{"id":67796,"date":"2016-10-20T16:45:27","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T23:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=67796"},"modified":"2026-02-27T14:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:41:13","slug":"peoples-temple-in-the-news-2016","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=67796","title":{"rendered":"Peoples Temple in the News 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty-eight years after the deaths in Guyana, Peoples Temple and Jonestown continue to make the news on a regular basis, this year more often than not in the context of the national elections<\/a>, both in comparisons between candidates<\/a> and in the familiar Drinking the Kool-Aid references<\/a>. The tragedy made news separately a few times in the past 12 months, however, the most important including:<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a>Jackie Speier<\/strong>, the aide to Leo Ryan who accompanied him to Jonestown and who herself was wounded in the gunfire that killed him, was profiled in both a newsfeed<\/a> and as a blog<\/a> for Roll Call<\/em>, a news source for Capitol Hill insiders and staff. An interview with Ms. Speier \u2013 who has since been elected to Congress from her boss\u2019 district \u2013 appeared in November 9, 2015 edition of The Trace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Speier also described her Jonestown experience during a sit-in for gun control advocates<\/a> in her home district during the congressional recess of July 2016. \u201cI\u2019m the one member of Congress that\u2019s been the victim of gun violence,\u201d she said. \u201cI know what it\u2019s like to live with that experience my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remarks follow her participation in a similar sit-in<\/a> on the House floor in late June, which lasted 25 hours and in which 170 Democratic lawmakers participated. \u201cI brought a bullet, labeled \u2018evidence,\u2019\u201d Speier tweeted from from the house floor during the sit-in. \u201cIt was taken from my body. I know what it feels like to be shot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This past year also saw the publication of an interview<\/a> given by Richard Dwyer<\/strong> to the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in 1990. Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, also accompanied Ryan and was also wounded, although not nearly as severely as Ms. Speier. The interview was summarized in the November 18, 2015 edition of The Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jonestown in commentary<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

From Jim Jones and the People\u2019s Temple to Fetullah G\u00fclen and his terror-cult<\/a><\/strong>
\nDaily Sabah<\/em> (Istanbul), August 30, 2016<\/p>\n

While conceding that Jim Joes and Fetulla G\u00fclen \u201care from completely different branches of different religions, Jones being Christian, G\u00fclen a Muslim, \u2026 they both carry an eerily similar agenda. For one thing they were both religious leaders and founders of their very own cults. Both men also used their charisma as head religious figures to attract people who were vulnerable or disenfranchised from society for various reasons.\u201d The column then continues to mark other similarities, but ends up focusing on the main difference: \u201cJones didn’t order his followers to infiltrate the state instiutions of an entire government – he simply ammased a few thousand vulnerable followers. G\u00fclen’s aims, on the other hand, are the take over of the whole of Turkey \u2026 posing much more danger than Jim Jones ever did.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Things Worse Than Ignorance<\/strong><\/a>
\nBy James Wanliss, March 26, 2016, \u201cThe Right Opinion,\u201d The Patriot Post<\/em><\/p>\n

In a column describing \u201csomething worse than ignorance, and that is unwarranted fear,\u201d the author cites the example of the people of Jonestown as \u201cThose who think each fire alarm might be real are in genuine emotional distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1978 Jim Jones convinced over 900 members of his socialist People\u2019s Temple to commit mass suicide in the jungle of Guyana. Jones\u2019s idealism was a large part of what made him so lethal. He really believed his propaganda. It was regular for Jones to play his emergency recording at the Temple compound, \u201cWhite Night! White Night! Get to the pavilion! Run! Your lives are in danger!\u201d The People\u2019s Temple teaches us something about the danger of being in a constant state of tension, afraid that the end of the world may come at any moment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Insanity Of Jewish Philanthropy Funding Hamas<\/strong><\/a>
\nBy Daniel Greenberg, Front Page Mag<\/em>, February 9, 2016<\/p>\n

In an opinion piece criticizing the Jewish Community Federation for its support of the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco \u2013 which in turn, according to the article, supports anti-Semitic groups \u2013 the author compares such organizations to Peoples Temple.<\/p>\n

\u201cAiding those who want to kill you or those who want to help kill you is suicide. Anyone who aids their own killers is by definition insane and their arguments and justifications should be viewed as the ravings of the utterly unhinged who have chosen to commit suicide and want to take everyone else with them.<\/p>\n

“The insane can have great charismatic powers of persuasion. Not everyone who drank the Kool-Aid at Jonestown was crazy. But those who had a choice, chose to participate in homicidal and suicidal insanity. The Jewish Anti-Israel left is just Jonestown on a multinational scale. Their Kool-Aid is routed through a sophisticated network of NGOs and delivered to students on campuses around the world.<\/p>\n

“But for all the cleverness and sophistication, the billionaire funders and policy papers, the front groups and brand names, it\u2019s all just a Jewish Jonestown with a much better marketing campaign.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Jonestown Massacre \u2013 November 18, 1978<\/a><\/strong>
\nby Marilyn Armstrong, Serendipity<\/em>, 18 November 2015<\/p>\n

Terror, born in hatred and nurtured by evil, doesn\u2019t always come from somewhere else. We grow our own bad guys, too.\u201d This brief history of the Temple, while adding little new information, was posted, as the writer says, \u201cgiven recent events, \u2026 to remember where hatred leads.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jonestown in Guyana<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Jonestown Remembered: The Legacy of Jonestown<\/a><\/strong>
\nby Eric Banks, Kaieteur News<\/em>, 18 November 2015<\/p>\n

This article offers a Guyanese perspective on the Jonestown story, 37 years after the deaths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Church used by American death cult leader Jim Jones to reopen in Guyana<\/a><\/strong>
\nCaribbean 360<\/em>, 18 November 2015 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty-eight years after the deaths in Guyana, Peoples Temple and Jonestown continue to make the news on a regular basis, this year more often than not in the context of the national elections, both in comparisons between candidates and in the familiar Drinking the Kool-Aid references. The tragedy made news separately a few times in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":67218,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-67796","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67796","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67796"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134273,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67796\/revisions\/134273"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}