversary -- And For Many, A Lesson Still Lost

The world rocks and rolls into 2009 in just over an hour as we watch our Jonestown Turns Thirty year officially sink into oblivion.

One of the most ironic things about self-appointed "prophet" Jim Jones was that painfully prophetic sign hanging over his jungle kingdom's throne, bearing Santanya's warning that "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Consider carefully the cult carnage of the Branch Davidians, Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. All were a senseless slaughter like that madman's "revolutionary suicide," all a hideous byproduct of brainwashing and coercion.

All taking place in the years after the Guyana holocaust. Grim oracle indeed.

How many more will we witness? Moreover, how much longer will cults, if not committing outright murder, continue exploiting, brutalizing, and destroying lives? That really depends on the direction of the raging battle by present-day cults and their apologist brigades for today's hearts and minds gullible enough to fall for the dangerous false advertising of "New Religious Movements (NRM)."

Such a perky little euphemism, don't ya think? Throw it onto the rest of the pile, along with so many well-used ones. My favorites include some of the military gems, "pacification," "ethnic cleansing," and "enhanced interrogation techniques." The last one, in fact, is real close to home, isn't it?

But George Bush's torture tag teams have to share some credit. Our Jonestown "pioneers" -- as Becky Moore likes to call them -- had their own special little waterboarding parties just for uncooperative kids, in a quaint ritual called "Big Foot," where terrified children were repeatedly dunked at the bottom of a dark well. On the other hand, film maker Stanley Nelson told the world: "I see them in Jonestown and part of me sees a huge party, you know what I mean?....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..."

Ah, so then perhaps the children were treated to the Temple Waterboard Ride around lunchtime, Stan?

What we can almost certainly count on in 2009 and beyond is more of the same doling out by cult aplogist hordes of generous servings of thought-crushing cliches and propaganda pyrotechnics. Sometimes even the most noxious cultists such as Lafayette Ronnie Hubbard's science fictionologist flakes manage to have a rampaging Tom Cruise be their featured act on a leash.

Entertainment Nirvana!

Recently I heard from reader, Alan Havlick, who shared the frustration of having to deal with an especially twisted cultist in Texas, Doyle Davidson, who's been menacing the public from the airwaves.

"A few years ago," wrote Havlick, "I came across a cult leader and decided to inform cult-stopping groups of his activities. I went online thinking, 'After Jim Jones, there must be hundreds of groups out there, keeping track of these evil men...'

"Sadly, I was wrong.

"I had to open my own website and expose him. We have removed him from every TV station but one and now no one can search his name without also seeing the truth about him at my site. But I am still amazed by the people who continue to follow him -- they have been to my website and seen the truth. Several ex-members post there and confirm the truth, yet they refuse to get out.

"I think you're right about his (Jim Jones) adopted son; he is hanging around with the wrong people. 'Villainized'?? Get real, Jones, Jr.

"While researching Jim Jones I saw that there are several former members and family who still excuse everything with that crud about 'Oh, we helped the poor and elderly.' I would ask, 'So you don't mind if I kill 900 people as long as I help the poor and elderly?!'

"Again, I say: 'Get real.'"

Below is a sampling of the "Water of Life" ministries Grand Guru Doyle, warmly embracing a sinful follower, in a room that appears populated with department store mannequins.



Davidson, besides bedding down with a married member of his flock (and going bonkers when she finally returned to her spouse & children), also equates modern medicine with "witchcraft."

Scientologists, you got a friend.

Speaking of friends, not all my readers are quite as agreeable as Alan is. "Joanne" (no last name) takes a psychoanalytical, if not just plain heated viewpoint.

"I can't help but look," she wrote, "at all these different websites and filmakers and make a spectrum. Rebecca Moore and Mac all the way to the left....you all the way to the right. I don't understand why you can't wrap your head around the similarities you have with Moore and McGhee. You are obviously warped by your father's experience. You can't see past what information you get from that. Rebecca is obviously warped by her family's experience.

"I just don't understand YOUR obvious hatred. There were people in power in the Peoples Temple that were evil and believed in the evil they were doing. But there were many people, who were never in a position of power, who were predominantly black, who were desperately searching for something better. Yes, they were duped, but how can you shamelessly ignore the positive efforts of some of these people?? I believe that's what Stanley Nelson's intentions were...

"To me you are so filled with hate, rage, and self righteousness, I can't read any more of your blogs. You are the equivalent of a four year-old having a temper tantrum..."

Ouch.

Sometimes I never know when it's one of Mac or Becky's pals writing in, so I'll just have to give my critic Joanne the benefit of the doubt. I will say this, as I've said before: I do not hate Becky or Mac.

What I hate is what they're doing. Because cult apologist promotion is WRONG. It's unethical. It's outright dishonest. They have been dishonest and I have proof.

Yes, it does make me feel enraged to know that the imprisonment, abuse, and mass murder of over 900 Americans was entirely preventable, Joanne. PREVENTABLE. That doesn't seem to make any more difference to you than trying to grasp the social psychological dynamics of thought control.




Meet Frankie Fountain (L), David Sanders (R), and Jewel Fountain (above). Two brothers and a sister that helped make up the nearly 300 children slaughtered by Jim Jones.

Frankie was five years old, David, nine, and Jewel, well, this little girl was all of four years old when she was murdered by selected Temple mass murderers. You ever wonder if or how many times they got beaten up, abused, or receive that horrifically cruel cult water torture?

Four year-old Jewel. Maybe she had a temper tantrum when they held her down and forced cyanide down her throat.



Say hello to Dr. Lawrence Schacht (top), Annie Moore (L), and Carolyn Moore (R).

Top-ranking Jonestown death camp executioners who, after their unspeakable crimes, took their own lives. Becky referred to this as "poetic justice."

Wondrously convenient things, these euphemisms.