Two Tragic Anniversaries: Will Our Mass Media Still Refuse To Tell The Whole Story?

The frightening sensation of this day, again. Just like it clobbered me the first time and has repeated itself, times seven. The view is now obliterated by horror visions of that long, excruciating day.

Today, the nation mourns the greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster.

I wonder, though, about a certain something. Does anyone think our mass media will give even a fraction of this coverage for the other unspeakable slaughter? You know. The one that was the second greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster?


I'm willing to wager that not only will this year's anniversary--the 30th Anniversary--of the Jonestown Massacre get just token attention, but it will be exactly the same wretched slop of half-truths that our distinguished media elites have been serving up since that terrible day, November 18, 1978.

The 9/11 disaster, of course, occurred in a completely different context. Indeed it did. The cause, the scope, repercussions. No question about it.

But one thing that shot alarmingly to the surface (our right-wing, loyal Bush Boosters have done like Dubya and just looked away) was that this horrendous tragedy seven years ago today was entirely preventable. What got in way of wiping out Bin Laden's savages before they struck was the most miserable, bumbling, and corrupt president in American history.

And the other horrendous tragedy, in Guyana? Oh, the thing that has been purposely anchored beneath the surface is that it also was entirely preventable. It, too, featured a miserable and corrupt politician. Left-wing, unlike Bush, but just as vile. In fact, a whole lot of them. Elected officials, such as former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who came out with his autobiography this year. (Brown's fleeting and self-serving "What did I do?" will leave your breathless.) Others, well, they wore editor outfits and preacher suits.

But you don't have to dwell on all of that, any more than you would have to face the truth about 9/11. Just focus on the corporate media's stew of truncated facts and
and self-congratulatory praises, if you feel more comfortable thinking that Jim Jones's mass murder of 276 children and over 700 others was completely unavoidable.

If you don't, then feel free to return here later. I've got much more to share.

If this woman doesn't look familiar, please send your thank-you notes to our media, and an especially loud applause to Mockumentary Wizard Stanley Nelson, director of "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple." Lord Nelson left her completely out, because his "scripted" little tale wouldn't fly so well if his audience learned about Maxine Harpe, the Temple Cult's first murder victim--in California.

Was it just one of those "inconvenient truths", Stan, that compelled you to hide Maxine's story, a woman ruthlessly targeted by Jim Jones years before his Guyana Gulag was even a blueprint??

And guess what: She wasn't the only life to be snuffed out during this brutal cult's California years.

The rest of the story is on the way.

On Celebrating Independence Day--and Forgetting The Lessons of History

Yesterday, on the eve of our nation's 232nd birthday, they released a now-healthy bald eagle near Lake Tohopekaliga, Florida. The proud national bird had been recuperating for the past two months after an apparent fight with another eagle.

Every time I think bald eagle, I recall the story of "Old Abe," the 8th Wisconsin Regiment's mascot during the Civil War that bravely served through 36 battles, including the decisive capture of Vicksburg on our Independence Day in 1863.

The daring "Old Abe" managed to survive the war, despite being repeatedly fired upon by indignant rebel forces. But of course several hundred thousand Americans weren't so lucky. And they were the ones that magnificent bird's namesake called in his Gettysburg Address "these honored dead" that "we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..."

Freedom. So often such a relative term, depending upon where you might find yourself, and to what authority you're forced to answer to.


Of course, Abraham Lincoln had a decidedly ruthless scorch earth policy when it came to winning the peace for that new birth of freedom, e.g., blocking all medical supplies to the Southern people, locking up anyone he wanted without trial, etc.

Still, I strongly doubt he would have approved of the totalitarian tactics practiced by well-known cultists in peace time, past or present. The most recent news item was the lamentable court decision to return the children to the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) Texas prison farm. Yes, separating children from their mothers can never be easy, yet what is far more agonizing is knowing these children are captives in a horrendously oppressive cult.


Exactly how oppressive is this FLDS "Yearning For Zion Ranch"? Well, here's just a sampling of some of the "privileges" doled out to aspiring saints by now-incarcerated leader Warren Jeffs:

1. Forbidden members to use television sets, VCRs, video games or to have connections to the Internet.

2. Banned boating, fishing and other water activities.

3. Instructed parents to throw away most children's books including the Bible.

4. Terminated community and holiday celebrations, such as observing the birthdays of previous leaders and Pioneer Day.

5. Stopped dances, socials, and other get-togethers.

6. Warned members that laughter causes the spirit of God to leak from their bodies. He based this belief on an obscure statement by Joseph Smith.

7. Expelled many men and reassigned their wives and children to other men.

8. Expelled large numbers of teenage boys from his areas of control in order to artificially increase the ratio of females to males. Only by discharging young males does polygamy become possible.

Tyrannical. Absolutist. Outrageous. And, still, the children were shipped right back into the jaws of the beast.

The "specs" on this particular machine, yeah, might differ from other cult mental meat grinders. Nevertheless, it has all the efficiency of other past and present models.

Santanya, a grand salute as the people keep on keepin' on forgettin' those history lessons...














"Prophet" Jones: "Now if you just had had friends like Herb Caine, John Moore, and Willie Brown, you might be sittin' in the Dallas Housing Authority Chair, Warren--instead of a prison cell!" "Prophet" Jeffs: "....Hey, don't forget Tim Stoen, Jimmy!"

FANATIC NATIONALISTS -- JUST CULTISTS WITH BIGGER GUNS??

Time to rouse the Apologists Alert from hiatus, everyone....and we'll do it with something very special!

There's a whole lot to talk about, with this Mormon Polygamist Cult story still unfolding in Texas (bearing eerie parallels, of course, with some of the perversity that made People's Temple tick.) Brainwashing, coercion, and child abuse, to name a few.


And it's bound to happen that the cult apologists will slither out from under their rocks to sing the Fight Song for those FLDS Wonders. The ACLU--surprise, surprise--has already chimed in. “Children and parents," say the Bold Barristers that once went to bat for child pornographers, "have the right to be together....children may not be separated from their parents based solely on the state’s disagreement with a group’s thoughts or beliefs, religious or otherwise.”

As if it were just that simple. No wonder some of the cult communities around us have literally gotten away with murder.

Speaking of which, it has to be said that the murder tally for political extremist groups, worldwide, has never had to worry that their record will ever be broken. Mass murder, persecution, discrimination--and sometimes the most grotesque ethnic cleansing campaigns have been perpetrated in the name of a "cause" for which they've been conditioned.

And, no matter the cataclysmic outcome, how many thousands, or millions of innocents' lifes destroyed, or even if the "blowback" will haunt them for 50, 100, 500 years--they never learn.

We get a lot of news coverage, especially from the Middle East. But for some odd reason, not all this large-scale cultish savagery has gotten equal time.



Or equal treatment.

Join me at the address below for an intriguing story at the Alert's sister site, would you?

www.incandescentplanetreflections.blogspot.com