{"id":27385,"date":"2013-06-16T00:19:48","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T00:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=27385"},"modified":"2020-12-26T10:32:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T18:32:19","slug":"q231","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=27385","title":{"rendered":"Q231 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

To return to the Tape Index, click here.<\/a>
\nTo read the Tape Summary, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1<\/a>, Pt. 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Jones:<\/strong> Attention. Good morning news. (Pause) More interest will have to be shown in the news in the library, and as it is transmitted, or we will have a test today even sooner than we anticipated.<\/p>\n

Chinese forces still ally themselves\u2013 ally [amass] themselves strongly on the border of Vietnam. Their insistence now, is there indeed is really 100,000 ethnic Chinese in Vietnam seeking liberation. Vietnam stoutly denies this charge. After the denial came a penetration effort from a Chinese troop into Vietnam. Vietnam is now de\u2013 denouncing China\u2019s efforts to brings ships into her harbors to take out the would-be Chinese ethnics who desire liberation. Actually some (tape distortion) have been proven enemies of the socialist revolution, all of them have been involved in corrupt capitalist and business practices. At this point, BBC is not exactly sure what China is attempting to achieve, but one correspondent of Radio Norway called it a provocative action, trying to induce the Vietnamese to engage in war.<\/p>\n

China has brought a small force of advisers into troubled Zaire. Of course, as you know, US imperialism has manipulated Morocco to send troops. Morocco, in spite of its own difficulties, due to the drop of its only export item, the world market price of phosphate from $68 to $11, and the fact that Morocco has 30,000 troops forced to fight in West Sahara. It\u2019s demanding its liberation and pressing on towards a socialist liberation. The Mauritania puppet army of the US capitalism has collapsed, and Morocco has had to single-handedly sustain US expansionist and imperialist efforts in the troubled West Sahara, where the US neglect and US manipulation of cloud-seeding by the CIA, 25 million people have died of starvation. (Tape edit)<\/p>\n

The CIA has been charged by Dr. Ptolemy Reid of again trying to incite difficulties with Cuba, Guyana, and in Africa. He did not elaborate, clearly, in the strongest public speech he has made denouncing USA-CIA intervention since the troubled people of Guyana grieved and mourned nine barefoot doctors that were murdered by the CIA in a Cubala airliner that also took some 60 other members of Cuba, world famous soccer team, and also uh, de\u2013 a delegation, technicians from the Peoples Democratic Republic of North Korea.<\/p>\n

Congress today will receive information, according to President [Jimmy] Carter, from Admiral [Stansfield] Turner, renegade of US imperialism, who now is the director of the CIA. He will give \u2013 and has already done so in private session, according to Washington\u2019s lies \u2013 direct incontrovertible proof of CIA involvement\u2013 I mean, rather of Cuban<\/em> direct involvement in Zaire. It\u2019s obvious that Washington is trying to whip up a hate campaign. Where it will lead, no one knows, against the people\u2019s only free territory in the Caribbean, the communist island of Cuba. But they have bravely withstood pressures in the past, they stoutly deny the CIA\u2019s lies, and say USA is building up to its aggressive policies under the worst years of [former President Richard] Nixon and the worst years of [former President John] Kennedy, and the worst years of [former President Dwight] Eisenhower.<\/p>\n

The Shah of Iran is in great difficulty. He has ordered arrested his own head of security police, as thousands of students have been shot, and uh, equally thousands of his own forces have been shot down in what is also\u2013 almost tantamount to civil war inside Iran.<\/p>\n

Please try to listen. I\u2019m up every night, all day, trouble with strategies, trying to save our people, goodness knows I hope you are concerned to work hard, to protect, to save, to not waste food or any other item, because waste these days and lack of work actually is killing<\/em> someone\u2019s chances\u2013 you might saying murdering some young person\u2013<\/p>\n

(tape recorder malfunction for approximately 27 minutes, with only half the words recorded in bursts of several seconds each)<\/p>\n

Jones:<\/strong> \u2013otherwise known at the Treaty of Tlatelolco after the place where it was originally concluded. This\u2013 Thus, the Soviet Union assumed the obligation, not<\/em> to facilitate the access of Latin and South American states to nuclear weapons, and not to use such weapons against any of the parties to the treaty, and that includes all the nations of Latin America and South America. They wanted a zone that would be free of nuclear war, in case it did come, where civilization could rebuild. Interestingly enough, we are in that one and only zone that USA and the Soviet Union have cooperated, that there will be no nuclear weapons placed. It\u2019s called the nuclear-free zone for Latin and South America.<\/p>\n

I guess that\u2019s approximately the general ending of the news.<\/p>\n

Joshua Nkomo to CIA charges today before the Congress, said the Rhodesian \u2013 or Zimbabwean \u2013 black nationalist leader, dismissed Western fears about Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa as fears about shadows and imperialist propaganda. Joshua Nkomo, who\u2019s a nationalist and not a Marxist, said we are fighting our own war. He told a press conference, we have heard the talk about Cubans and Soviets in Africa, but I have not met one, he said, in Zambia, and certainly there are none in Zaire or Angola, troubling that Zairian picture. He said, cannot you see that the people of Zaire are tired of Western colonial influence and want their own indepen\u2013 independence guaranteed, and freedom from the dictatorship of Mobutu [Sese Seko], who has been known as a tyrant. Mr. Nkomo arrived in London on Wednesday from East Germany \u2013 Communist East Germany, a modern state \u2013 and said he plans (tape edit) to return to Africa this coming Sunday. Repeatedly he re\u2013 returned to Western fears about Soviet and other outside intervention in Africa. All this worry about Soviets and Cubans in an insult to Africans by USA, he said. It makes us look as if we are morons who need to be rescued from the Western world. The West is not prepared to work with the real forces in the country, he went on. You want to safeguard Africa for the Africans? Who gave you that right? Please leave us alone, he said, referring to US imperialism and their Western lackeys. We will<\/em> look after ourselves, and we deeply resent USA\u2019s intrusion into our affairs. Joshua Nkomo is one of the Patriotic Front, as you know. He is in an alliance with Robert Mugabe, Marxist-Leninist, and they represent over 80% of the people of Zimbabwe, who are held in bondage by the funding of big corporations and the influence of the CIA and the manipulations of US monopoly capitalism.<\/p>\n

Thus ends the commentary of the morning news. Let\u2019s have a good work, a spirit of good work, please, the only place where children can grow up to be strong, a nuclear-free zone, black nation, where we don\u2019t have to face racist cops beating on our children, half of them would\u2019ve been in jail. No drugs, no crimes to maul, molest, rape, harm, mug, beat senior citizens, no racist stares, no condescending honky police, no threat of genocide, concentration camps<\/a>, it\u2019s building up so rapidly as race rebellions break out in cities across the nation, more and more blacks are being framed.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Governor [Mervyn] Dymally yesterday called a special press announcement to state that there was an actual genocide against political and civilian black leadership, as over 50%, as carried by Sepia<\/em>, over 50% of all black leaders, politicians, government-appointed officials are now under criminal investigation, and many of them under indictment and on their way to jail, like Congressman [Charles] Diggs, founder of the [Congressional] Black Caucus, and uh, chairman of the congressional Subcommittee on African Affairs. He faces 175 years. These are rich black people, moderates, who\u2019ve never<\/em> championed socialism, but they\u2019re just black, and black is not allowed to succeed. As Lieutenant Governor Dymally said, once a black person tries to emerge out of the anger and frustration, poverty and pain of the ghetto, he is doomed to be attacked on every score by the white ruling establishment through its media control of the news, through government bureaucracy, he said the pattern is just exactly like what happened to us. First the media set you up for attack, the newspapers attack you, then the governmental agencies come in for the kill. Lieutenant Governor Dymally and the Sepia<\/em> black magazine had a very gloomy outlook for black Americans in USA.<\/p>\n

Let us work, because if we do not work, if we do not produce, if we do not save, if we do not think of ways of making money which are to be turned in\u2013 to be turned in re\u2013 regularly<\/em> to Comrade Kay Nelson, Comrade [Cleyvee] Sneed, Comrade [Christine] Lucientes, if we don\u2019t<\/em> do these things, if we don\u2019t<\/em> work, if we don\u2019t<\/em> carry our shoulder of responsibility, we are killing<\/em> someone, literally killing<\/em> someone that could get to freedom, \u2018cause every time you waste, you\u2019re cutting off somebody\u2019s chances to be free. We\u2019re having a need for all<\/em> the saving we can possibly<\/em> manager\u2013 all<\/em> we can possibly<\/em> manage, as now [Tim] Stoen and the conspiracy, this anti-socialist conspiracy against us, has found a way to try to cut off all of our properties. We\u2019re having to sell them cheaply, and having to reduce them immediately, so we can get our people out from under the gun of that class enemy and the conspiracy of Senator [John] Stennis, the CIA and the police red b\u2013 the red squad, terribly vicious, racist, anti-communist squad in San Francisco that were involved in the murder of our<\/em> son [Chris Lewis]. It pains me even to think about it. It ought to pain us all as we remember our son, Chris Lewis, and they have never even bothered to try to find out who did it. We\u2019re living in a COINTELPRO, we\u2019re living in a Parallax View<\/em>, we\u2019re living in Z<\/em>, right now in USA. Please show that you care by working as you never did before.<\/p>\n

Interest in news, trying to find the communist concepts, the library tapes, listening to them, reading the boards there, will determine whether there\u2019ll be a test tonight, after women\u2019s liberation meeting on this Tuesday night, and brothers\u2019 liberation meeting. First, there\u2019s an open house which we all must attend, looking at our beautiful achievements of the educational department of our children, Comrade Principal [Tom] Grubbs (unintelligible word) prepared the children, looking forward to it, we are thrilled<\/em> by the prospects.<\/p>\n

Anyone seeking counseling, you have troubles or frustrations you want to talk about, things\u2013 difficulties you\u2019re having with people in the community, or understanding the goals of the community, please feel free to write them up to me, and I\u2019ll gladly respond to anything<\/em> that\u2019s brought to me forthrightly. I just can\u2019t stand the pain of people who sneak, to criticize, to cut down and commit criticism, or outright treason. But direct<\/em> criticism helps us grow, and we\u2019re glad to receive it at any time. And you, if your comrade criticicize\u2013 criticizes you, you should welcome it. You should be alert to the fact that when a person tells you something that can help you, they\u2019re really your friend. Those who give you soft-soaping false praises are not going to help you. We are not going to be protected by our praises. We will be alerted to be able to defend ourselves against our enemy by those who criticize constructively.<\/p>\n

Thank you, and so much love.<\/p>\n

(Pause for several seconds)<\/p>\n

Woman:<\/strong> Okay, go ahead.<\/p>\n

Jones:<\/strong> Attention. (tape edit) Attention. Some substance\u2013 subjects. We want to always be aware of the danger of mysticism and idealism entering in to scientific socialism, our Marxist-Leninist approach. There\u2019s a great deal of concern of people about extraterrestrial matters, religious matters, which have no real place in a communist perspective. As we saw in the movie Z<\/em>, they were trying to even prove that the sun, the stars, astrology was pitted against communism and trying to show its disdain for communism, the general was in his speech, saying sunspots were appearing. In some way he interpreted this be an indication of the disapproval of communism<\/em> in the world.<\/p>\n

Now communist party spokespeople have come up with a concept\u2013\u00a0a concept that Jesus is a (unintelligible word, sounds like \u201clandmark\u201d). The Chinese communists. Christmas, of course, they consider as a humbug<\/em>. The substance of this theme is, Scrooge was right. Christmas is a humbug. If the old skinflint has his way, he would\u2019ve abolished Christmas. As he saw it, it\u2019s hard to blame him. Why should people in his position call attention to the life of a man who went around town, overturning the tables of the moneychangers, while putting his own bet on the greater likelihood of maneuvering a camel through the eye of a needle, than an honest capitalist winding up in eternal bliss. If Jesus wanted to tell the rich to give their money to the poor, he could knock on someone else\u2019s door. Scrooge was going to be out to lunch at the fanciest \u2013 yes, the fanciest \u2013 restaurant in town, if he could help it. On top of which, Jesus was a figure who defied established authority, hardly a model Scrooge wanted to offer up as exemplary to the young. The trouble<\/em> with Scrooge was that he was a busy\u2013 so busy thinking about the few shillings he was going to keep out of Bob Cratchit\u2019s paycheck, he lost sight of his own long-range interest as a capitalist. Still and quite astutely, as it turns out, the bourgeoisie saw a lot more in Christ and Christmas than Scrooge did. Don\u2019t forget that even Scrooge, through the ministrations of that good friend of the bourgeoisie, Charles Dickens, also finally saw the light. (tape edit)<\/p>\n

End of side one<\/strong><\/p>\n

Side 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jones:<\/strong> \u2013 weren\u2019t too worried about a handful of aphorisms concerning the lot of the poor (tape edit) which would inevitably be dredged up at a Christmas time by troublemakers and rabble rousers. Long experienced in defusing the incendiary nature of revolutionaries past, they had little difficulty in transforming the gospel of Christ into a moral code, whereby the poor were instructed that it was better to be wealthy in virtue than material goods. The Christian gospel of brotherhood became the foundation for the ideology of class collaboration, and dissatisfaction with the realities of life was assuaged with the promise of a more rewarding hereafter. Nor can it be said that any of this was a direction\u2013 or distortion of Christ\u2019s teachings<\/em>. Yet there continues to exist a school of poetic politics which indulges<\/em> itself in the fantasy of portraying Christ as a Comrade Jesus, the humble proletarian turned militant. A famous drawing by Art Young places a likeness of Jesus on a Wanted poster in which Christ is charged with being a working class agitator. Woody Gunthrie [Guthrie] has a ballad in which Jesus is depicted as a hard-working man whose sympathies are with the poor and who is ultimately crucified by the bankers and the preachers \u2013 this is my<\/em> remark \u2013 and many a radicalized minister has found his political text in this image of Jesus as some early Christian socialist revolutionary. But such expressions, while undoubtedly effective as a form of emotive revolutionary propaganda, have little, in my<\/em> mind, to do with genuine Marxist-Leninist examination of Jesus as a historical figure that the Maoists are now trying to put up as one of the long line of revolutionaries in history.<\/p>\n

Ideology of feudalism. Such an analysis would show that Jesus was actually was a revolutionary ideologist, although not merely in the way that young Guthrie and others would have it. More properly speaking, Christianity was a revolutionary force when it emerged out of the bowels of the Roman Empire some 2000 years ago. The new religion was an indispensable ideological instrument in the transformation from the outmoded economic system of ancient slavery to the more progressive system of feudalism.<\/p>\n

Now it is very difficult for those whose consciousness has been shaped in the bourgeoisie world to think of feudalism as progressive. The bourgeoisie was obliged to paint a picture of feudalism in the most absolutely dire terms, since this was the system they were bent on overthrowing. They even idolized the pre-feudal societies of Greece and Rome as being far<\/em> more cultured and civilized than the feudal era or epoch. The renaissance was, in this sense, a cultural and ideological critique of feudalism. You remember, we\u2019re not glorifying feudalism, but each stage in the evolution of dialectic materialism and the uh, thesis\/antithesis synthesis concept of the dialectic is an improvement<\/em> in history.<\/p>\n

But economically speaking, the slave system at the time of the birth of Christianity was becoming stagnant. In the relatively small-scale co\u2013 commodity con\u2013 economy\u2013 the commodity economy that existed, the cost of maintaining the slave was outpacing the surplus value the slave system could produce<\/em>. The feudal system, on the other hand, made the serf responsible for his own maintenance in addition to the maintenance of the lord<\/em> and kept the serf permanently tied to the land. That\u2019s why I can\u2019t stand the word \u201cLord.\u201d Lord was a master that owned the people. But in order to help bring slavery \u2013 I mean, lord was the master that owned the people in feudal times \u2013 but in order to help bring slavery to an end, an ideological revolution was required. The slaves were, by and large, considered to be creatures without souls. They worshipped false gods and had no hopes of an afterlife. This of course served to justify their enslavement in the democratic republics of antiquity. And, to correct the Maoists, still today. Blacks have no souls in the ideas of modern Christian evangelists who propagate, not only Christianity and futurism and the opiate of religion, but capitalism all over the world in their free radio and TV time, taking up even public service education channels, which are against the FCC regulations<\/em>. But of course, FCC always bows for religion, which keeps the masses acquiescent, unquestioning.<\/p>\n

But Christianity said that the slaves were humans indeed, and every human being in his fashion in the image of God and has an immortal soul. And the Maoists are a little long\u2013 wrong<\/em> there in that uh, it said slave, obey your master. Whether you have a good master or a bad master, be thankful<\/em> and endure. While this understandably caused a considerable measure of anxiety among the slave owners of Jesus\u2019 time, it promoted a great deal of hope and undoubtedly unrest among the enslaved, and also helped pave the way for the more enlightened form of slavery, land slavery, that feudalism represented, just as capitalism\u2019s wage slavery is a more enlightened form of bondage than its predecessors. That means the people that came before it.<\/p>\n

The new religion also served another purpose. It broke the power of the old priesthood, which had become so concerned with preserving the prevailing mode of thought that scientific development and expansion of knowledge was being impeded\u2013 impeded. And held back, that is. The earlier modes of religious thought \u2013 Egyptian, Greek, Roman \u2013\u00a0with their assignment of the various fields of human knowledge and endeavors uh, to the realms of different gods had already been outplaced by the revolution in knowledge. But if the gods no longer could answer satisfactorily the questions posed by life, their power came into question. Cynicism about religion thus became a characteristic of Rome in its decadent years.<\/p>\n

Christianity on the other hand made possible a great leap in scientific knowledge. Monotheism placed on the power of individual gods of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the sea. It was not hampered by the categoral [categorical] limits placed on the power of individual gods of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the sea. All<\/em> knowledge was comfortably encompassed within the mind of one deity, and could thus be explored and fathomed in all its interconnections. At and as the study of natural phenomena demonstrated that contradictions in nature were not the result of anger between one god and another, or God and the devil, the new monotheism helped in the understanding of their contradiction in a more realistic way.<\/p>\n

Christianity was not the first monotheistic religion, of course. The Jews had one and some other tribes in the general Middle Eastern rel\u2013 region had earlier developed the concepts of a single all-knowing all-powerful all-loving deity, which anybody can tell with two out of three babies going to bed hungry does not exist. But the Jews were not converters. The Jewish religion was not seen as a universal\u2013 as universal, but as a special reward of the Jews had been chosen\u2013 who had been chosen by God to be his people. Jesus was a Jewish heretic, according the Maoists. Christianity however said that the one true God was available to everyone. Thus the connection between the Old Testament and the New, and the reasons why Christianity developed ideologically as an outgrowth of Judaism.<\/p>\n

Jesus, then, was a Jewish heretic whose beliefs shaped by the changing class relationships and developing knowledge of his age or epoch, brought him into conflict with the Jewish priesthood. It is in this sense that historically Jesus is a progressive figure, according to the Maoists. But Christianity became the single most powerful ideological prop of the feudal system, in my mind, the normalizer and reinforcer of the class rule of the landed aristocracy and the Catholic Church, and thus held down progress, according to your<\/em> leader.<\/p>\n

Some fifteen hundred years later, Protestantism played the same historic part. It was an indispensable accompaniment to the bourgeoisie revolution, a progressive ideological force that helped break the grip of the ruling classes and transfer authority to the new bourgeoisie class. Likewise it helped to unleash a scientific revolution by opposing the suffocatingly dogmatic restrictions of the Catholic Church on the expansion of scientific knowledge. Protestantism was also transformed rather quickly from a revolutionary world outlook into the chief ideological prop of the bourgeoisie, as it sought to justify and reinforce its rule over the laboring classes.<\/p>\n

Christmas removed from origins. Christmas today is obviously a long way removed from those origins which might in any respect be retermed [termed] revolutionary or progressive, according to Jim Jones. The unsavory mixture of superstition, subservient ideology, self-serving philanthropy, homage to the church and the artfully contrived orgy of the conspicuous consumption which passes for the holiday spirit, far outweigh any traces of what was once a dynamic new historical force in the eyes of the Maoists. It makes the people acquiescent, too. There\u2019s nothing<\/em> that causes people to endure bondage and fascism like religion that promises a world tomorrow, a life after death. Some<\/em> day, great religious figures of the past, such as Christ, Moses, and Mohammed, to speak of those of Western world is the\u2013\u00a0is most familiar with for the moment, according to the Maoists, will be put in their proper historical perspective. Instead of being viewed as the bearers of absolute and sacred truth, they will be understood as individuals who incorporated within themselves and their visions turbulent new social forces struggling for their release. Before the Maoists\u2013 renegade mainland China\u2019s Maoist compromisers get through, they\u2019ll have Jesus appearing as\u2013 on the same level with [Karl] Marx<\/em>. A socialist society which has wiped out superstition, in my mind, and hear me now, and intellectual illiteracy, along with hunger and poverty, may well want to commemorate the landmarks of human history, but not<\/em> by noting the birth of great figures, Jesus<\/em> included among them. It was Jesus<\/em> after all that said, the rich are not to be questioned, their rule over the slaves is not to be questioned, the poor you have with you always, it was Jesus<\/em> who got terribly upset when there was mass starvation in Palestine, when Mary was questioned about pouring a year\u2019s wages of mirror\u2013 myrrh perfume on his feet and washing his feet with her hair, it was Jesus that got incensed<\/em> that the laborers would ask why this waste would take place on Jesus\u2019 narcissistic body. (pause) Let us hope that the Chinese Maoist renegades with capitalist imperialism will have something better to do than to have a whole rendition in their Maoist periodically\u2013 periodical, the Peiping Weekly<\/em>, let us hope that they\u2019ll have something better to do than discuss the merits of Jesus\u2019 revolution and revolutionary characteristics.<\/p>\n

The Red Brigade leadership, six of them, have been arrested in the kidnapping and the supposed abduction and execution of Aldo Moro. Still there is no right-wing fervor or militant reaction of the right wing, thus showing that those who argued against Aldo Moro\u2019s people\u2019s execution as being terrorists have not been founded in their judgment. By the way, to you<\/em> that think that you and several others have come in knowing this and that about the Red Brigade, I can tell you, you know nothing of the Red Brigade. I am very familiar, and I have some close insights, and that\u2019s all I will say at this time, with Red Brigade activities.<\/p>\n

Let us get out of our minds all<\/em> references to stars, religion, superstition, signs and symbols. I<\/em> am a scientific socialist. I do have an extra dimension of materialism in my mind that enables me to heal, to protect, to predict earthquakes. I predict an earthquake to San Francisco, and have them call it all around, the second one that came yesterday to Los Angeles, to try to get these crazy Medlocks [Wade and Mabel Medlock] to think. But let us not think that there is any science, truth or veracity in astrology, occultism, mysticism. It is a counterrevolutionary idea, and must be removed from our thinking.<\/p>\n

Extraterrestrials encounter US elite. There is too much interest in some kind of modern reformist, revisionist Communist in the interest of extraterrestrial activity and aspects of the psychic or paranormal. There is a film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em>, a film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, Columbia Pictures release. The content and social function of science fiction are inevitably shaped, as all<\/em> cultural phenomena are, by the ideological compulsions of the prevailing class relations. In the capitalist West, this means that by and large, science fiction serves to promote the political values and social urgencies of monopoly capitalism. That it does so frequently in the guise of pure entertainment or sheer speculation on what the future might bring, sometimes even the guise of a withering critique of present-day capitalist society \u2013 see the novels of [Frederick] Pohl, P-o-h-l, and [Cyril M.] Kornbluth, K-o-r-n-b-l-u-t-h, for example \u2013 merely makes it more difficult to spot at times. Now that the movies and TV are on the verge of a scien fiction boom\u2013 science fiction boom, and even so-called revisionist communists are interested in the fads in the occult, it\u2019s time to pay a little more attention to the stuff.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, we were treated to Star Wars<\/em>, a seemingly harmless revival of the mindless derring-do of the 1930s, only dressed up in a much fancier package of opiate, to try to keep the peoples\u2019 mind diverted from the class struggle in USA and the terrible increase of imperialism that\u2019s fastly leading to fascism in our USA, that\u2019s murdered people all over the world. It has become a modern Babylon. Star Wars <\/em>has since gone on to become the most popular \u2013 or at least the most profitable \u2013 movie of all time, bathing millions of minds in a vat of national chauvinism and petty bourgeoisie individualism. The favorite sci-fi theme, and now we have Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em>. This\u2013 this spectacular endeavor is supposedly more serious and sophisticated than its predecessor. Where Star Wars <\/em>dealt with an old-fashioned War of the Worlds<\/em> in Hardy Brothers fashion, Encounters <\/em>explores the phenomenon of united, uh\u2013 unidentified flying objects leading up to the first encounter between human beings and extraterrestrial intelligence, which should no more be able to talk to us that humans would be able to talk to the amoeba.<\/p>\n

This has always been a favorite theme of science-fiction, but with humans walking on the moon and radio equipment being ra\u2013 rocketed off to the outer edges of the solar system, the speculation about life elsewhere in the universe and the possibilities of encountering it have taken on a certain practical mind. As film, Encounters <\/em>is sensational in its special effects, pedestrian with its rather obvious story development, and woeful<\/em> in the two-dimensional quality of its characters. A series of UFO sightings leads to Western international military team to a remote corner of Wyoming as the place for the contact to be made, all divire\u2013 divisive diversions to get the peoples\u2019 minds off of the working class struggle and the increase of fascism<\/em>, like we saw in Z<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By the way, don\u2019t<\/em> emulate socialist societies such as the Soviet Union in terms of not working. They\u2019re cracking down seriously on people not giving full work. Even in Guyana, they\u2019re modeling GNS [Guyana National Service] after us. If people don\u2019t show up for work or don\u2019t produce, they go to a learning brigade. That\u2019s quite interesting, that we are being used as a model.<\/p>\n

At the same time, several score of individuals who have seen the UFOs seem to have been inflicted with a psychic compulsion to show up in Wyoming also, much to the dismay of the experts, who are trying to keep the whole thing hush-hush until they get the lay of the land, or should we say, sky. Always get people\u2019s minds in the sky, so they won\u2019t see the problems of the here and now. After some inane and illogical chases and deceptions, contact is finally made in a cacophony of wild (unintelligible word) sounds, spectacular lighting effects, and the germination of some technology that bears little resemblance to any form of transportation on earth.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s tempting to leave all this alone. Scores of outraged readers are undoubtedly looking around for their ballpoint pens with which to tear off an indignant letter to the writers of this leftist periodical, complaining of their capacity for finding a political message \u2013 and of course a reactionary one \u2013 in such an obviously nonpolitical film, opiate to divert the people\u2019s attention from working-class problems in USA and imperialist expansion of US monopoly capitalism in such places as Africa. But there is no such thing as a nonpolitical film, and Encounters <\/em>is no exception. Concededly<\/em>, the notion it promotes are subtle, but this hardly makes them less significant. In fact, since they are largely on the subliminal level, they have a greater potential for penetrating a consciousness made wary of the more explicitly political themes, and they are undoubtedly not the result of a diabolical ruling class scheme. They merely reflect and reinforce prevailing moods of thought, as all movies are used as instruments of propaganda for the ruling class elite.<\/p>\n

The first idea that Encounters <\/em>promotes is that Western democratic capitalism \u2013 that\u2019s a misnomer, there is no democracy in Western capitalism \u2013 represents the apotheosis of civilization. The higher intelligences of the visitors deliberately selects a spot in the USA for its encounter, instead of a likely place in the Marxist-Leninist avant garde<\/em> liberation society of the Soviet Union. The scientist who solves the problem of contact via radio signal are Western capitalist<\/em>, and the international team of scientists is made up of US military personnel and a carefully selected group of Western, European puppet of the renegade capitalist system of finance capitalism and US imperialism. In other words, when the human race meets its extraterrestrial counterparts \u2013 that means visitors \u2013 from outer space, beings that live on other planets, when it meets its extraquesteral\u2013 its ex\u2013 extraterrestrial co\u2013 in\u2013 counterparts for the first time, they\u2013 though\u2013 that race is white, of course<\/em>, European and the intelligentsia of capitalist society. It is also so overwhelmingly male that the visitors from outer space might well conclude that earthlings are androgynous people who reproduce through some other means than sex<\/em>, that men reproduce themselves. You see, you\u2019ve got to look for all<\/em> these subtle reinforcements of capitalist prejudice like that, that visitors from outer space would visit the high-ranking US intelligentsia, white military, and that they would be male. Not<\/em> that a few token women, blacks or Asians would change the basic point involved here, but in the\u2013 a film, there\u2019s no women<\/em> closely connected with this loading of the interstellar dice, and implicit in this whole genre is the identification of all human beings, regardless of class composition with those who represent us in the first encounter between earthlings and aliens. True, in relation to any other intelligence that might exist out there \u2013 and I certainly know it does exist, as a representative, Jim Jones \u2013 we are one people, a planetary<\/em> people. But that first encounter is still in the realm of the remote and the fantastic, a historical accident that may happen sometime but hardly the problem facing mankind today and will in no<\/em> way intervene to help us with the nuclear holocaust problem or capitalist expansionism in the senile capitalist stage that is leading to outright fascism, as you saw in the movie Z<\/em>, which was a true account of what took place in the cradle of democracy in Greece.<\/p>\n

Now one may say that there is no harm in such speculation about visitors from outer space, but this very act of posing the confrontation between people of the planet with beings from outer space before class conflict has been settled once and for all here has some practical cultural effects now. It\u2019s diversionary. It\u2019s an opiate. Just like religion, just like the belief in God, Jesus, astrology or any other of the psychic sciences, so-called pseudo<\/em>-sciences. It implies a brotherhood of man which ultimately takes precedence over class position, a state of being that can come into reality when classes alone<\/em> have been eliminated. It doesn\u2019t happen by some magic introduction from outer space. It also suggests the legitimacy of the military and scientific agents of the bourgeoisie capitalist to represent us, not simply with aliens from outer space, but with peoples of other lands and continents. That\u2019s why all movies that we see here must<\/em> be interpreted for their propaganda, even on the subliminal<\/em> basis. The hypnosis is always there, to keep the people brainwashed and opiate\u2013minded.<\/p>\n

Finally<\/em> the movie Encounters <\/em>envelops its science in a giant maw of mysticism, proclaiming its reverence in a manner befitting the second coming of that stupid Jesus Christ, being gone so long, if he ever existed, should stay<\/em> away. Yes, it has the same reverence in a manner befitting the second coming of Christ, rather than the breathtaking but eminently practical breakthrough that such an encounter would represent. This kind of enterprise does not bring science closer to the people. It removes science from everyday life, and enshrines it as the sacred property of a handful, and that handful happens to coincide by virtue of class position, worldview, nationality, race and sex with the actual makeup of Western imperialism, fascism\u2019s ruling elite.<\/p>\n

And how blind certain Maoists and other liberal, progressive socialists, so-called, have said it was a good film. And if that isn\u2019t political, then neither is imperialism. It\u2019s just another imperialist effort to brainwash the people. Every movie, every TV program, our religion, all astrology, all psychic science, all interest in extraterrestrial beings at this time are mere diversionary efforts of the imperialist ruling class elite to get the minds of the people off of the working class struggle and the need for international<\/em> solidarity amongst the laborers of the world to build international communism.<\/p>\n

Thank you and much love.<\/p>\n

End of tape<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tape originally posted May 2012<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you. To return to the Tape Index, click here. To read the Tape Summary, click here. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1, Pt. 2). Jones: Attention. Good morning news. (Pause) More interest will have to be shown in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":27291,"menu_order":99,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27385","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27385"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107843,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27385\/revisions\/107843"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}