Division And Controversy Roils Construction of Jonestown Memorial Wall

Dr. Jynona Norwood with son, the Rev. Ed Norwood, at Jonestown Memorial Service, Evergreen Cemetery, where controversial wall is planned.

Before sharing the inside story of a People's Temple child who would lose his mother to the cult in California--long before the cyanide mass murder in Guyana--I'd like to share this most recent message from Lela Howard, subject of the last posting.

She first asked me some direct questions, and then followed up with some even more pointed inquiry and outright criticism of the current status quo of the memorial wall project. First, her questions to me:

Q: "Are you concerned with the victims and how their families feel about Peoples Temple, the media's spin on the tragedy and how we (family) have been treated over the years?"

A: Quite obviously I am concerned, and that is why this blog came to be. I'm both saddened and outraged. Sad for the men, women, and children that fell victim to cult enslavement, one of those super destructive cults that resulted in mass murder. The media's "spin", as I've repeatedly said, is deceptive and deplorable. They owe you a voice, not a twisted echo.

Q: "Are you concerned about those family and survivors who are still so afraid to speak about Peoples Temple or their relatives who perished, because of the salacious, scandalous manner the media, press, etc., has made a joke out of the deaths?"

A: Any of them, from bottom feeding shock jocks like Howard Stern to glib, ignorant news reporters, who would make "fun" out of a mass murder, deserve censure. This is why it is so important to educate the public about the dynamics of how cults DESTROY independent spirit, thought, action, and defenseless children.

Q: "Are you more concerned with getting those who disassociated themselves after giving Jim Jones the power to create Jonestown, acquire the poison and allow him to rise to 'fame'? Because if so, those individuals are still around the political circuit and have not (to my knowledge) answered the tough questions. (Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they never fathomed the horrors of November 18, 1978 and probably feel loads of guilt.)"


Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown reacted to the news of the mass murder of over 900 people that "he has not regrets" over his past association with Jones and the People's Temple. Brown also mentioned he would not try to dissociate himself like so many other politicians were, claiming "They all like to say, 'Forgive me, I was wrong', but that's bulls--t. It doesn't mean a thing now, it just isn't relevant."

A: Such a sizable, sleazy population of culprits, Lela. Temple Untouchables like politician Willie Brown, preacher John Moore, and Examiner editor Charles Gould played important parts in the reckless creation of the Jim Jones Frankenstein. All the cult cheer leaders still with us clearly have neither the morality or courage to publicly admit to their aiding & abetting. They refuse to apologize to you, and all the other relatives who lost their loved ones. Don't let them forget that you know they're still hiding in their vast swamp of denial.

Lela then opened up about the impending memorial wall, and some deep concerns (which today's media, surprise, surprise--has ignored.)

"A memorial wall at Oakland cemetery is great!" she wrote, "But I thought money was collected for that many years ago--what happened to those funds? It seems as if there's an unnecessary competition in regards to memorials for the victims, which takes away from the focal point of remembering them.

This makes me very sad and confused, because this separates us or leans towards a school yard 'choosing sides' type of mentality, instead of family and survivors coming together and honoring our loved ones. It's more about the living and their egos, rather than those who perished...very, very, very sad.

The latter I understand you can't answer, or maybe you can....ask around, use your platform to correct the wrong and continuous wrong doings."

The current wall project is being administered by the "Cherishing The Children/Guyana Tribute Foundation," headed by Dr. Jynona Norwood, who is CEO. Norwood, pictured at the beginning of this post, lost 27 family members in the massacre.

"Although the donations have come in slowly over the years," says Norwood on her official website, "the monies, which remain in escrow for the Cherishing the Children Healing Memorial Wall,
still continue to gain interest. Senator Dianne Feinstein appointed the late police psychologist, Dr. Chris Hatcher, to the surviving families for counseling.

Dr. Hatcher became the first signature on the memorial wall bank account, along with former Human Rights Commissioner, Rev. Eugene Lumpkin. Rev. Lumpkin was appointed by then-Mayor Frank Jordan as our liaison to San Francisco City Hall. Dr. Hatcher and Rev. Lumpkin joined me as we opened the Jonestown Memorial Wall Fund with our own money.

We have always had four signatures on our bank account. Also, it is mandatory that two signatures are required in order to remove any funds from the account. The Jonestown Memorial Wall Fund account is always available for public viewing.

We are not a part of any other groups who are collecting monies for any type of memorial in the name of the Jonestown victims.

The staff remains vigilant in their efforts to erect the wall, which will have a three-fold purpose: To honor the sanctity of the innocent lives that were lost; to raise public awareness that you never give up your ability to think for yourself; and to question everyone and everything!"

Grieving Relative of Jonestown Victim Wants Those Responsible To "Pay For Their Treacherous Ways"

Of all the Big Media, the most noxious right-wing ideologues are those talking blockheads at "Faux" News. After their amazing partisan performance in 2000's Presidential Installment Circus, there was absolutely no doubting it: Rupert Murdoch's raging Republican mouthpiece had won the crown as The American BBC ("Bush Broadcasting Corporation".)

Such is--in the words of that supreme faux, Blathering Bill O'Reilly--the talking point of the above portrait of an ersatz "Live" report of the massacre taking place on their watch.

Sensational, false, and harmful; this is the "entertainment/ratings at ANY COST" nature of news that so much of our mainstream media has degenerated today. But the past, it turned out, was merely the calm before this storm. At that time, the problem was too often lazy, slipshod, or sleeping-on-the-job journalism. All of this helped produce Jonestown, a tragedy of epic proportions, the accountability (of silence) from which nearly all these media groups run.

But leave it to Fox News to be probably the only Big Media group to actually offer any coverage on the 29th anniversary this year. Of course, they stuck to the typical formula glimpse at the People's Temple cult. Their "Line Up" show host asked Jonestown survivor Thom Bogue about the "changes in Jim Jones", which he might have noticed "in Guyana".

In Guyana?? So, in other words, St. James really actually wasn't all that bad in those years preceding his escape to Guyana in 1977? Interesting, how easily Big Media has developed amnesia over Jones's fraud, extortion, unsolved killings, and child torture that went on all those years in California. They're real adept, though, when it comes to hammering politicians running away from other large and small private & public scandals, aren't they?

Bogue did manage to tell Fox about the "punishments" at Jonestown, which he said became "more intense" (which should have prompted the reporter to ask about all the others in the past.) He talked about what the cult called the "Green Eyed Monster", an electro-shock treatment machine used to torture children, one of which was as young as four years.

Too bad Fox lacked the integrity to ask about the "Blue Eyed Monster" torture, a ghastly practice carried out on the cult's children during its California years. This one involved sending terrified small children into dark rooms, where Jones's thugs would convulse them with cattle prods. No, reporters like Marshall Kilduff and others were too busy pursuing Jones "early and often" at City Hall to be bothered with such "unsubstantiated" matters.

This, then, is the first of the Top Ten Talking Points to present in the spirit of the ritual end-of-the-year round up. But there's something very important that belongs with with Point #10.

It is an appeal for the still long overdue accountability. By someone who understandably still suffers for the terrible, senseless loss of her loved one at Jonestown. For others, it might be two, five, or even twenty-five lost relatives.

While I don't agree with everything Lela Howard says in this letter sent to my father last November, there is much that touches me, much that rings true. Yes, there were many well-meaning people that were a part of People's Temple, that were lured in by Jim Jones's call for "spiritual redemption" and "social justice." Many of them, I'm sure, did not outright participate in the crimes ordered by Jones's little politburo, but rather were victims of it.

Victims of thought reform. Mind control. Brain washing. Call it what you will. Cult apologists like Becky Moore and Mac McGhee desperately want to dismiss this, by perverting reality and revising history. They won't succeed.

The Greek statesman Demosthenes once said: "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."

Here, then, is the voice of one of the many, many grieving. She'd like, among other things, to confront all those that aided and abetted Jim Jones while he marched over 900 men, women, and children into the hell of cult captivity, and slaughter.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Mr Les Kinsolving:

My aunt died that horrible day in Jonestown and last year I found her picture on the 'Who Died' list on Mac and Becky's website. They have allowed me to voice my thoughts about growing up listening to the awful comments about my aunt, which no other format exists to do so. I decided to contact you after reading your son's blog, speaking harshly about them. The frown on my face won't disappear until I hit the send button. I can't understand how or why the good they've done is being twisted.

I am not contacting you to debate, but simply to be a voice for my aunt. She did not deserve to die. Her name does not deserve to be defined as one of those 'drinking the Kool-aide' crazy people.

Yes, there are many who should step forward and explain their roles in the deaths, but as you know, that's not going to happen. Yes, I would like to know the names of those responsible. Yes, I would like to confront them and ask 'Why?' Yes, I would like them to pay for their treacherous ways.

But most important to me is to let the world(i.e., you, your son, the media,
educators, etc.) know that Mary Pearl Willis was my aunt. She deserves to be here today living her life, having Sunday dinners with her family, getting old and gray.

Unfortunately, she lays six feet under a sealed lead casket, identified as 'Body #71-E and a Member of the People's Temple' by the State Department. Her identity has has been taken from her and it is used to take jabs at others, not giving thought to how her family feels as we approach another year marking the day she ascended into heaven.

Why not write about how survivors and families have been made to feel ashamed? How we've been treated as their lives didn't matter? Forced to see biased movies, showing our loved ones as anything other than human? Stanley and Tim's movies are the closest it comes to showing them as individuals, see it from that point of view. I can't make you do it, but for one moment think how good it felt to see a project showing my aunt as a human being and not a robot.

If you or your son are willing to hear a different perspective, contact me. I would love to end the 'Hatfields vs. McCoys' type of blogging and explain how it feels to not have the massacre taught in schools as a part of history. Personally, I have contacted schools asking to have it added and will continue to pursue this until it's done.

Every interview I've given before the cameras roll, I make the reporters promise not to say 'suicide,' because it was murder! The latest projects are the first to show that, don't you think that's great? It's educating people about facts, instead of the spoon-fed fiction for nearly 30 years. With your voice, help educate, getting the facts out about that horrible day.

How much longer can fingers be pointed? Let's get on the same page. You've called out the ones who did wrong--now let's talk about getting the media to spread the truth.

Sincerely,

Lela Howard


Agreed, Lela: Let those responsible for backing Jim Jones step forward and face the music. If they don't, then we'll just give 'em a bugle blast warning and charge right in. I understand the part about Stanley Nelson's film humanizing the members of the Temple, which it certainly does and should. The problem with Nelson is his appalling dishonesty in telling the WHOLE story of the People's Temple. He deliberately rearranged, embellished, and outright deleted so many facts that it devolved into an insidious patchwork of cult apologist half-truths.

Of course, it surely exceeded the wildest dreams of our friends at the "Jonestown Institute", didn't it, Mac and Becky??

Okay, okay....you can stop applauding now.

In the next post, the year's Talking Point #9 will feature the exclusive story told of a former cult member who'll describe what it was like to be a child in the People's Temple during its Redwood Valley, California years, a time where Nelson was quoted claiming the Temple "shared a lot of love."

A "lot of love"? More importantly for this boy, and his sisters, was the probability that cult operatives had murdered his mother.

Now try and guess just exactly how much screen time Scrupulous Stanley offered for this little tidbit of background on that "loving, activist" period of Rev. Jones's Apostolic Socialist Experiment.

Stay tuned.

Jonestown Anniversary Gets Near-Universal Blackout--By The Same Media That Largely Condoned People's Temple Terror

A week ago this day they gathered, as they've done on the same date each passing year of the cataclysm, to mourn what was so utterly avoidable.

The lonely tombstone on an Oakland hillside stands watch over the 400 murder victims resting in the mass grave. For too many years, it has been essentially ignored by the Big Media. This year appears to be little different than most of the rest.


Many, if not most, of those in this mass grave are the children and babies slaughtered in one of the worst cult crimes in history. But on this, the 29th anniversary, a dramatic difference unfolded. Members of a group calling themselves the Guyana Memorial Wall Project were holding a ceremony, in which they did more than light a candle for each of the children and read off their names.

They announced, at long last, that a memorial wall--featuring a special dedication written by famed poet Maya Angelou--is finally going up in Evergreen Cemetery.

The project's executive director, Jynana Norwood, suffered the unspeakable loss of 27of her closest relatives, including her mother. “Our wall is in the spirit of others whose lives were lost due to hate or ignorance," said Norwood, citing the Jewish Holocaust, African slave trade, Vietnam War, and other modern-day tragedies.

Norwood added that this memorial "will honor the children and others, who were victimized by Jim Jones, including Congressman Leo Ryan and the UPI news crew. We will donate a percentage of the funds to help educate any child that wants to attend college or a technical school. Our focus is for the future.”

What, readers? You mean you DIDN'T HEAR A WORD OF COVERAGE about this event last week??

Oh, well, a few of you were lucky enough to catch one of the two local TV news broadcasts, or even unearth this story from an online edition of the Black newspaper, New Pittsburgh Courier.

But for the vast public they supposedly are to keep informed, our Big Media once again has deliberately fumbled the ball. Just as they did in prostrating themselves before Jim Jones in the 60's and early 70's, until those publishers and editors regrew their backbones, and exposed his destructive cult--too little, too late.

Yes, they'll likely oblige a bit of perfunctory coverage on next year's magic number 30 anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, especially if this wall is finished and officially dedicated. But don't expect the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, or any of the broadcast networks to give you any thing different than the same old fabricated slop they claim was the Rise and Fall of People's Temple.


Especially now that they've championed Director Stanley Nelson's cinematic apologia that impresses viewers with all the "good things" about that cult nightmare, that none of us really could fully appreciate until Stan's editing wizardry was showcased.

Nelson, like the reckless, irresponsible media directors that ushered into power Miracle Man Jim Jones, has been gullible enough to swallow all the fairy tales from cult-friendly sources.

His primary fountain of disinformation is Rebecca Moore, head of the "Jonestown Institute," who does a magnificent job of fusing truth and fiction when doling out "the facts" about People's Temple, Jonestown, and cults in general. But the "C" word is absolutely verboten around Becky; no, cults--even the most destructive--must be dolled up in palatable terms: "New Religious Movements".

But let's not give Prof. Moore ALL the credit. She's got lots of friends, such as her two equally flaming cult apologists, Douglas Cowan and Catherine Wessinger. The three of them produce "Nova Religio," a Univ. of California Press journal purporting to give "scholarly interpretations and examinations of alternative religious movements."

Certainly. "Scholarly interpretations" much like those planted throughout Moore's (and husband "Mac" McGehee) website, such as the statement about "mixed reports" on conditions at the Guyana Gulag. "Work was hard, and as Jones seemed to grow more paranoid, never-ending," she concedes in her FAQ section. Then Moore tosses in this clever little canard: "...At the same time, however, audiotapes the community made of its own meetings reveal a sense of camaraderie, laughter, good times, and high purpose."

A "sense" of "good times"?

It's a shame that film maker Nelson was too lazy to consult with some ethical, genuine expert sources on cult social psychological dynamics, especially after Moore spoon fed him all this hogwash.

Dr. Moss David Posner, for instance, could have easily provided an antidote for Nelson's subsequent delusion. An excerpt from Posner's paper entitled, "How to Control Americans--Thought Control, Mind Control, Disinformation, and Other Naughty Things":

"Have you ever asked yourself—-how on earth can he or she believe such-and-such a story? Sometimes we are not even sure if a speaker, or news commentator, or whoever—actually believes what they are saying. The truth of the matter, however, is often more subtle:

There are degrees of awareness; and in those cases where we know that what we are hearing is patently absurd or indefensible, that speaker may have started by knowing better; but over a period of time, by virtue of their motivation, known or unknown, they have come to be convinced otherwise....

.....Consider the song from 'The King and I:'

'Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
--I’m afraid.'

Later on, we hear:

'The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people I fear
I fool myself as well.'

Please take this very seriously. Several years ago there was a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The customers were taken hostage and held for several days, clearly against their will. Days later when the authorities came subsequently to rescue the hostages, not only did they not welcome the police, but many of them actually threw themselves in front of the robbers in an attempt to shield them from being killed in a hail of bullets. This phenomenon is recognized as “The Stockholm Syndrome.”

It was I believe the film “Bridge over the River Kwai,” in which the leader of a British force captured by the Japanese is ordered to build a bridge. At first, with resistance, then with reluctance, he begins to build the bridge. By the time the Allied forces come to rescue him and his men, he was at the point of attacking his allies in order to defend his creation. In one dramatic moment, he looks squarely at the camera and says, with quiet horror, 'My God! What have I done?'

On a wider scale, we see this behavior in the success of cults. On the other hand, cutting off a person from the outside world, constantly and repetitively indoctrinating them, and accompanying this with threats of social group disapproval on the one hand, and loving acceptance based upon obedience, on the other, can drastically change a person’s behavior changed in a chillingly short period of time."

And if simple mind-control didn't complete the enslavement of those at Jonestown, besides the menacing armed guards, "Dad" Jim employed drugs to ensure the continuation what Becky Moore points to as not only "good times", but a "high purpose."

Yes, "high" would be one way to describe conditions at Jonestown. According to one of the post-massacre reports from the S.F. Examiner, entitled "How Jones Used Drugs," surviving Temple defector Dale Parks recalled:

"If a person wanted to leave Jonestown or if there was a breach of rules, one was taken to the extended-care unit," he explained. "It was a rehabilitation place, where one would be re-integrated back into the community. The people were given drugs to keep them under control."

After a few days or weeks, Parks said, the patients lost their desire to leave the commune and no further behavioral problems were anticipated.

Asked about the use of drugs for brainwashing, Parks said, "It is a reasonable assumption that such went on in the extended-care unit."

The report ends with a chilling list of the drugs cult enforcers used to ensure--as Moore claims--"camaraderie":

The following are examples from a partial inventory that has been independently authenticated by law enforcement sources.

1. Thorazine (chlorpromazine), 10,000 injectable doses and 1,000 tablets in a size normally given only "for severe neuropsychiatric conditions." The drug acts "at all levels of the central nervous system." It is effective for the "management of the manifestations of psychotic disorders" and for control of the manic depressive.

2. Quaaludes, 1,000 doses of the sedative-hypnotic drug frequently used in suicide attempts.

3. Vistaril, 1,000 doses. Used for total management of anxiety, tension and psycho motor agitation; can render the disturbed patient more amenable to psychotherapy in long-term treatment of neurotics and psychotics.

4. Noludar, 1,000 pills. A sleeping aid that produces both physiological and psychological dependence. Moderate overdoses can produce delirium and confusion; large overdoses, stupor leading to coma.

5. Valium injectable, 3,000 doses. Useful in treating neurotic states manifested by tension, anxiety, apprehension, fatigue, depressive symptoms or agitation.

6. Valium tablets, 2,000. An overdose of Valium in either form tends to make suicidal patients more likely to make a death attempt.

7. Morphine sulphate, injectable, 200 vials. This strong pain killer can be habit-forming and have complex psychological effects.

8. Demerol, 20,000 doses. A narcotic analgesic, it should be used with great caution and has multiple reactions similar to those of morphine.

9. Talwin, 1,150 doses. Similar to Demerol in morphine-like actions. The drug has a history of creating psychological and physical dependence.

10. Seconal, 1,000 pills. An extremely dangerous sedative and hypnotic that can be habit-forming. Must be used under medical supervision.

So, if a week-long stint in one of the cult's wooden "punishment boxes" (where children were sent, as well) didn't produce a "good times were had by all" attitude, then forcing a cultist to get wasted on multiple hits of Demerol or Quaaludes surely would.

What is so absolutely reprehensible is that anyone would seriously promote the "positive" sides of the People's Temple, be it the cult's California years or its hellish final phase in Guyana. For Becky Moore, and for that matter, her disgraceful father, Rev. John Moore, maintaining this charade is obviously their way of coping with two family members--Carolyn and Annie--that were cult enforcers and, in the end, executioners of the children that lie under that tombstone today in Evergreen Cemetery.

Jynana Norwood had the courage and wisdom to resist the cult, and at least rescue her son, instead of degenerating into a Temple apologist and pathological liar.

She might consider, however, before handing out educational grants from the Guyana Memorial Project, that all recipients have in their required courseload, a class that will teach all the danger signs of destructive cults.

That, of course, would be the prerequisite to the other mandatory course:

Confronting the Cult Apologist Plague on the College Campus.