{"id":30895,"date":"2013-07-25T15:53:15","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=30895"},"modified":"2022-12-26T10:07:36","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T18:07:36","slug":"templenews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=30895","title":{"rendered":"Peoples Temple in the News (2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Harvey<\/a>Perhaps the biggest story involving Peoples Temple in 2009 was the coverage over its lack<\/em> of mention in conjunction with the Oscar-nominated film, Milk<\/em>. As noted in articles by Sylvia Marciniak<\/a> and Will Savive<\/a> in this year\u2019s jonestown report<\/em>, the movie biography of San Francisco Councilman Harvey Milk \u2013 who, along with Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated on November 27, 1978 \u2013 does not mention the deaths in Jonestown which had occurred nine days earlier. More difficult for a number of conservative columnists and television personalities was that the movie failed to mention Milk\u2019s relationship of mutual respect with Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones.<\/p>\n

Milk also received two posthumous awards in August this year \u2013 the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, and an announcement by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that he would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame in December \u2013 and Schwarzenegger signed a bill designating May 22 as Harvey Milk Day in California. As some of the same critics pointed out, none of the sponsors of these awards and proposal mentioned Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, or Jonestown in pressing for Milk\u2019s recognition.<\/p>\n

According to the WorldNetDaily<\/a><\/em>, for example:<\/p>\n

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says he\u2019s uncertain if the briefing material given to President Obama when he decided to award Harvey Milk a presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously included Milk\u2019s well-documented advocacy for the late Jim Jones, the leader of the massacred hundreds in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978.<\/p>\n

The issue came up during a White House press briefing the day after President Obama included Milk, a homosexual leader in San Francisco who was victim of a murder, among those listed for the president\u2019s Medal of Freedom awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the president \u2013 concerning the Medal of Freedom awards, is the president aware of Harvey Milk\u2019s strong support of the Rev. Jim Jones?\u201d asked Les Kinsolving, WND\u2019s correspondent at the White House.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know if that was in the briefing material,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cI can tell you the president is opposed to Jim Jones, how about that?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also<\/em>, \u201cWhat the Sean Penn \u2018Milk\u2019 film censored<\/a>,\u201d June 2, 2009, WorldNetDaily<\/em>, by Les Kinsolving.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In addition to news articles, Jonestown and Peoples Temple is often mentioned in the mainstream media both as cultural icons and in serious considerations of religious and political issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonestown Cited in Serious Articles<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

How Reverend Moon Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right<\/strong>
\nby Jimmy Montague, NewsBlaze<\/em>, July 12, 2009<\/p>\n

Survivors of the crazy, drug-sodden street scene of the Sixties and Seventies will recall how it was: after the Manson murders and the Jonestown massacre, parents nationally were terrified of anything that smacked of \u2018cultism.\u2019 Moonies\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 who did weird things such as travel in flocks and sell flowers on the street\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 were one group suspected of \u2018cultism.\u2019 They were believed to have been hypnotized or brainwashed\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 call it \u2018spiritually hijacked\u2019 if you will. Frantic parents sometimes kidnapped their own children and dragged them home, away from Moonie influence, where the kids were confined for weeks or months under close supervision by professional (and sometimes brutal) \u2018deprogrammers.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Westboro Baptist Church Planning Suicidal Exodus?<\/strong><\/a>
\nTowleroad.com<\/em>, New York, 24 April 2009<\/p>\n

Fred Phelps\u2019 Westboro Baptist Church recently left a blog post that has some wondering if the extremist group is planning a mass suicide (a la Jonestown). A little excerpt:<\/p>\n

\u2026 \u201cSo when you see us drop in, tell you about why God has begun your march to destruction, and then get out \u2013 it\u2019s because the time is short.\u00a0 We have a job to do, and very little time to do it…When we\u2019re done, we will leave your filthy land and be placed safely out of the reach of the horror that will then land upon you swiftly and certainly \u2013 in one hour.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CIA involvement with religious groups not a new charge<\/a><\/strong>
\nby Wayne Madsen, Online Journal<\/em>, Silver Springs, FL, 13 March 2009<\/p>\n

Accusations that the CIA is involved with various religious movements, including the Nurcilar movement of Pennsylvania-based Turkish moderate Islamist leader Fethullah Gulen and the Unification Church of one-time Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) operative Reverend Sun Myung Moon, follow a long history of suspicions that the U.S. intelligence agency is deeply involved with some religious movements. \u2026 Perhaps the most infamous CIA association with a religious group was the People\u2019s Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana.<\/p>\n

On August 31, 2007, WMR reported, \u201cWMR has uncovered documents that show the CIA kept extensive open source records on the agency\u2019s suspected involvement in the People\u2019s Temple cult that set up shop in Jonestown, Guyana, after moving from the San Francisco Bay Area. Most official U.S. intelligence files on Jonestown remain classified \u2026 The U.S. ambassador to Guyana at the time of the Jonestown massacre was John Burke, who served with his deputy chief of mission, Richard Dwyer, and were allegedly working for the CIA in Bangkok during the Vietnam war.\u00a0Dwyer was\u00a0wounded in the Port Kaituma shootings where [Congressman Leo] Ryan\u00a0and the others\u00a0were killed. On Sept. 27, 1980, Jack Anderson reported that Dwyer was a CIA agent and a friend of Jones. Anderson reported that on one of the tapes made during the mass suicide Jones was heard saying, \u201cGet Dwyer out of here before something happens to him.\u201d Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for Grenada after the massacre. The US consular officer at the embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, was Richard McCoy, who allegedly liaised with Jim Jones and was a U.S. Air Force intelligence official. Another alleged CIA employee, operating under State Department cover, was Dan Webber, who also visited the Jonestown the day after the massacre. Joe Holsinger, Ryan\u2019s assistant and friend, later said that he believed that Jonestown was a massive mind control experiment and that the CIA and military intelligence were involved in the program.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Suicide is \u2018contagious\u2019<\/strong>
\nby Vince Soodin, The Sun<\/em>, London, UK, 12 March 2009<\/p>\n

A SHOCK[ing] new scientific study has claimed that suicide is contagious.
\nPeople could \u2018catch\u2019 the urge to kill themselves after being exposed to a colleague\u2019s suicide at work, says the report. The controversial findings could throw new light on the suicide cults which have left hundreds dead.\u2026<\/p>\n

Hundreds connected to the Peoples Temple cult were killed in the late 1970s in South America. The deaths took place in Jonestown, Guyana, and left 918 Americans dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Land of Confusion: Cult Phenomenon<\/strong>
\nby Sarah Beard, Henderson State University Oracle<\/em>, Arkadelphia, AR, 26 January 2009<\/p>\n

What happened to cults? They used to be interesting. Is it that nothing interesting happens in the world of insane secular devotion anymore? How did everybody go from mass suicide to mass statutory rape in a matter of a decade? I suppose it would help to define the term \u201cinteresting.\u201d From a journalistic perspective, it applies to anything that will grab a reader\u2019s attention. Which headline do you think is more likely to catch someone\u2019s eye: \u201cSenate to debate bullshit bill\u201d or \u201cCult members engage in mass-suicide on mountaintop?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Joking about Jonestown<\/a><\/strong>
\nby Terry Mattingly, Scripps Howard News Service, 3 December 2008<\/p>\n

It only takes a few words to call back the memories from 30 years ago, all those nightmare images from the jungle sanctuary in Guyana. \u201cRevolutionary suicide\u201d may do the trick, especially when combined with that grim quotation from one survivor, \u201cThey started with the babies.\u201d But it was another Jonestown catch phrase that leapt into the national consciousness. Sherri Wood Emmons heard it when she accepted a job with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) only four years after the massacre.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t drink the Kool-Aid,\u201d said a friend, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s understandable, I guess. We use humor to distance ourselves from things we don\u2019t understand, things that frighten us,\u201d noted Emmons, in her editorial introducing a DisciplesWorld<\/em> journal issue marking the Jonestown anniversary. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to poke fun at people than try to understand them. Those crazies, we say, shaking our heads. They must have been nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a problem with America\u2019s three decades of sick laughter about 900-plus people drinking cyanide and fake fruit juice in honor of one man\u2019s vision of the Kingdom of God on earth.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Jim Jones really did flourish in the American heartland and began his ministry in Indianapolis, of all places. In the early 1960s, his idealistic, multiethnic Peoples Temple was embraced with open arms by the Disciples of Christ, a mainstream church at the heart of the Protestant ecumenical establishment. When he moved his flock to California, he forged strong ties to George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Willie Brown and the San Francisco political establishment.<\/p>\n

And those Jones disciples? \u201cThey were living out their faith in ways that might shame some of us today,\u201d according to Emmons. \u201cAnd they were Disciples of Christ. As much as we might like to forget that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jonestown Cited in Cultural References<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Worm compost bin produces great garden, clear conscience<\/strong>
\nOne writer\u2019s tale of life as a \u201cworm mother\u201d<\/strong>
\nby Rachel Hutton, citypages.com<\/em>, 07 July 2009<\/p>\n

About once a week, I toss whatever food scraps I\u2019ve collected into a plastic bin in my kitchen, and in less than a month they disappear. That\u2019s because the bin contains hundreds of red wriggler worms, which eat the food and convert it to \u201ccastings,\u201d which is a nice way of saying worm poop.\u2026 That is, until the day, a few months back, when I shuffled, bleary-eyed, toward the kitchen and noticed an odd, squiggly pattern on the hardwood floor. Fortunately (I was barefoot), I didn\u2019t enter the room before realizing that the squiggles were actually the carcasses of hundreds of dehydrated worms.\u2026 (The problem with worms is that they can\u2019t tell you there\u2019s a problem until they\u2019re dead.) They\u2019d expressed their displeasure by embarking on a suicidal exodus in search of dirtier pastures. And I was left with an annelid Jonestown.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Polo Massacre Makes Horses With Broken Legs Seem Quaint<\/strong><\/a>
\nby Dashiell Bennett, Deadspin<\/em>, 20 April 2009<\/p>\n

A friendly polo match in Florida turned in an equine Jonestown on Sunday, when 21 horses suddenly dropped dead due to a mysterious \u201ctoxin\u201d just as play was about to begin. Yikes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eaglesmith surprised biting religious references haven\u2019t sparked sermons<\/strong>
\nby Brian Kelly, The Sault Star<\/em>, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, June 2009<\/p>\n

Fred Eaglesmith is preaching to the non-believers.<\/p>\n

The alternative country singer wanted to cut an album for this particular audience for years. Tinderbox, released in 2008, is his long-planned-for effort.<\/p>\n

Struggling with your faith? Wonder if really there is an Almighty power? Eaglesmith is walking the same path in the album\u2019s 18 songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make a record for people who are struggling with any kind of belief,\u201d he said during a recent telephone interview from Port Dover, Ont.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to get any message out. But I have compassion for them. I\u2019m just saying that we might be the real religion \u2013 us who have questions. We might be the real guys. The only answer is there are no answers. That might be the message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eaglesmith wanted his disc to sound \u201ca little Jonestown,\u201d a reference to the mass suicide of more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple cult in 1978. \u201cI wanted it to sound like everybody was in, but when you listen closely to it you realize they\u2019re not in,\u201d said Eaglesmith of the characters brought to life on his album. \u201cEverybody\u2019s doubting. I wanted it to be like that. I wanted it to sound like that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NYT: Duke lacrosse players killed Meredith Kercher<\/strong><\/a>
\nby Ann Coulter, WorldNetDaily<\/em>, Washington, DC, 17 June 2009<\/p>\n

Whether it is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Weather Underground, Central Park rapists, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, welfare recipients, Palestinian terrorists, murderers, abortionists, strippers or common criminals \u2013 liberals always take the side of the enemies of civilization against civilization.<\/p>\n

In the view of the New York Times<\/em>, every criminal trial is a shocking miscarriage of justice \u2013 except the ones that actually are shocking miscarriages of justice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Videos of the Day: Is Gordon Brown a Devalued PM? Who is Tim Geithner\u2019s CEO?<\/strong>
\nby Michael C. Moynihan, Reason Online<\/em>, Los Angeles, California, 25 March 2009<\/p>\n

As a frequent reader of British MEP Daniel Hannan\u2019s Telegraph<\/em> blog, I was happy to see his thundering denunciation of Gordon Brown afforded the full Drudge treatment here in the United States. Compare Hannan\u2019s ruthless interrogation of Brown to this clip of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Jonestown), questioning Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about his current \u201cCEO\u2019s\u201d ties to Goldman Sachs, that company\u2019s plot to sell crack to her constituents, fund the Contras, and fake another moon landing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There Are Fates Worse Than Bonuses<\/strong><\/a>
\nby David Harsanyi, Town Hall<\/em>, Washington, DC, 18 March 2009<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an idea: If you stop nationalizing banks, there will be no need to engage in phony-baloney indignation over bonus payments anymore.<\/p>\n

This cockamamie populism in Washington really hit its stride when Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, suggested that AIG execs who earned bonuses should \u201cfollow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, \u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.\u201d C\u2019mon. If suicide were a proper penalty for piddling away taxpayer dollars, the National Mall would look just like Jonestown \u2013 after refreshments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rebel voices being shaped amid chaos, smoke screens<\/strong>
\nEditorial, Press & Sun-Bulletin<\/em>, Binghamton, NY, 15 March 2009<\/p>\n

The plight of the [Republican] party of Lincoln and Eisenhower was never more apparent for all to see than it was a couple of weekends ago when a gaggle of young ultraconservatives united under the banner of something called the Conservative Political Action Conference met in Washington, D.C., to have their fantasies reaffirmed by their spiritual leaders.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/em> reporter who covered the event graciously called it a Woodstock for young conservatives. Jonestown would have been a more accurate description.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

10 Places Not to Yell: \u201cThom Yorke Is Retiring\u201d (He\u2019s Not)<\/strong><\/a>
\nby Andrea Chalupa, Huffington Post<\/em>, New York, NY, 16 February 2009,<\/p>\n

\u2026Bonnaroo [Music and arts festival]: hose people paid a lot of money and made a lot of effort to locate Manchester, Tennessee and live there for four days like Nature Boy. Not only would the fake-news be heartbreaking, it could turn the massive music fest into the next Jonestown. Icky!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the biggest story involving Peoples Temple in 2009 was the coverage over its lack of mention in conjunction with the Oscar-nominated film, Milk. As noted in articles by Sylvia Marciniak and Will Savive in this year\u2019s jonestown report, the movie biography of San Francisco Councilman Harvey Milk \u2013 who, along with Mayor George Moscone, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29228,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30895","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30895","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=30895"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119128,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30895\/revisions\/119128"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}