The Memorial To A Mass Murderer: Please Come To Oakland And See How It's Done

The Rev. Jim Jones and his executioners have been given a freshly washed new face, ladies and gentlemen.

Now let us pray......for a return to sanity.

It all became official at noon time last Sunday during an Oakland, California ceremony that loudly proclaimed all murderous psychopaths -- no matter how notorious, whatever heinous crimes, tortures, or executions they perpetrated -- are now eligible to be honored as "victims."

And with just the right supporters, these monsters can even be memorialized in marble, right along side the men, women, children, and babies they happened to have exterminated.  Just think -- all the other colorful personalities that can now be featured on memorials worldwide.  Mr. Pol Pot, now your departed spirit really has something  to smile about!

Let's propose that Pol's pic be featured in the photo gallery of all his murder victims posted in  Cambodia's Tuol Sleng Museum, formerly the notorious prison where his Khmer Rouge "inner circle" goons did their ghastly work.  And why on earth not; it's the healthiest way acknowledge the entirety of the tragedy.  Brings closure to ALL the relatives of those who suffered in the madness, be they givers or receivers.  That's right.

The very disturbed Mister Pot surely had good intentions at the start of his divine mission, didn't he?  His nation-devouring Khmer cult simply wanted to create an egalitarian world with a rather radical form of "social engineering," where everyone could farm communally, peacefully, and free of bourgeoise contaminants.

Give him credit at least for being truly sincere, even if he did fall far short of the dream of "Apostolic Socialism."  That little utopian notion belonged all to James Warren Jones and his Peoples Temple cult.  But due to the little problem of Jones being a raging sociopath since childhood -- killing animals for "pet funerals," shooting guns at friends that didn't follow his directions and beating others -- his Brave New World was pretty much doomed from the start.

But for some reason, Jones's cult apologists just won't quit trying to resuscitate this demon.  So on Sunday they took it a step further and included his name on a new memorial to all the Jonestown dead at Evergreen Cemetery.  When this perverse proposal was  being bandied about last November by one of his surviving sons, Jim Jones, Jr., one of my readers expressed the outrage:

"What a horrid, bloody nightmare and it just indicates that there is a serious and sustained effort to sanitize Jim Jones's image to the public," wrote Jei Hu Quan, " Jones was a psychopath, a rapist, a paedophile, a rampant abuser and grinning, braying sadist.  It's clear that there's a concerted push by the same parties that engineered the massacre and other interests to minimize the actual atrocities carried out there.  Every year around this time I see vile propaganda pushing the 'official story'.....making sure the story adheres to the deployed line.  Monsters infiltrated amongst true survivors to synthesize credibility....." 

Jynona Norwood (white dress), who has tried for the last ten years to erect a memorial wall -- one that would never feature the name of the monster that destroyed 27 members of her family -- leads the camp of relatives and their supporters (including the legendary Dick Gregory) that are understandably outraged.   She went to court to try to have the new Jim Jones enhanced memorial blocked but failed.

According to the Oakland Tribune, "Norwood's work to build a memorial wasn't successful -- the stones that were unveiled Sunday were the work of organizers including Jones' adopted son, Jim Jones Jr. -- and her efforts in court to stop the version with Jones' name from being made public were turned down by a judge last week.

She promised to protest the ceremony, calling Jones' inclusion a deep insult to his victims, but she was not present Sunday, and the ceremony concluded without any disruption. Despite her conflict with the organizers, though, Norwood's name was spoken with respect during the ceremony.

'I want to take a moment to appreciate the faithfulness of Jynona Norwood,' said Rebecca Moore, a survivor whose husband was among the fundraising organizers for the memorial. Year in and year out, she said, Norwood has diligently worked for the well-being of her fellow survivors and organized numerous ceremonies to help them come together."


Ahhhh, Becky Moore and hubby Mac McGehee.  Should have seen their greasy cult apologist prints all over this "new & improved memorial" travesty. (The real question is who exactly is the money bagman behind this desecration.)  Now she adds insult to injury by patronizing Norwood while she, Mac, Jones, Jr., and the rest of 'em turning the knife round and round.

And a couple of corrections are in order regarding Becky:  She's not a "survivor" since she never was a member of this cult (though a hell of a Temple publicist to this day, yes) and, secondly, there's the matter of her two sisters, Annie and Carolyn, who both died at Jonestown.  These two were in Jim Jones's inner circle and were busy murdering babies, children and anyone else they could find during that horrendous day in November, like a couple of obedient Manson girls.  The same question should apply:  As with Jones, should the homocidal Annie and Carolyn (and any other of  his mass murderering thugs that day) also have the privilege of being memorialized with their victims? 

  One of the members of their camp, Jonestown survivor Leslie Wagner-Wilson, called their Jones-The-Victim salute a "healing wall" that's in the spirit of "inclusiveness and forgiveness."

Jim Jones, Jr., pictured on left, appeared delighted last Sunday at their triumph (while his brother Stephen Jones, on the right, looked less than thrilled.)  But the only victory here was one for the revisionists and cult apologists for whom this is far more than an issue of just "inclusiveness."  What it sadly demonstrates is just how desperate people will behave in order to blast to smithereens that elephant in their room that just won't go away.

If some people actually believe putting the sadistic killer (and his depraved executioners) of this little child on the same memorial is not only healing but moral, then our society is clearly much further along the road to depravity than previously imagined.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are also some diehard disciples of the Khmer Rouge that would have no problem with adorning any and all future memorials in Cambodia with the "healing" inclusion of the brutally efficient man that had children bludgeoned to death with iron bars and pickaxes.

In all likelihood, that was probably far more merciful a fate than that cyanide.   

Now It's A "Cult Restaurant With Better Kool-Aid" And People Hellbent to Memorialize Mass Murderers

Did you happen to see the story about the Indiana eatery that really wanted to put a fun and profitable spin on the Jonestown Massacre?

Yeah, that's the billboard these cretins had posted all over the city of South Bend, Indiana for two weeks.  Then somebody reportedly complained and suddenly it wasn't such a cute, catchy pitch after all.

So they mercifully pulled down these atrocious ads.

"Our role is not to be controversial or even edgy. We want to be noticed — and there's a difference,"  remarked Jeff Leslie, Hacienda Restaurant vice president of sales and marketing.  "It went the wrong direction, hit a nerve, and we have come to realize  we should not have done this billboard. We lose the core message."   

You "lose the core message," eh?  I'd say the next best thing would be for you and anyone that approved that to lose, oh, how about your job.  Better yet, since the owner surely had a say in this, why not diners just boycott this stinking company into bankruptcy.  That's the very least they could do.

Yes, Jeff, there IS a fundamental difference between being noticed and exploiting this unspeakable tragedy for profit.  I guess I can sort of understand what would tempt you and your fellow knuckleheads to play on this.  

After all, it is a part of our lexicon now, isn't it?  You hear it everywhere.  "They really drank the Kool-aid on that one....We had to drink the Kool-aid, people....Oh, no, don't drink the Kool-aid yet....!"

And sadly, with so much passage of time, there are too many people alive today with no memory of how truly agonizing it was to experience November 18, 1978, that event that took more American lives in a non-natural disaster in history, until the cataclysm of 9/11.

Anyone who's followed this "item" since then or happened to see coverage a few years ago of the 30th anniversary of the mass murder of over 900 men, women, children, and babies will understand.  The woman in the purple plaid dress is Jynona Norwood, weeping over the loss of 27 members of her family to a demon named Jim Jones and his gang of killers.

They were unveiling the first panels of what was to be a memorial wall at the Oakland, California cemetery where nearly half of the People's Temple dead are buried together in a mass grave.

Of course, that ultimately will segue into another scandalous issue, involving a rival group of Peoples Temple survivors & relatives lead by Jim Jones, Jr., who want to build a separate Jonestown Memorial.  Jones, Jr. is the son of the cult beast that robbed all those people of their lives.


"I'm Jim Jones Jr.," he told Oprah Winfrey in an appearance last year, "I'm the African-American son that was adopted in  Indiana by a Caucasian family.  I'm part of an organization that tried to  build a new world.  Nine hundred people died, and I miss them  every day. But I also recognize that they tried.  They tried  something—they failed horrifically—but they tried, and out of that, I've  taken a lot of pride to realized that I'm Jim Jones Jr.  I can't hide  from that."

"Build a new world"??  As in, oh, a kind of Brave New World, where entire families were brainwashed, threatened, extorted out their life savings, abused, beaten, and then slaughtered like cattle at  "Dad's" command?

No, what Jones, Jr. is promoting is about the worst kind of cult apologists tripe one could imagine.  Not much different than what "New Religious Movement" Prof. Becky Moore likes to preach.  Not that he or she (the latter who wasn't even in the cult) should bear guilt over what occurred in Guyana by any measure.  What they need is the simple courage and honesty to finally admit the reality of Peoples Temple was that it was one of the most destructive cults in American history.

Instead, they and other Temple apologists continuing attempting to white wash the horror and make excuses.  Astounding things, like claiming it was Cong. Leo Ryan that was the real culprit, along with all the other "apostates", for pushing Rev. Jones over the edge.  Apostates, by the way, is the convenient little denigration that Becky slams into those lucky enough to escape the cult and try to rescue their family and friends still held captive in Jonestown.

But like Jim Jones, Jr., Becky's got some emotional baggage that she too wants to "recondition."  Being the sister of two of Jones's own personal mass murderers, Annie Moore and Carolyn Layton, and daughter of one of the cult's key disinformation men,  Rev. John Moore, would explain that.

But it'll never, ever justify layering the truth with revisionist fantasies.  Not one bit.  They don't even want to call it a "cult," because that would suggest that something was fundamentally wrong about a group of people swirling in depravity, thanks to "Dad" Jones's expert thought reform and skilled terror tactics.

Ironically enough, Jim Jones got his start in the state of Indiana, the very same state where this deplorable restaurant chain currently resides.  Would this, then, be a case of poetic justice?

That's the nice sanitized send off remark, "poetic justice," that Becky Moore went on record to describe how her Jonestown executioner sisters met their end after they made sure all the adults, children, and babies were dead either from gunfire or the utterly agonizing cyanide--almost all of which was forcibly injected.

Which brings us to a really significant question.  Norwood worked very hard to try to get the Memorial Wall constructed but has still come up short for cash.  This really ought to be paid out by some of Jones's surviving San Francisco collaborators, such as the highly despicable former mayor Willie Brown and Glide Church pastor Cecil Williams.  Jones couldn't have pulled off the crime of the century without them.  They have blood on their hands but still couldn't care less about washing it off.  No, just keep smilin', Willie.  Enjoy the millions of dollars you stashed away.

But there's yet another very important question burning into the conscience, for those that still have one.

Should this monstrosity's name actually be placed side by side on a memorial designed to honor his victims?  And for that matter, should any of those killers, Annie Moore, Carolyn Layton, Larry Schacht, and the others that worked so diligently for him also have their names memorialized -- as victims??

It's a bit like building a memorial for all the victims at one of Pol Pot's Cambodian death camps and insisting this include the names of murderous guards that committed suicide after they'd killed everyone.  Jim Jones, Jr., on the other hand, is convinced he has the final word on the matter.

"Pretty much everyone who was in the Peoples Temple is over Jim Jones," he said. "They've forgiven him or gotten past their anger. It's time we recognize that."

What is recognizable here is that this is both ridiculous, irrational, and an insult to those that don't suffer from cult apologist think. 

But that's just exactly what Jim Jones, Jr., Becky Moore, and the rest of their cult apologist group have planned for their rival memorial at Evergreen Cemetery.  They might just as well erect a  "To Die For!" Hacienda billboard while they're at it.

Will the real victims, at long last, ever be left to rest in peace? 
   

New Jonestown Memorial: Honoring The Madman And His Assassins Along Side The Men, Women, And Children They Murdered

Take a good long look at their faces.

Today brother and sister Jewel (L) and Frankie Fountain (R) would have been 36 and 37 years old, probably with kids of their own.  But Jim Jones and his hand-picked killers-- Larry Schacht, Annie & Carolyn Moore, Jim McElvane, and the other thugs in the Peoples Temple inner circle--had other plans for them.

On November 18, 1978, four year-old Jewel and five year-old Frankie didn't stand a chance.  No more than the rest of the 900 people in that pavilion ringed by the cult's gunmen.  So, as today's flippant but popular saying goes, Jewel and Frankie "drank the Kool Aid."

Maybe they forced down their throats through a cup or syringe, who knows.  The vast majority of the others, however, had the deadly cyanide injected into their upper backs, as a forensic exam revealed.

Not a mass suicide, as usually reported, but mass murder.  On a scale unspeakable, in a scene simply unbelievable.  The pictures of the massacre still shock the world.  It was perhaps the most overpowering message ever delivered about the lethal danger of cults, which kill a person's spirit, and sometimes the body as well.

Yesterday survivors and relatives met again on the grim anniversary at the cemetery with the mass grave containing the bodies of nearly half the murder victims.  But this time the atmosphere was marred by bitterness and division, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

It seems the grief and pain of Jonestown never fades. On Thursday, it erupted anew on a tranquil East Oakland hillside.

At the 32nd annual Jonestown memorial, held at an Evergreen Cemetery mass grave for Peoples Temple victims, a schism among mourners led to competing ceremonies - one led by a woman who lost 27 family members in the mass suicide in Guyana, the other by Jim Jones Jr.

The first ceremony was hosted by Jynona Norwood of San Francisco, who has organized what she calls the "official" Jonestown memorial for more than three decades. Hers is a heartbreaking ceremony focusing on lessons learned, guidance from God, and the dangers of following charismatic leaders like Jim Jones.

 The second ceremony, held four hours later at the same site, was organized by Jones Jr., son of the infamous Peoples Temple leader who ordered the suicides of 909 of his followers, plus the killings of Rep. Leo Ryan of San Mateo and a news crew, in 1978. Jones Jr.'s ceremony was more of a family reunion. People hugged, took snapshots, caught up on each other's lives and reminisced. There were no sermons, no music, no speeches. Jones Sr. was hardly mentioned at all.

Both ceremonies were attended by 30 to 40 family members of Jonestown victims.

Norwood was insulted by the "outrageous" second ceremony.
"It's like spitting on the souls of those who've died," she said. "It's an insult."

Jones, now a medical equipment salesman in San Francisco, didn't see it that way: "After 32 years, do I need any more sermons? Do I need to learn the lesson again? Let's not talk about what happened anymore...."
 
Allowing two ceremonies was an easy decision for the cemetery's staff. In recent years, tensions have been increasing among mourners, and in some cases people had lost their tempers, cemetery director Ron Haulman said.

"We don't want anyone to come here to mourn and pay their respects and not feel safe," he said. "We want to be courteous to everyone."

In another rift among survivors, Jones Jr.'s group plans to install four granite plaques at the grave next year. The plaques will be engraved with the names of all 918 victims, including Jones Sr.
Norwood's group also undertook a memorial plaque project. But it was engraved with only 917 names - everyone but Jones Sr.
Norwood's plaque project is temporarily stalled because it is so large and heavy that it would have toppled on the cemetery hillside.

So Jones Jr.'s plaque appears headed for the memorial site. The $15,000 project has been financed by an anonymous donor who will be repaid over time with donations, said Fielding McGehee, head of the Jonestown Institute in San Diego, an archive of the church's history.

After 32 years, it's time for the new plaque - that includes Jones - and a new memorial ceremony that omits Jones, McGehee said.
"Pretty much everyone who was in the Peoples Temple is over Jim Jones," he said. "They've forgiven him or gotten past their anger. It's time we recognize that."    

Mac McGehee and wife Becky Moore, who runs that colossal cult apologist clearing house, insist on staying unlearned in the lessons of history along with their cronies in the Jim Jones, Jr. camp.  They not only want to put a sheen on the "good works" of the Guyana gulag but also it seems will now be able to officially memorialize psychotic mass killer Jim Jones.

Mind-blowing.  Put this monster's name in the same space as all his victims?  For that matter, why should Temple assassins like Carolyn Moore, who dragged little six year old John Stoen up to Jones's cabin on the fateful day and murdered him, be memorialized?  Or the gunmen that made the massacre possible?

Not one of them deserves to be honored, least of the Monster Jones.  It's a true disgrace, no less than having SS guards' names placed on a Holocaust memorial, right next to the names of those they savagely murdered.  But McGehee & Co. are getting away with it.

It is the victims that we honor, not the victimizers.  A lesson that was lost on perhaps the saddest Jonestown anniversary to date.

The Sounds Of Jim Jones--And That Horrendous Laughter--Back From The Grave

 

"I think what Peoples Temple offered, and some other movements offer, is a chance to be part of something that you feel is bigger than you.....Peoples Temple delivered on what it promised people. It promised them that they would be part of a big family and live in a new way. And it delivered. That’s why they stayed......They stayed because it gave them what they wanted....."
-- Film maker Stanley Nelson
    Director, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple"

It was this kind of outrageous drivel, along with his widely circulated 2006 cult apologist film, that motivated me to create this website four years ago.

Sadly, however, enough of the public got exposed to this propaganda and other apologists' revisionism that the reality of one of history's most destructive cults continues to be muddled.  It's been reduced to an overused cliche about the folly of "drinking the Kool Aid." 

The cult "delivered" and "that's why they stayed"?  So the mass murder final act was just something incidental then, Stan??

Meet two of who may have been the final victims of the "big family's" massacre.  This is Jeannie and Al Mills, two cult defectors that miraculously were able to escape the cult in 1974, after they had enough of what Nelson claims was "being a part of something that you feel is bigger than you."

Their luck ran out 15 months after the Jonestown bloodbath, in February of 1980, when some unknown gunman, or perhaps more than one, murdered them execution style.  According to the AP report:  

Mills and his wife joined the Jones flock in 1969 when the church was gathering strength in Redwood Valley, a peaceful spot tucked away 125 miles north of San Francisco..... At that time, the Mills were Elmer and Deanna Mertle, names they shed after fleeing the church. The hard decision to leave came after watching their 16-year-old daughter, Linda, in 1974, writhe under 75 blows of a paddle — punishment ordered by Jones after Linda apparently embraced a friend that Jones deemed a "traitor" to the church.

That cruelty and The Human Freedom Center, a haven the Mills created to give others a shot at life outside the temple, are described in Mrs. Mills' book, "Six Years With God," which was published last year.  Angela Miller, editor of A and W, the New York firm that published the work, said the couple "was positive there was going to be some kind of retaliation" against them, a fear heightened last November as the first anniversary of the Jonestown holocaust approached.

On the last tape recording he made from his "throne" in the steamy agricultural outpost, Jones blamed the visit of Ryan in part on Mrs. Mills. "The people in San Francisco (surviving church members) will not be idle over this. They'll not take our deaths in vain, you know."

Had they lived, Jeannie and Al would surely be stepping up to demolish the grotesque fantasies of Nelson and today's other cult shills.  I'm sure of it because I was able to meet and talk with the Mills when they made an appearance at my college about a year before their brutal murders.

They gave a detailed presentation about the dangers of cults and related their harrowing experience in the toxic confines of the Temple.  Afterwards, I approached them and introduced myself, and they remembered well my father's attempts to expose Jim Jones in 1972.  They were warm, sincere people who now wanted to make a difference in the lives of victims of other cults.

The Mills explained it had indeed been Temple members that burglarized my family home in the fall of that year to search for documents.  Equally chilling was Jeannie's telling me how the cultists had concealed themselves in the bushes across the street from our home, spying on us and reporting everything back to Jones. 

I was grateful to at last have a solid confirmation of something I already knew.  My dad had been in terrible danger.  Then one-time top Jones henchman Tim Stoen--now back in his original job as a Mendocino County Asst. DA--had worked on devising various ways to murder my father.  In all liklihood, our entire family was in peril.  

When the news arrived about the Mills's 1980 execution murders,  my mother, father, and two sisters were terror-stricken that, with my father near the top of Jones's "hit list," we all would be some of the next to go.  But somehow, the ordeal passed.  There were no other reported killings.

Not so fortunate, of course, were the prisoners inside the Temple, who were eventually spirited off and slaughtered in the cult's Guyana death camp.  How could people be so obedient and fall prey to this madman calling himself "God"?

 


These are the real questions to address.  This cheap business of simply labeling all these Americans as "extreme crazies that drank the Kool Aid" is as bogus as the fantasy that, hey, the cult really was a modern day Shangri-La, both in California and Guyana.  And that, hey, only at the very end did their paradise go up in smoke?

This is unmitigated bunk.  Worse, it defiles the memory of those 900 plus murder victims. 

As much as the revisionists and apologists want to paint a new portrait, the real picture cannot be changed nor will the reality of how it was engineered ever be ignored.  It wasn't due to idiotic excuses about it "giving them what they wanted"--simple fact was they were brainwashed and terrorized into submission.

Renowned Harvard researcher and psychiatrist Robert Lifton (who  Nelson, for some odd reason, avoided contacting for his puff piece) is an expert on mind control, what he terms as "thought reform."  It was the process practiced by the Chinese communists on American POW's during the Korean War, which Lifton broke down into eight components:

• Milieu Control – The control of information and communication.
• Mystical Manipulation – The manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated.
• Demand for Purity – The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection.
• Confession – Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group.
• Sacred Science – The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute.
• Loading the Language – The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand.
• Doctrine over person – The member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
• Dispensing of existence – The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not.

All of this, and more, Jim Jones and his white oligarchy of assassins and torturers unleashed with a vengeance on the predominantly black church.  Psychologist Neal Osherow elaborates:


"Conditions in the Peoples Temple became so oppressive, the discrepancy between Jim Jones's stated aims and his practices so pronounced, that it is almost inconceivable that members failed to entertain questions about the church. But these doubts were unreinforced. There were no allies to support ones disobedience of the leaders commands and no fellow dissenters to encourage the expression of disagreement with the majority. Public disobedience or dissent was quickly punished. Questioning Jones's word, even in the company of family or friends, was dangerous informers and "counselors" were quick to report indiscretions, even by relatives.

The use of informers went further than to stifle dissent; it also diminished the solidarity and loyalty that individuals felt toward their families and friends. While Jones preached that a spirit of brotherhood should pervade his church, he made it clear that each members personal dedication should be directed to "Father." Families were split: First, children were seated away from parents during services; then, many were assigned to another member's care as they grew up; and ultimately, parents were forced to sign documents surrendering custody rights. "Families are part of the enemy system," Jones stated, because they hurt ones total dedication to the "Cause" .  Thus, a person called before the membership to be punished could expect his or her family to be among the first and most forceful critics.

 Why didn't more people leave? Once inside the Peoples Temple, getting out was discouraged; defectors were hated. Nothing upset Jim Jones so much; people who left became the targets of his most vitriolic attacks and were blamed for any problems that occurred. One member recalled that after several teen-age members left the Temple, "We hated those eight with such a passion because we knew any day they were going to try bombing us. I mean Jim Jones had us totally convinced of this."

Defecting became quite a risky enterprise, and, for most members, the potential benefits were very uncertain. They had little to hope for outside of the Peoples Temple; what they had, they had committed to the church. Jim Jones had vilified previous defectors as "the enemy" and had instilled the fear that, once outside of the Peoples Temple, members stories would not be believed by the "racist, fascist" society, and they would be subjected to torture, concentration camps, and execution. Finally, in Guyana, Jonestown was surrounded by dense jungle, the few trails patrolled by armed security guards. Escape was not a viable option. Resistance was too costly. With no other alternatives apparent, compliance became the most reasonable course of action." 

Jones, as Dr. Zimbardo suggested, did a masterful job of bringing Orwell's nightmare to life and then exterminating the prisoners when time ran out.  But during the time they were his cast of hand puppets, the cult master had an apparently hell of a fun time.

And quite the sense of humor, albeit perverse and extremely sadistic, as is usually the case with sociopaths.  The following is an actual audio recording from one of "Father Jones's" evening conditioning sessions in Jonestown, about seven months before the apocalypse.

Listening to the assorted cult members coming forward to announce in graphic detail their desires to torture and murder their family members is beyond shocking.  Please don't listen unless you have a strong stomach.  Even more chilling--horrifying, really--is Jones's ghastly laughter, high pitched like a hyena on helium.

Ask yourself as you hear the evidence:  Is this the kind of ambiance found in that former cult member's claim of a "Heaven on Earth"??

The lesson is clear:  We either will or will not allow these shameless cult apologists to grind the real truth into oblivion.  Hopefully enough will choose the latter as we prepare to remember the dead on tomorrow's anniversary.

Cult Expert On Jonestown: "A Mass Mentality 'Manchurian Candidate' That Killed The Enemy On Demand"

Something very ironic about all this.

With the impending anniversary of that unspeakable tragedy over 30 years ago, I'm thinking about that infamous sign.  

You know the one.

We've all seen the assorted photos of the gruesome aftermath of the Temple Planning Commission executioners' handiwork.  This one, however, is particularly chilling.


It's right there hanging over "Father's"  throne, empty cause the occupant was sprawled nearby on the pavilion floor.  He was too much the coward to have that hideously painful cyanide forcibly injected into him, as more than 80 percent of the people had.  No, Jones took the easy exit with a bullet through the head.

He looked so pathetic in his death portrait.  Eyes wide open, no longer concealed by those menacing sunglasses.  Silenced at long last.  Tragically, however, not in time to stop him and his gang of mass murderers from carrying out their own Final Solution.

Jim Jones, despite all his perversions and sick Stalinist mania, still had it right with philosopher George Santayana's creed that "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  It's something that spans across all realms.  

That's the irony:  Too many have still not learned the lessons of the past.  The madness of crazies like this, running cults from the smallest to the largest, religious, secular, commercial, political, even one-on-one, continues unabated to this day.  As do the cult apologists that keep on trying to somehow rehabilitate the Peoples Temple.  Santayana's prophecy lives on.  

  Ex-Temple member Laura Kohl is just one of the many desperately wanting to put a fresh, glowing face on this, one of the most destructive cults in history.  Maybe like the others, she's doing it in a sad quest for atonement.

"What happened then," claims Kohl, "was the fusion of all of our spirits, our hopes and our hard work--into a New World--a Heaven on Earth. We didn't know it was possible, and it seeped into our souls and hearts. What we created was more than we could have dreamed about. We grew into a greatness well beyond what we could have done individually."

How does someone descend to this level of denial over something that was a perfect Hell on Earth?  The answer probably rests in the syndrome of well-meaning people falling prey to brain washing that sometimes remains long after they've departed the cult.

Renowned expert Dr. Phillip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment that presented vivid proof of the power that a super-charged controlled environment has on behavior.  In 2005, he authored a paper entitled "Mind control in Orwell’s 1984: Fictional concepts become operational realities in Jim Jones’ jungle experiment.”

In his findings, Zimbardo drew from many sources corroborating how this was accomplished, along with exposing the shocking dichotomy between the Hellish reality of Jonestown and the "Heavenly" fantasies still entertained by the survivors of the death camp.

One of the most ghastly testimonies came from former member Debbie Layton, as described in a book by another member, Jeanne Mills:

"Mills describes other torture chambers in PT.  'Debbie (Layton) told us about Bigfoot, a punishment that had replaced the Blue-Eyed Monster.  It’s a deep well about forty-five minutes’ walk away from the camp,’ she said sadly. ‘Counselors have to sit in there, and when the child is disciplined they throw the child down the well.

The kids would cry hysterically as soon as Jim would tell them they’d have to go visit Bigfoot. We’d hear them scream all the way there, and all the time they had to be down in the well, and by the time they got back they were begging for mercy. It was really awful. Some young people were forced to eat hot peppers or even have hot peppers put up their rectums as disciplines.”

So much for Kohl's notion about "growing into greatness."

Dr. Zimbardo's research blew apart such delusions.  His analysis was thorough and devastating, revealing how much the spirit of Big Brother suffocated anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped in the Jonestown Gulag.

"Obedience training, Newspeak, Crimestop, Doublethink, Reality Control, Emotional Control, sexual control, surveillance, hard work on starvation diets – the staples of the Orwellian Mind Controller’s repertoire – were adapted and put into effective operation by Jim Jones in his attempt to demonstrate total behavior modification beyond anything that MK-ULTRA had ever achieved. Jones succeeded in his perverted mind control 'experiment' by creating a mass mentality 'Manchurian Candidate' that killed the Enemy on demand, only the Enemy was one’s children, one’s parents, one’s mate, one’s friends, one’s self.

  I believe that Orwell would not have been pleased to see his warning about the dangers of a totalitarian state acted out by a latter-day disciple in the jungles of Guyana, and then recently reenacted by destructive cult leaders in many other countries, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, the United States, and Uganda, all extracting the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of domination of free will, of individuality, of critical thought, and of the spirit of independence." 

Of course, a horde of "New Religious Movements" (NRM) academics infesting universities across the land are hell-bent on not yielding even one inch to Zimbardo or any other expert that exposes cult dynamics and their horrifying consequences.  They never fail to rush to defend cults as fast as five year olds running to the sound of an ice cream truck.  

 
We'll give them their due before Thursday.  Until then, there's nothing quite like the illuminating power of a dramatization.  Sometimes they're way off target.  Film maker Stanley Nelson's purported documentary "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" was about as twisted a piece of cult apologist propaganda as they come.

On the other hand, straight fictional works can sometimes undo the damage by NRM puff pieces.  "When you blindly give up your free will to a higher authority," warns the narrator in this 2001 Outer Limits episode, "be sure you are not also giving up control of your ultimate destiny."

Entitled "A New Life," this 45 minute eye-opener is well worth the time and attention (forgive the occasional commercial interruptions.)   The alien theme provides the perfect metaphor.  Please pay close attention to the dialogue.  And should you just happen to wonder if there's any striking similarities with the Peoples Temple, you're right on target.  

Afterward, you'll likely be wary of any and all cult apologists--who knows, they could very well be on a mission from another planet.....

Jonestown Massacre: Mourning Loss, Battling Denial

The anniversary of the nightmare is right around the corner, everyone.

This coming Thursday, November 18 is the day 32 years ago when an utterly preventable massacre took place in what history records as the largest single loss of American life in a non-natural disaster.  That is, of course, until it was surpassed by the horror of 9/11.

Too many of the culprits that helped pave the way for the Jonestown Massacre are still too gutless and dishonest  to make amends, to apologize, or accept any accountability whatsoever.  These shameless wonders, the politicians, the journalists, the clergy--and the especially appalling cult apologists--continue  hopelessly stuck in a mind-boggling collective state of denial.

It's that sad spectacle of what people are reduced to when they have blood on their hands.  Then there's the case of some of the surviving members and relatives of the victims of the People's Temple cult, who swim in their own especially deep pool of denial.

Five days from now the anniversary memorial service will be held at the same location as all the others:  Oakland, California's Evergreen Cemetery, home of the mass grave of 409 murdered men, women, children, and babies.  But this year.....something's changed.

The survivors and relatives, now bitterly divided into two different factions, can't seem to stand even being at the same service any longer.  The first is lead by the Rev. Jynona Norwood, a Los Angeles pastor who lost 27 relatives in the massacre.  She's overseen the construction of a Memorial Wall, part of which was unveiled at the cemetery during the service's 30th Anniversary two years ago.

But Norwood was emphatic about one thing:  When this wall is finally completed, the mass murderer that put her family to death will NEVER be memorialized.  "To put Jim Jones's name on that wall is an insult.....to all the dead," declared Norwood at the 2008 service.

This is not a feeling shared by Lela Howard, who lost an aunt at Jonestown.  She and her faction of survivors/relatives (which includes Jim Jones, Jr.) have railed against Norwood, demanding that Jones be memorialized.  There's been accusations of financial improprieties in the $100,000 wall project which has left Norwood outraged.

The animosity is now so bad that the two rival camps have arranged for separate services, with Norwood's faction going at 11 a.m. and Howard's at 3 p.m.  All of this, not surprisingly, has been ignored by the same local and national media that deliberately covered up the crimes of Jim Jones, empowering him to lay the groundwork for Jonestown.

History and its fateful repeat cycle.  Something like that.  Wasn't it written on a sign once in an extinct pavilion that got swallowed up by jungle?

Cult Survivor Laura Johnston Kohl is siding with the Howard faction.

"As the years have gone on," she explained recently," I found the peace at Evergreen more and more disturbed by the tone of the 11 a.m. religious service.  Its many expressions of anger towards Jim Jones – at the expense of honoring those under our feet – don’t speak to me, just as I believe the traditional Christian service doesn’t speak to my friends who are buried there.  After all, while they put the Christian ethic to work – they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, helped care for those afflicted, and tried to rid the world of hate – they had left traditional churches to become activists. In fact, they were 'practicing' Christians, and they practiced that religion day and night.

Last year, a fellow survivor set up her own memorial on the site. She put the name of each person who died on a small name tag, and wrapped the flowing sash around several trees. It was a wonderful tribute to them, and its silence provided a welcome counterbalance. We don’t want to forget them. We cannot afford to forget them.  [Editor's note:  It was stated in the earlier post that that fellow survivor was "presumably Howard."  Scratch that, please.  Have been informed it was in fact Kathy Barbour Tropp.  Thank you, friendly informant.  Apologies extended to Ms. Howard.] 

On that day, I determined what I needed for future anniversaries. After many conversations with other survivors and family members, we have come to a consensus about our day. We will begin holding a private, nondenominational gathering at 3 p.m. that same day. It will be the same time each year, on that rolling hillside. In that setting, we can gather and sit quietly or speak – whatever we are moved to do. It probably won’t be a place to lay blame or express hateful diatribes. It will be our time to reconnect and give thought". 

The Peoples Temple consisted of "practicing Christians"??

When you've finished gasping, try to remember this comes from someone  floundering at the very bottom of that special pool of denial where every cult apologist lives.  And this place is crowded with swimmers, rest assured.

The actual record shows there was just a bit more going on than "feeding, clothing, and caring for the afflicted by these so-called "practicing Christians."  Oh, quite a bit more activities, such as  fraud, extortion, slave labor, torture, death threats, sexual abuse and, yep, a whole lot of brain washing. 

When it came to torture, Temple Cult members had a real flair for it with children.  One of the young victims, a five year-old girl, remembered the horror: 

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

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

This, of course, all took place in California, years before Jonestown, where it evolved into a new torture: "Big Foot," a horrendous series of well-dunkings for the children.

Those "practicing Christians."  It's just hard to believe how Temple apologists like Kohl can perpetuate this charade.  But she and her ilk do.  And people are beginning to be taken in by this twisted revisionism.

A few years ago, I made a visit to the Redwood Valley church where the crime spree really took off, a place where Rev. Jim Jones first planted his "flock" in California in 1965.  I had been brought there by one of the original members of Ukiah's Concerned Citizens group, which had tried so desperately to get help in stopping this growing, menacing cult.

No one listened to them, as we now know.  And according to our forthright mainstream media, all was well right up to 1977.  

Today it's the home of an Assembly of God congregation.  I didn't get a chance to talk with its pastor.  I would have asked him how he felt about preaching in a building that once contained a demon.  I looked over the place, the front and back, for a long, long time, trying to imagine the place when my father first went there to interview Jim Jones in 1972 and discover his gun-toting enforcers.

Off to the left side of the church today stands a cross and statues of a smiling Jesus holding a lamb, reaching out to child.  I thought of all the children abused and tortured so savagely by Temple members here once.  Perhaps this monument was a good way to cleanse that awful karma. 

It's a poignant sight.  The tragedy is how often, still today, religious charlatans are able to put on that smile and deceive a willing public as Jones did.  Cults like Scientology thrive because they, like the Peoples Temple, can produce a good enough performance to trap a person in a web, as the spider does a fly.

Across from the church building stood a single modest house.  Yes, that was where the monster once lived and drew up his plans for destruction.  Someone else lives there now but something caught my eye in the flower garden in the front of that house.

It was one of the roses.  Still with green leaves, it had wilted.  The more I looked at it, the more I saw what looked like, well, something grotesque.  With horns.  I had to photograph it because it gave me an eerie feeling.  Made me wonder even futher about karma, maybe a type that remains, manifesting in all manner of  shapes and matter.

Then again, it was probably just a simple wilted blossom, viewed by someone in a melodramatic funk.  Still, that thing in front of Jim Jones's house gave me an uneasy sensation I won't forget.

The sensation, however, which I get each and every time November is one of sadness.  Frustration.  A longing for what could have been, if just only enough people in those high places--a clergyman who suddenly found his conscience or an editor his courage or a politician his morality--acted to stop Jim Jones from his hellish mission.

If just only.

Jonestown Survivor: "I Am So Tired Of Hearing Jim Jones, Jr. Confess And Profess His Undying Love For This Sociopath...."

A week ago Jim Jones, Jr., adopted son of the murderous cult leader that obliterated over 900 Americans, made a dramatic spectacle on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Like all good apologists, Jones, Jr. wants the world to think that his long-extinct cult was "trying to build a better world," when they operated in California or in Guyana. Interestingly enough, he left out details of the seamier sides of the Peoples Temple "better world": Marxist, totalitarian, featuring all the charms of a criminal enterprise; extortion, fraud, child abuse, slave labor, torture, and murder.

And Oprah let him get away with it.

One of my readers, "Anonymous," had a quite different take on the show last Wednesday, saying:

"It seems like we were watching two shows. The one that I saw was not as you say, 'an apologist of someone's father.' It was a beautiful told story of the 'human spirt' and I actual take offense for minimizing that. It seems like Jones Jr. faced many internal demons and came out the better person for himself and his family. I can't understand how this creates honor or sympathy for Jones Sr. in my eyes.

What I saw was a candid description of why and maybe how come so many people were willing to travel to SA. I think it was Jones Jr's admiration for his lost loved ones for trying to build a new world that blinded them to the manipulations of his father. Additionally Oprah was in complete dismay/disdain of this tragedy and in my opinion not even close in doing a puff piece."

Well, "Anonymous," I don't happen to agree. Jones, Jr.'s description on the hows and whys all those people got shipped off to an even more terrible enslavement in a South American jungle was anything but candid.

That the man suffered, there is no doubt. He lost family members, friends in the massacre. But what seems obvious is that Jones, Jr.'s method of dealing with his "survivor's guilt" is to now try to paint a sweet-smelling rose garden along the path that lead to Jonestown.

While this now may enable him to sleep better at night, it still won't change the reality of the Peoples Temple. Only in his deluded mind and others, such as director Stanley Nelson and Religion Prof. Becky Moore, sister of Annie and Carolyn, who were vicious cult enforcers & baby killers.

One of my other readers, "Rhonda," (a former Temple captive who chooses to remain anonymous) had her own special assessment of Jones, Jr.'s performance:

"I am so tired of hearing Jim Jones, Jr. confess and profess his undying love for this sociopath, and now I wonder if these same traits are not fundamentally also inside of Jim Jones, Jr. Over the past 32 years he has gone overboard in his sharing of his philosophical views of this 'rainbow family.' Now there is no longer a rainbow family. The same man that created it took it away!

And yes, I am encouraged that he was finally honest enough with himself and others to state to millions of people that he did not know that he is Black. How do you forgive a man for the murder of 900 people, including your wife, unborn child, mother, brother, etc.?

Jim Jr., how do you look at yourself in the mirror each day? How do you justify genocide? How do you justify hatred? How do you justify the torture and punishment you witnessed of People’s Temple members that even occurred on U.S. soil? Finally how does a modern day Hitler like your Dad become a victim?

Another thing that bothers me: Why would he keep the name he was given at the time of his adoption? Why did Jones, Sr., provide the Black adopted son with his name and not the natural born son? (Hmmm, I wonder why??) It is obvious that everything Jim Jones, Sr., did had a deliberate reason and purpose. However, I can only assume that Jim, Jr., maintains the name of this murderous self-proclaimed con artist minister in order to strike up conversations with people and to feel a sense of importance in our society. Maintaining this name exhibits a potential lack of self-esteem and independence.

Obviously, he is still a child who has never surpassed the age of 18 years old living in an adult body. If Jim Jones, Sr. was so good and kind, then why has Tim Jones, another adopted son, never stepped up to the plate in support of his father? Why did Sue Jones never step up to the plate to tell others of his greatness? Why has Stephen Jones whom you refer to as “natural born” not been on major networks professing his love for Jim Jones, Sr.?

Why must there be a person who appears to be Black in skin color be compelled to stand up publicly as an “Uncle Tom” during Black History Month on national television in front of Oprah Winfrey Show, defending the genocide of 900 people that by your own statement were 70% Black Americans? Is it for money, fortune, fame, notoriety, publicity?

Or is it to protect a white racist communist pig responsible for annihilating innocent people (including babies). I have several questions for you, Jim Jones, Jr.: Are you the second coming of Jim Jones, Sr.? Or are you really loathing over the fact that you were never allowed to minister over a large congregation like your Dad, the monster you idolize?

And shame on Oprah for letting him off so easy, especially during Black History Month. Jim Jones, Jr. you are obviously still under the lure of your Dad and the brainwashing you endured no doubt is irreversible. Perhaps, if you are fortunate, God Almighty will allow you to come back in another life for a second time (the process reincarnation.)

And this time, God might make you strong like Martin or Malcolm, and not like your adoptive parent--the conniving, manipulative, coward dictator 'Rev. James Warren Jones, Sr.' I pity and feel sorry for you because you are truly experiencing a roller coaster ride, attempting to make something virtuous out of something that fundamentally went deceitfully wicked."

Ouch.

Clearly Rhonda is no fan of Jim Jones, Jr. And I join her in these sentiments.

Meanwhile, our detractor "Anonymous" added this in his/her comment:

"I am not aware of your references about Stanley Nelson, but from what I surmise, he is a film maker that tried to capture the voices of survivors of this horrific event. I think Oprah using this footage was so beneficial to explaining the story. I now want to look up his work and view his complete piece on my own."

Oh, Lord Nelson is sure to delight you, "Anonymous," probably even more than the cult monster's adoring son. His cult-coddling film classic has a closing scene with the voice over reading of the "Final Letter From Jonestown."

"....We wanted to live, to shine, to bring light to a world that is dying for a little bit of love,” wrote Jones henchman, Richard Tropp.

Bring light to a world?

Was this before or after Comrades Jones, Tropp, and their fellow sadists were regularly getting their thrills dunking terrified little children into a dark, deep well in that jungle utopia?

Nelson and Jones, Jr. Now THAT is an apologist duo from hell. But don't just take my word for it. Below, a 2006 promo of the revisionist wonder movie that no doubt could effectively dress up and sparkle even the most heinous cult in the neighborhood.

Just imagine, a Charlie Mason, Jr., shaggy beard, coat & tie, telling us how much he "embraces" his daddy's famous name.

Now take a deep breath, and watch this.....

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