Jonestown Apologists Alert

Dick Gregory Speaks Out Against The Jim Jones Memorial Wall -- And A Defector Tells His Story About Cult Madness

2011-11-27T17:00:00.003-05:00

Famed social activist Dick Gregory protesting the Jim Jones Memorial Wall
arranged by cult apologists at Evergreen Cemetary

An interview with Dick Gregory by Jynona Norwood is scheduled to run on an internet radio network, which you should be able to tune in, by clicking on the above link. As soon as I receive confirmation, I'll notify readers on its scheduled time and date, along with the scheduled air date of interviews with my sister Kathleen, myself, and my father.

Gregory is one of the many outraged by the inclusion of mass murderer Jim Jones on a memorial wall for those he and his executioners so brutally murdered. His interview, like all his appearances, will prove enthralling.

There's so much misunderstanding about what drove so many people into the arms of this demon and his murderous thugs. One of those who was able to defect--but inexplicably appeared at the May "dediciation" to this atrocious wall--was former member Garrett Lambrev. One can only guess that Lambrev still has some of the brainwash not washed out of him, judging from his appearance at this cult apologist monstrosity.

But his words in this 2008 Cleveland Plain Dealer interview speak volumes about how bad the cult was BEFORE it even arrived in Jonestown and reveals how hard, and dangerous, it can be to break a cult's stranglehold.

Convinced Jim Jones was God, Garrett Lambrev was the first person to join Peoples Temple in Ukiah, Calif., in 1966 after the group moved from Indiana. Ten years later -- two years before the Jonestown tragedy -- he was part of a wave of defectors, shaken to the core by tales of torture and wanting nothing to do with a god who could sanction such things. He was reviled as a traitor and lived in fear for his life.

Back in 1966, Lambrev was a young grad student, searching for truth, for peace, for a new world. After his involvement in anti-Vietnam war protests that landed him in jail, he dropped out of a doctoral program in history at Stanford University and moved to Ukiah for a job as a welfare worker. When he met Jim Jones, who was teaching at a local school, he thought he had found the realization of all his dreams.

"I was utterly transfixed by him," Lambrev said. "He could talk for 14 hours, and I'd be fascinated. I'd never met anyone so intelligent, so cognizant of the human puzzle."

Even then, Lambrev took note of Jones' disturbing behavior. Lambrev had been in the temple only about two months, and he was listening one evening to Jones expound on environmentalism. "He was praising things the Soviets were doing to protect wildlife in the Soviet arctic. And I thought, 'What!' I spoke up, and I said, 'Jim, what about the Gulag? What about the labor camps?'

"He turned red and glared at me, and said, 'Who do you think you are? You're speaking to the Almighty God,' and he pounded his fist. I felt so humiliated. I wanted to be under the floor. But I thought, 'He's God. I'm not.' So I went along with that for years. I questioned myself, rather than him."

During the years, Lambrev was what he calls a "black sheep" in the Peoples Temple family. He'd had trouble dealing with the discipline, and had left previously -- five times, in fact. But he returned five times.

Garrett Lambrev, Peoples Temple Cult Defector

"Inevitably, every time I left, I would fall apart and turn back. The center of life was Jim Jones. He was the access to the divine. For years, I was very much a prisoner of that reality. Nothing could break that until the revelations about the torture."

'Garry, there was torture. Physical torture.'

It was August of 1976, and Lambrev had no plans to leave. He felt very good about his place in the Temple and what he was doing. But there was a friend and fellow member who was upset, and he feared she might kill herself, so he reached out to her. They met outside the Temple, at a pizza parlor at midnight.

"She told me, 'You don't know anything. You haven't seen what I saw,'" Lambrev said, dropping his voice. "She told me, 'Garry, there was torture. Physical torture.'

"I could find nothing to justify that," he said. "I was very, very angry. Enormously disappointed and shaken. I thought, if this guy is God, I want no part of his religion. So I left that night."

"Dad" Jones, the mass murder memorialized

Lambrev went back to his small commune in San Francisco and started packing. His commune-mates alerted a "posse" of Temple devotees to stop him, he said. A car showed up, just as Lambrev and his friend were driving away, and a chase ensued. "We finally lost them through back alleys of Chinatown," he said. "It was laughable, like a Marx Brothers movie."

Lambrev went to a hiding place where another friend was staying. For a while, he worked with a defectors' group in Berkeley, called Concerned Relatives. Then, finally, he felt he must distance himself completely from anyone connected with the Temple, moving to the woods of Oregon.

He was there when the tragedy in Jonestown happened.

"Like so many people, I didn't know what to make of it, whether this was done by a hit squad, if I was on the hit list, or if friends of mine were in danger," he said.

"I think we all knew Jim Jones was responsible for the deaths of about 1,000 people in Jonestown. There were others involved who carried it out. We'll never know who and how many committed suicide or who and how many were murdered. But the decision to carry that out was Jim's."

Questions about what happened haunt him

Questions about what happened still haunt Lambrev, however. In the years before and after Jonestown, there were some mysterious deaths, including the still-unsolved 1980 murders of Al and Jeannie Mills in Berkeley, who had started Concerned Relatives.

"My ambition in this life is to know what really happened," Lambrev said.

A good start, Garrett. Unfortunately, kowtowing with those reprehensible revisionist/cult apologists (Becky Moore, Mac McGehee, Jimmy Jones, Jr, et al) is not a very positive beginning.

Combatting Those That Are Honoring A Madman -- "The Kiss Of Death"-- On This Sad Anniversary

2011-11-18T15:50:00.004-05:00

It's a special day. An especially sad day. 33 years ago a massacre occurred that never should have happened.

But for those in today's New Peoples Temple, the cultish behavior goes on and on. One of the red flags is when they attempt to sanitize and rationalize a monster, for his "good works," and to try any way they can to remain in denial about the true picture.

They really pulled it off this time, didn't they? And this afternoon at an Oakland, California cemetery, where there's a mass grave for hundreds of his victim, adopted son Jim Jones, Jr. will join with his other New Temple cronies and pay homage to his father--as a official "victim."

How do they do it--placing the name of the mastermind of a massacre right along side his victims?? (And, for that matter, the names of his accomplices--the Moore Sisters, Larry Schacht, Thomas Kice, Sr, et al-- that carried out the killings like a regiment of crazed Nazi SS executioners?)

But they did. And today these shameless cult apologists will pay their respects to a monster. Although not before an earlier memorial service, the authentic one, by a courageous woman who lost 27 members of her family at the Jonestown Massacre in 1978.

Her news release spells it out, revealing the added anguish of having to witness the memory of her murdered mother and 26 other family members defiled on this, one of the most painful days in her life:

Dr. Jynona Norwood, Jonestown Memorial Services & Wall founder and executive director, LEADS33rd Annual OfficialJonestown Memorial Service in honor of the beloved children-not jim jones AKA "THE KISS OF DEATH"

Survivors, Families and Friends of Victims and Community Leaders Take Part

OAKLAND, CA - On Nov. 18, 1978 the world were reluctant witnesses to the human sacrifices in Jonestown, Guyana--that Paradise of Pain founded and led by James Warren "Jim" Jones, forever rendered infamous by its name "Jonestown." Total death toll: 918, Forty (40) tiny helpless infants, 265 frightened and tortured children from toddlers to teens a total of 305 innocent youths were ordered to be murdered by Jim Jones aka the Kiss of Death. Jim Jones - the Kiss of Death ordered the Assassination of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and a United Press International film crew. the Jonestown Massacre remains the only time in history in which a U.S. Congressman was killed in the line of duty. Reported by CNN only Thirty - three (33) people escaped Jonestown on that fatal day and now thirty - three years later Jim Jones as we know him has been honored and his name rests in desecration on top of the children's sacred final resting place at Evergreen Cemetery in an act to sanitize his bloody tenure on earth for the horrific acts that he committed against humanity. Jonestown was the single most deadly non-natural disaster in U.S. history until September 11, 2001 and it is critical to remember and honor the real victims on this historically important day.

Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory said prior to the 2010 memorial, "As a family man with ten children and 12 grandchildren, I can feel the pain of that tragedy and I want to share the sympathy with family and friends."

WHO:	Dr. Jynona Norwood, Special Guests, Civil Rights leaders, community leaders,ministers and family members
WHAT:	Prayer Vigil at 33rd Annual Jonestown Memorial Service
WHEN:	Friday, Nov. 18, 2011 \| 11:00 a.m.
WHERE:	Evergreen Cemetery, 6450 Camden St. (at Foothill Blvd.), Oakland, CA
WHY:	To honor the victims and remind the public of the tragic murders of hard working and generous people, who had been in search of better lives for themselves and their children, were killed by Jim Jones
PRESS RSVP:	Dr. Jynona Norwood \| 310.292.5800 \| drnorwood4@aol.com Free refreshments

Dr. Jynona Norwood is founder and executive director of Jonestown Memorial Services and Wall. On that fateful day, her family lost 27 loved ones including her beloved mother and three-month-old cousin Charles Garry Henderson--the youngest child to perish in Jonestown. "Throughout the last 33 years I have paused to reflect on the sparks of life that God created who perished in Jonestown," commented Dr. Norwood. "After losing 27 vibrant loved ones, my family and hundreds of other affected parties will come together to say, "Love never dies, but lives on in our hearts and deeds." The Jonestown victims deserve a fitting Memorial Wall in their honor."

Survivors, families, and community, civic and ministerial leaders will honor the memories of all victims of the Jonestown massacre. To learn more about the Jonestown story, visit INNOCENT CHILDREN ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE @ www.305ICANR.org,

Accountability? What To Do With Those That Help To Create Heinous Crimes

2011-11-13T05:09:00.001-05:00

For all too many today, it's an old, obscure story.

Millions who were born in years following the 1978 massacre have but one momento -- a cliche about somebody "drinking the Kool-aid."

Stumbled upon this clipping recently, showing Jim Jones as he was beginning his rise in Indianapolis in 1953. That's one of the pages out of the sociopath's playbook; working with the needy and the downtrodden. Looks so damn impressive that these predators can't help but win over the public.

And that's when they begin laying out their blueprint for the real work at hand.

Here's a more recent story, with some interesting parallels.

Think we're all well-versed with this other predator who just the other day got caught, a decade after having published this touching book. One Amazon reviewer the other day commented it was "100% false advertising by Mr. Sandusky. Not a single page in this book 'touches' on how to appropriately gain the trust of young, at-risk boys, and then use that trust to perpetrate horrifying sexual assaults on the very children who turned to you for guidance and support...."

No, Jerry seemed of have left out those little details. But now we at least have been informed of the shocking & outrageous reality of the "Sandusky Story."

So what could this tale of a twisted football coach possibly have to do with a twisted, murderous cult leader, besides them both having savage predatory personalities?

Actually quite a bit similar in another very significant respect. Have a look at the chronology of events in the Sandusky case, as reported by writer Sara Ryley:

1977: Sandusky starts The Second Mile, a group foster home for troubled young boys that grew into a statewide charity serving hundreds of young boys.

1998: Victim 6 tells his mother that he was lathered and bear-hugged by Sandusky in the shower. His mother tells Penn State campus police.

Serial Pedophile Jerry Sandusky

May 13 and 19, 1998: Police eavesdrop on a phone conversation during which Victim 6’s mother confronts Sandusky and tries to make him promise never to shower with a boy again. Sandusky will not promise. She asks if Sandusky’s “private parts” touched Victim 6; Sandusky responds, “Maybe,” and tells her, “I wish I were dead.”

June 1, 1998: Sandusky is interviewed by investigator Lauro and campus detective Schreffler, and admits to hugging Victim 6 naked in the shower, saying that he knows it was wrong. He is told to stop showering with children.

District Attorney Ray Gricar

Schreffler and Gricar, the district attorney, decide against criminal charges. A similar incident with a victim referred
to as B.K. was also investigated.
Schreffler testified that Harmon,
then campus police director,
told him to close the case.

May 1999: Paterno tells Sandusky he will not be the next head coach of Penn State. Sandusky retires but negotiates emeritus status, giving him an office and access to facilities.

Fall 2000: Calhoun, the janitor, observes Sandusky in the shower of the Lasch Building performing oral sex on a young boy pinned up against the wall, and tells other janitors and his supervisor. Fellow janitor Petrosky later testifies they were afraid they’d lose their jobs if they told anyone what they saw.

March 1, 2002: McQueary enters the locker room at Penn State’s football building at about 9:30 p.m. and hears the shower running and “rhythmic, slapping sounds.” He sees Sandusky having anal sex with Victim 2, who appears to be 10 years old. McQueary goes to his office and calls his father.

March 2, 2002: McQueary shows up at Paterno’s house and reports what he saw.

Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno

March 3, 2002: Paterno calls Curley to his house to report that McQueary saw Sandusky doing something sexual in the locker room showers.

Schultz testifies that he was then called to a meeting with Paterno
and Curley, during which Paterno reported “disturbing” and “inappropriate” conduct in the shower by Sandusky.

Penn State Asst. Coach Mike McQueary

Approx. March 13, 2002: McQueary is called to meet with Curley and Schultz, and reports what he saw. Curley and Schultz say they will look into it. Curley later testifies that McQueary only reported “inappropriate contact,” not anal sex. However, Schultz testifies that he had the impression that Sandusky grabbed the boy’s genitals.

April 2002: McQueary hears from Curley, who says that Sandusky returned his keys to the locker room and was prohibited from bringing youths on campus, and that the incident was reported to The Second Mile executive director Raykovitz.

July 2009: Victim 1’s mother calls the high school to report inappropriate behavior. Sandusky is barred from the school and police are called.

September 2010: Sandusky retires from The Second Mile.

December 2010: McQueary testifies to the grand jury.

Nov. 5, 2011: Sandusky is arrested.

Nov. 9, 2011: Paterno and Spanier are fired.

So, happy ending, now that Sandusky is behind bars and these two spineless wonders Joe Paterno & Graham Spanier have been sacked?

Not quite. There's of course the life-long destruction of the mental health of those abused boys. But something else and this is where it rings a sickening echo with the Peoples Temple saga--WHY didn't the powers-that-were act to stop this crime rampage at Penn State?

Maybe for just the very same unforgivable reasons that California's powers-that-were did nothing to stop the Jim Jones crime rampage, which of course took far more casualties. Sandusky could and should have been stopped. Just like Jones, who would murder everyone of the children in this picture and many, many more.

But no. The "authorities" in Pennsylvania and California who we counted on to be responsible, conscionable, to do the right thing in the face of evil, instead embraced it, covered up the crime, and let it go on and on and on until it was too late.

Perhaps now, with this appalling Penn State scandal, the people not old enough to remember Jonestown will now be able to grasp its real causes, the ones our mass media still will not owe up to. Today's print and broadcast reporters that sing the same story line, year after year, one anniversary after another, do so because they're far more comfy playing stupid, lazy, and frequently arrogant.

Now that this Penn State tragedy has demonstrated the horrifying byproduct of inaction, people might just reexamine the cult tumor that was the Peoples Temple. It won't be difficult to find out about all those "honorable" politicians, police officials, clergy and journalists that were not only cowardly and ineffectual but aided & abetted Jim Jones.

September 1976 testimonial dinner honoring Jim Jones; Willie Brown, Jr. (far left) and Jones (far right).

There were so many of them lining up to cheer Jones on. Then-Assemblyman Willie Brown was one of the worst.

"I have had the great pleasure of knowing a leader with tremendous character and integrity," declared Brown, who would be rewarded by going on be San Francisco's mayor, "Rev. Jones is regarded among government officials, civic and religious leaders, and particularly the black community and working class people, with utter respect for what he has done to upgrade the quality of life in our area and to bring greater health and well-being to thousands of poor, minority, and disadvantaged people."

Another big Jones cheerleader was Rev. John Moore. Two of his daughters, Carolyn and Annie, committed suicide at Jonestown--that is, after they had brutally murdered babies, children, elderly, and others held at gunpoint by Temple thugs.

Rev. John V. Moore (Right) and his mass murderer daughters, Carolyn (Left), Annie (Center)

Rev. Moore, who officiated at the May dedication of the Jim Jones Memorial Wall, had earlier proclaimed that the cult was a "model for other churches." Much like, say, Sandusky was a model for a youth leader?

This begs another question: Besides Jones, why should the names of ANY of the other mass murderers, such as Carolyn and Annie, as well as others like Jonestown death doctor Larry Schacht, be on this new memorial?

These blood-thirsty beasts have no more right being honored with the defenseless children and adults they butchered than does Jim Jones. What next, adding the names of the "victimized" Nazi SS executioners on the Auschwitz memorial?

Frankie Fountain, murdered by Jim Jones

Jewel Fountain, murdered by Jim Jones

This memorial is for those that couldn't defend themselves--not Jones, not crazed killers like Schacht, or the Moore Sisters, the armed guards, and airport assassins such as Thomas Kice, Sr. and Ronnie Dennis, who shot to death a U.S. Congressman and three journalists.

Take off these murderers' names. Stop this horrendous desecration of the real victims of a senseless massacre that could have easily been avoided, contrary to the myths still promoted by cult apologists and media alike.

Or just leave them on. Let the revisionists and cult apologists win so that Santayana's grim prophecy will prosper.

Another Murderous Candidate For Memorial Status: Richard Speck

2011-11-09T04:48:00.001-05:00

Most successful murderers: Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin

So far we've explored the perversion of anyone honoring some of history's most heinous mass murderers--Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin--especially in memorials for the people they exterminated so ruthlessly.

These three were monsters in an obvious big way, judging from the numbers of their victims. Murder, however, is murder. Most of the time its nothing more than just bloodlust, committed by an apolitical psycho. It could be just, say, eight people who the killer decided on because it "wasn't their night."

The eight young women slaughtered by Speck in 1966

Do these eight Chicago student nurses look at all familiar? They ought to. About 12 years before the night that Jim Jones launched his orgy of slaughter, another maniac named Richard Franklin Speck systematically tortured, raped and murdered Gloria, Patricia, Nina, Pamela, Suzanne, Mary Ann, Merlita, and Valentina.

Like Jones, Speck was reportedly high on drugs at the time of his hideous crime. Like Jones, he was complete sociopath, with no compunction at all about snuffing out human life.

Murderer Richard Speck

Also like Jones, Speck had been an abused child. He was a victim, of his own madness.....just like, well, Jim Jones.

Murderer Jim Jones on the day of his massacre

It would be safe to say that the co-captain of Cult Apologists Central would very well agree. "Indeed," says Jonestown Institute front man Mac McGehee, "some people have argued that, if one views Jim Jones as being mad at the end of his life, he was as much a victim of his own delusions and paranoia as anyone else."

Yes of course, Mac, if the creator of victims was a victim himself, that changes everything. Enough, in fact, to offically qualify them to go on a memorial with the men, women, children, and infants they butchered like cattle.

In the case of fellow killer Richard Speck, it would be very easy to arrange his picture on a nice polished granite memorial, surrounded by the eight photos of those young women he destroyed. Much easier, in fact, than having to carve Jones's name into a memorial one with his fellow 900 plus victims, don't you think?

Peoples Temple Cult Apologist
Fielding "Mac" McGehee

"The most basic consideration," claims McGehee, "is that a memorial stone cannot be an opinion piece, but a factual piece. It will be around for at least another 100 years–since it is granite–long after we have all died, and our passions with us. In the years to come, people will come to look at the names of those who died. Whatever his degree of ultimate culpability, however much he did share it with others, whatever the role of madness played in his actions, the fact is, 918 people died that day, and Jim Jones is one of them."

I see. Well, Mac (and all the rest of your comrades in today's revived People's Temple), word is that we're coming up on another special date next month--the 20th anniversary of the death of victim Richard Speck. So in the spirit of revisionist abandon and unfettered denial, how about putting in a good word to the city of Chicago to post an "all inclusive" memorial for their tragedy?

Just be sure to mention the advantages of a hundred years built-to-last murderer's memorial. You want to be certain that all passions--and objections--over honoring a homicidal maniac will have time to expire.

Activist Dick Gregory protesting with others against
memorializing a mass murderer

Clearly it will take some time.

Bracing For A Grim Anniversary And, Now, With A Mass Murderer On The Memorial

2011-11-07T04:34:00.000-05:00

Got another candidate for official memorial status.

This fellow, in fact, had some things in common with Jim Jones. Both, very dynamic leaders. And true believers in social change. Dedicated as hell and more than willing to, as the saying goes, "crack a few eggs to make that [socialist] omelette."

And both of 'em took radical steps to gettin' things done their way.

This one, of course, was the original Stalinist. But James Warren Jones loved his style and really dug Uncle Joe's politics. So much so that, besides injecting totalitarianism into the People's Temple cult, "Dad" Jim held regular Russian language lessons at Jonestown.

Like Jones, Stalin had a bloodthirsty side, on the kind of scale one would expect from the murderous dictator of an imprisoned nation. The early '30's Ukranian Famine, known as the "Holodymor," was one of his big successes. Killing by withholding food is a convenient form of slaughter although much less prompt than the "revolutionary suicide" of cyanide.

Anyone that knows Stalin's story should really appreciate what an abused child he was and the terrible conditions that he grew up under. He basically went more insane as time progressed. Like his protégé, Rev. Jones, the Man of Steel would surely qualify for "victimhood" too, alongside his victims. And why not?

Which is precisely why this Kiev memorial to the Ukranian Massacre should have some added inscription that also honors the long-suffering Stalin. Right? Yeah, there might be a few Ukranians that would object. But they'll just have to understand that the only way to really heal is to include all the victims in such tragedies, in what ever form they might take.

Of course, the funds to modify this memorial could come from an "anonymous source," since disclosure of the source of such an act could prove awkward. Just carry it out nice and surreptitiously, as did the Peoples Temple boosters when they incorporated the predator with his prey once again.
Which reminds me of a recent question by reader Stephanie Clare who demanded this secret donor come clean, especially in light of the searing controversy of memorializing a psychotic that orchestrated mass murder.

"I'd love to know the anonymous person who donated the money for this sick memorial to Jones," said Clare. "Why won't they give their name? Are they ashamed of themselves?"

A lot of us are wondering the same thing. Unfortunately the same mass media that failed so abysmally to stop Jones and his cult assassins in all the years they operated in California is behaving likewise today--doing nothing to investigate.

So exactly who showed the money, then?

Jim Jones, Jr.?

Fielding "Mac" McGehee?

Rebecca "Becky" Moore?

John Cobb?

The three men pictured here, Jones, Jr., McGehee, and Cobb, make up the muscle of the "Jonestown Memorial Fund," while Becky serves as their most able and lettered cult apologist, exploiting her religious studies professorship at San Diego State Univ.

When this travesty of a memorial was unveiled last May, the mass murderer's adopted son reasoned that his father was a "victim of his own madness," hence, an "inclusive" monument.

"We are concerned that our relatives be remembered," claimed Jones, Jr. "We are not thinking about who caused it and what happened after 32 years."

Selective memory and revisionism is a neat trick, albeit sometimes with some very dirty consequences. "Not thinking" about the cause behind the effect that resulted in a mass homocide is the kind of risky business that drives the wheels of history repeating itself, over and over again.

Rev. Jynona Norwood and son Ed
at the original memorial stone

Jynona Norwood, who lost a staggering number of relatives--27-- to this murderous cult has a more realistic view on this obscene apologist memorial that she's battling as the anniversary gets closer. "It's like putting Hitler's name on a memorial for the Jewish community," she said.

Or, of course, Stalin's name on a memorial for the Ukranians.

Let this perversity come to an end. Remove that mass murderer's name.

Social Activist Dick Gregory: "“This is outrageous and an insult! Tear down this wall!”

2011-11-04T05:53:00.002-04:00

What if this man's name was inscribed in a memorial as a "victim," right along side all the names of those he had exterminated?

It would be inconceivable. Grotesque. Beyond unspeakable. No mass murderer, whether the slaughter was six million or a thousand people, could ever be honored. Unless, of course, the ones honoring the maniac were diehard Neo-Nazis or some other crazed, cultish group.

But believe it or not, two weeks from today in Oakland, California, this blood-thirsty monster will get his second official tribute, by what one critic calls the "New Peoples Temple Leaders."

Who are these people that could be so callous and deluded to memorialize a ruthless psychopath, some of them that even had close relatives--their parents, their children, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins--MURDERED by the Rev. Jim Jones??

There's of course no Holocaust memorial anywhere in the world featuring Adolf Hitler's name. But here's the name of the mastermind of the 1978 Jonestown Massacre, etched in stone along with those he brutally and senselessly killed.

James Warren Jones. Consider yourself now honored.

How is it possible for people to sink to the level of creating this travesty? And how much longer will they continue to get away with sticking this gigantic obscenity in our faces? In the two week countdown to the memorial service on November 18, it'll be a subject well-worth exploring.

Wouldn't you agree, Prof. "Cult Apologist" Moore? Or do you and the other perpetrators really think this is a positive step??

"The 'Jim Jones Honor Wall' impedes the healing process," charges Dr. Jynona Norwood, who lost 27 relatives, "for the families, the public at large and children who are being victimized today and provides no solace by this malicious act perpetrated by a handful of holdovers of the People’s Temple."

Sadly, Jynona, cult madness never seems to ever lose quite all of its toxic steam.

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

2011-05-31T08:10:00.000-04:00

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

2011-02-24T08:34:00.001-05:00

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

2010-11-19T18:01:00.076-05:00

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

2010-11-17T20:39:00.247-05:00

"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"

2010-11-15T17:09:00.002-05:00

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

2010-11-13T18:22:00.015-05:00

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...."

2010-02-23T00:14:00.001-05:00

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.....

Watch more Moviefone videos on AOL Video

Wednesday, Oprah's Big Question: John Wayne Gacy & Jim Jones -- Monsters? Or Just Terribly Misunderstood??

2010-02-16T21:39:00.015-05:00

Get ready for an irresistible cult apologist's BIG splash, everybody -- smack-dab in the middle of the world-famed Oprah Olympic Pool!

That's right. But this time it's unlikely to be anything as sensational as Scientologist Cruise's notorious couch hysterics that we all remember.

No, not quite that. But Harpo's Royal Highness still has something to show the world tomorrow afternoon that might just be as valuable a ratings bonanza.

All over the Info Highway, the thrilling announcements: "WEDNESDAY ALL NEW! Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy's Sister & Mass Murderer Jim Jones's Son Speak Out...."

"....What is it like to be related to the most notorious and reviled people in history? First, in 1978 the Reverend Jim Jones led over 900 of his followers to the biggest mass murder suicide in modern history. Now his son, Jim, Jr., speaks out about living in the shadow of his father's horrific crimes and explains the burden of bearing his adoptive father's name...."

No doubt this promises to be a memorable show. Imagine, we'll have the sister of John Wayne Gacy talking about how "good and kind" her brother actually was. Sure, he may have lost it 33 times, torturing & murdering that many boys and men, burying them under his house so everybody would stay convinced he truly was "good and kind."

And one more thing, she says, needs to be cleared up -- he was not a monster.

Well, okay, if she insists. Tell that to the families of the people her crazed sibling butchered so efficiently.

Now if this is what we'll be hearing from Sis Gacy, just try imagining the promos Mr. Jones, Jr. might be tossing out about the "good and kind" sides of his dearly departed relative?

If his past statements are any sign, it ought to be more breath-taking than practically any of the hogwash floating around Becky Moore's propaganda palace, "The Jonestown Institute."

In a 2006 interview, Jones, Jr. commented about his father's "functional" side when being asked about Director Stanley Nelson's twisted whitewash "documentary," entitled "Jonestown: Life and Death of Peoples Temple." Jones(R) is seen standing here with the scowling master of cult apologist cinema, Lord Nelson.

"He [father Jim] must have presented something to them to make him trust them," said Jones, Jr. "And I think Stanley's film shows this functional world of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple." Two years later, at the 30th anniversary memorial service for the 900 victims of his "functional" father, he made the astounding claim that this mass-murdering monster "should not be villianized."

Why?

Because, according to Jones, Jr., his savage, sadistic father was "a victim," just as much as the nearly 300 children and babies he subjected to agonizing death sentences by cyanide.

Painful beyond belief, it must have been, this victim father's gift of dying "with a degree of dignity."

Perhaps something like this:

A toddler, screaming that her throat is on fire, heart racing uncontrollably, world around her spinning. She can barely breath.

A dark, complete terror wracks her brain.

The screaming slowly descends into a helpless moaning.

Bathed in sweat, she begins vomiting.

Then, her entire body surrenders to ghastly convulsions.

More.

And more.

And more.

Finally.

She's still.

"Crossed over," just as the monster and his planning commission executioners had hoped.

Imagine, if you can, this horror repeated 900 more times. Official estimate was that the great majority of Father Jones's victims did not in fact have their "C" served up in a cup of Flavor-Aid. They were forcibly injected in the back.

So much for the notion of "revolutionary suicide."

So tomorrow on Oprah, besides hearing how "good and kind" John Wayne Gacy was, will we also endure the sick spectacle of someone arguing the master mind behind this unspeakable Crime of the Century was "a victim"??

Let's hope to God he doesn't dare.

The Beast And His Jonestown Baby Killers-- Commemorate Them??

2010-02-07T22:45:00.018-05:00

Bitterness and controversy on the right way to memorialize the dead of Jonestown just won't go away.

A few months ago I got this elated message from "Rhonda" (who's requested anonymity), a survivor of the Jonestown Massacre:

"I wanted to advise you," she said, "and I am glad to report that the memorial plaque constructed by Lela Howard bearing the name of Jim Jones along with the names of the real victims has not and will never be placed in the African American Historical Society in San Francisco. They are sensitive and understanding about the insensitivity of placing such a permanent fixture in their museum on a permanent or temporary basis. So I guess Lela best move on to perhaps the City of Los Angeles or some other city that will deem Jim Jones a victim of himself."

The above photo from the Jonestown Massacre's 30th Anniversary Memorial Service is something altogether different, of course. Shown is one of the first two panels of a granite memorial wall unveiled at the site of a mass grave of Jonestown victims, most of them children, in Evergreen Cemetery nestled in the hills of Oakland, California.

Seen praying over one of the panels at the far right is Jynona Norwod, who has overseen the project to build the wall. She has as good a reason as any other surviving relative, having suffered the devastating loss of 27 family members to Jim Jones and his executioners in November, 1978.

She is rightfully adamant the monster that destroyed so much of her family never, ever be recognized as a "victim," which would honor him with all the men, women, children, and babies he savagely murdered.

Other concerned parties, however, strongly object. They formed a rival group that constructed a separate memorial--a Lucite plaque--featuring the name of certain "faith healing" mass murderer. They apparently echo the sentiments of adopted son, Jim Jones, Jr., who claimed at the memorial service that "the tragedy is we're villianizing Jim Jones....also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

Granted, this was his adapted father. But it just can't change the fact that Jim Jones, Sr. was little more than a sadistic, psychotic killer. Memorialize a perfectly hideous beast that caused such unspeakable suffering, years and years even before the Jonestown Holocaust, as a "great loss"??

The revisionists and shameless cult apologists that we're so well acquainted with might be well pleased, because their desperate hope will forever be to one day dupe today's public that the People's Temple's demonic essence was shadowed by its bright, cheery sides.

"....Peoples Temple members were engaged in the world, and tried to make concrete differences in individuals' lives and in society as a whole." --Rebecca Moore
San Diego State Prof. of Religion and
Sister of Temple mass murderers, Carolyn & Annie Moore

Food kitchens--and extortion. Miracle healings--and fraud.

Foster families--and child torture. Spiritual redemption--and brain washing.

Drug rehab--and murder.

All brought to us by that racially enlightened Marxist marvel, Comrade James Warren Jones and his near lily-white politburo, The Planning Commission.

Jones, honored? Along with his murderous organized crime family, including Sharon Amos, Larry Schacht, Annie & Carolyn Moore, Jim McElvane, and those gun-wielding death camp guards that so efficiently coerced all the other cult members to the slaughter?

Commemorate baby killers? Are you kidding??

Rival memorial group leader Lela Howard is deadly serious. She's the one Rhonda spoke of in her message. Howard lost an aunt at Jonestown and said, "This is the first time they will be recognized as human beings. It restores the humanity of these people and gives their names back."

It's hard to say where Howard and her group will place their memorial, now that it's reportedly been rejected for permanent placement in San Francisco's African American Historical Society.

That clearly will do little to cool down the rage and resentment Howard has for Norwood. At the end of 2007, she wrote to the Apologists Alert claiming:

"A memorial wall at Oakland cemetery is great! But I thought money was collected for that many years ago--what happened to those funds? It seems as if there's an unnecessary competition in regards to memorials for the victims, which takes away from the focal point of remembering them.

This makes me very sad and confused, because this separates us or leans towards a school yard 'choosing sides' type of mentality, instead of family and survivors coming together and honoring our loved ones. It's more about the living and their egos, rather than those who perished...very, very, very sad."

Then, about a year later, came another attack on Norwood. This time from another critic claiming anonymity as "Confused and Getting Upset." It was an even harsher denunciation [see November 9, 2009 JAA post], questioning both Norwood's financial accounting as well as her personal integrity.

Without any outright evidence, there's no way to go beyond mere speculation that this diatribe came from someone in Howard's group or Howard herself.

The attacks have outraged Norwood. She's issued a very lengthy rebuttal.

Some of the highlights:

"Your named and anonymous bloggers," she wrote, "are attempting to distract our focus in memorializing the 305 innocent babies that Jim Jones murdered. Remember that these are the types of tactics that was encouraged and taught by Jim Jones. I remember as a teenager that whoever did not join Jones's church was to be misaligned at home, within the family, and in public....

....It has to do with what is right or wrong. It is about correcting a wrong. In your blog an anonymous contributor compared me with Jim Jones and called me a charlatan because I minister in the five-fold ministry, of which the gift of prophecy is one such anointing....

....I have never said that I would list the names of the murderers at Jonestown. This is another lie. Our decision to include the names of all the fallen except Jim Jones is not complicated. We are neither judge nor jury. We do not know with any certainty all of whom were actually involved in the massacre, but we do know who the leader was.

Would your bloggers also desire that I not accept the support, prayers and commendation's of the political, civil and community leaders who were deceived into befriending Jim Jones? They did not know that he would cause the murder of babies that included over 900 loving people. Therefore, instead of picking through the ruins, we are moving up from the valley of tears to build a monument to repentance, renewal and revival....

....Lela Howard garnered support from leaders and built a memorial honoring everyone including Jim Jones in her 2008 ceremony in San Francisco. She had the audacity to inscribe Jim Jones's name next to the victims and innocent children. She tried to have it placed in the African American Center in San Francisco where she held the ceremony, but when the African American community and leaders found out that she was honoring Jim Jones they called the center and put a stop to it....

...My books are open and I have nothing to hide....As soon as my CPA finishes his YTD report we will make these records available to the Office of the Attorney General and any reputable organization. Therefore, I call upon good people of the nations to help us do good in the face of evil and continue to love in a sea of hate. If we can do this together, we will never see another Jonestown massacre again."

One can only hope.

Guyana Finally Finds The Time "Ripe" To Officially Recognize People's Temple Cult Mass Murder Victims

2009-11-29T02:59:00.026-05:00

It was over before anyone knew it. And long, long overdue.

The unannounced ceremony this past November 18th was as simple as the white stone plaque they erected at the Guyanese jungle clearing.

It's taken far too long for Guyana's government to officially recognize the Crime of the Century that took place in their impoverished nation more than three decades ago. The stigma, however, seems to have finally lifted with the passing of enough years.

"We think the time is now ripe for some sort of memorial to remember those who died as 31 years have passed and the wound is not so raw," said Indranauth Haralsingh, the director of the Guyana Tourism Authority. "There should be something to remember them as people do come."

"In memory of the victims of the Jonestown tragedy, November 18, 1978, Jonestown, Guyana"

That's the memorial's sole inscription, just as it reads on Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery tombstone (with the added words "Guyana Emergency Relief Committee") where over 400 Jonestown victims are buried.

Since the 30th anniversary of the massacre, the Evergreen site now has an emerging memorial wall of names of all the dead, save one, mass murderer Jim Jones--which has been some of the surviving relatives' vocal point for controversy.

"I hope," said U.S. Embassy charge d'affairs Karen Williams, who helped unveil the Guyana's Jonestown Memorial, "that this simple and very reverent service today and monument will serve to help heal those wounds in both of our nations."

"Wounds"??

Interesting perspective, Madam Charge D'affairs.

Far more ethical and forthright would have been to come clean with her employer's disgraceful derelection of duty in the lead-up to the clearly avoidable massacre that cost over 900 lives, including Rep. Leo Ryan, the only congressman in history to die--senselessly--in the line of duty.

Ryan had had five, count 'em, five briefings provided by that useless and duplicitious State Department prior to this extremely dangerous rescue mission, which not one single other member of Congress had the guts to accompany. With all the testimony about people in the Guyana Gulag being held prisoner, being tortured, and threatened with murder, Ryan requested that some critically needed straight answers be provided by those bumbling bureaucrats.

"Nonsense." That was what that oh-so conscientious, competent State Department told the doomed congressman regarding the peril he was about to enter.

And nothing more.

They deliberately sat on the critical information that would have saved Ryan, his delegation, and surely the rest of the Jonestown cult captives.

So as with the journalists, clergy, and American & Guyanese politicians in the Cast Of Shameless Wonders that enabled Jim Jones and his cult mafia to run amok, our U.S. Dept. of State also has plenty of blood on its hands.

And like their reprehensible cohorts, it's a sure bet that "State" will never, ever owe up to its appalling guilt. Thank you, Ms. Williams, for clarifying that for all of us.

Staboek News, an independent Guyanese newspaper, published this observation by one of the country's political parties on the day their memorial was erected:

"The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) says while the public continues to be baffled by the events that led to the Jonestown disaster, it was important to note that the tragedy could have been avoided if not for political interference in the judicial process....

....The WPA said while questions continue to arise about the purpose of the Temple, what is clear is that Jim Jones and his group were allowed to establish a settlement by the PNC [People's National Congress] government in Guyana’s interior and there was little governmental oversight of the operations of that organisations. It is also clear that the Temple 'had acquired considerable influence among certain political officials in the then government who among other things, attempted to influence the course of justice.'

The WPA said the action by then minister of home affairs Vibert Mingo to get Justice Aubrey Bishop [pictured here] to reverse his decision that Jones 'must appear and give evidence in the Baby Stoen case' that had been engaging his attention, is just one example. Jones ignored the judge’s order, the WPA said, adding that perhaps the outcome at Jonestown might have been different if Justice Bishop’s order had been heeded...."

Albert Einstein once wrote that the world is a dangerous place "not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”

Sound social insight from a legendary scientist. It perfectly compliments the other plague: People that knowingly aid and abet evil in its most heinous forms.

On the 25th anniversary of the massacre, Guyanese pilot Capt. Gerry Gouveia made a crude but very reality show-like series of videos of his and a small group's journey into what remains of Jonestown. He might very well be the Guyanese reality show star, considering what he personally witnessed in 1978 and later found in this intriguing look at a notorious killing field that today is devoured by merciless jungle.

The Guyana Tourism Authority, despite the government's new memorial, continues to refuse the proposal to develop the place as a tourism attraction. Perhaps it might come in future years, if the country gets cash-strapped enough.

Let's just pray that they make very, very sure that the cult apologists don't get their paws on the plans should the project ever come to fruition.

Think of the possibilities, and then help yourself to a nice long shudder.

Stanley Nelson's stomach-churning apologist film would look positively honest by comparison.

It would bring new meaning to historic fiction and revisionism. Think of the fantasy & fairy tales that would make up a visitor's center sponsored by the Jonestown Institute.

And instead of a watching it on DVD or reading about it in one of Becky Moore's Temple Tall Tales books--the latest which I'm going to review very soon--you could pay homage to all the "good works" of the cult "pioneers" that blazed a path shimmering with fraud, extortion, slave labor, and child torture.

Better scenario: Let it be administered by genuine historians. And by authentic survivor testimony.

Allow bona fide facts, not embellishments and half-truths, to tell the real story.

Jonestown, like any of the world's other resurrected gulags, should be revealed to tourists in all its true horrifying colors.

"Conditions at Jonestown were even worse than I had feared they would be. The settlement was swarming with armed guards. No one was permitted to leave unless on a special assignment and these assignments were given only to the most trusted. We were allowed to associate with Guyanese people only while on a "mission".

The vast majority of the Temple members were required to work in the fields from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M. six days per week and on Sunday from 7 A.M. to 2 P.M. We were allowed one hour for lunch. Most of this hour was spent walking back to lunch and standing in line for our food. Taking any other breaks during the workday was severely frowned upon.

The food was woefully inadequate. There was rice for breakfast, rice water soup for lunch, and rice and beans for dinner. On Sunday, we each received an egg and a cookie. Two or three times a week we had vegetables. Some very weak and elderly members received one egg per day. However, the food did improve markedly on the few occasions when there were outside visitors.

In contrast, Rev. Jones, claiming problems with his blood sugar, dined separately and ate meat regularly. He had his own refrigerator which was stocked with food. The two women with whom he resided, Maria Katsaris and Carolyn Layton, and the two small boys who lived with him, Kimo Prokes and John Stoen, dined with the membership. However, they were in much better physical shape than everyone else since they were also allowed to eat the food in Rev. Jones' refrigerator...."
--Debra Layton Blakely

No doubt that our Alternative Considerations of Jonestown apologists can put a mind-controlling spin on this "utopian community," as they've proven repeatedly in the popular media.

Let's just say no to them this time.

The Saddest Portrait Of Today's Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

2009-11-18T07:39:00.006-05:00

Today, these babies would have likely had families of their own.

Of all the victims, they were the most senseless and heart-wrenching.

The perpetrator list runs long and wide, as does the continuing coverup. As we mourn the dead today, a short film reminds us of one part of the coverup that continues.

More on this today.

Prayers go out to the relatives of those killed by this Marxist Monster and his executioners 31 years ago.

Continuing Rancor Over Jim Jones & Memorial: "He is not--and never was--a victim!"

2009-11-14T23:40:00.001-05:00

This scene look familiar?

Happened in Texas, courtesy of a cult maniac swaggering in the footsteps of another megalomaniac who hosted his own holocaust 15 years earlier in a Guyanese jungle.

A memorial for the victims of the 1993 Waco Massacre was established by Branch Davidian survivors two years later on the privately-owned Mount Carmel property. It was a layout of crape myrtle trees, which later had headstones representing victims placed at the base of each tree.

Amazingly, one of those headstones--until it was rightfully destroyed by the property owner in 2006--was dedicated to a murderous, crazed sexual predator.

As controversial as was the ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound, it's outrageous watching muddle-headed wonders award victim hood status to ruthless, sadistic monsters like David Koresh.

Koresh's crime spree, however, was something of a virtual misdemeanor next to the unspeakable horrors inflicted by Jim "Dad" Jones and his People's Temple Mafia. So why, once again, are people stepping up to actually honor another raging psychopath as a "victim"??

One of those is a group of family survivors lead by Lela Howard (whose aunt died in Jonestown) that tried but failed to erect their own memorial that included Jones in San Francisco's African American Cultural Center, thanks to protests by other survivors.

One of the protesting survivors, "Rhonda" (who's requested anonymity), told the Apologists Alert:

"It was insulting, illogical, and outright disrespectful of Black Americans. Jewish people have never proclaimed Hitler as a victim, nor has his name been placed on a memorial wall erected for those he ordered murdered.

Ms. Howard was never a member [of the cult] and she should have conferred with others prior to making her decisions to be disrespectful. Instead she selected to speak with Jones's sons and other white members who were part of the hierarchy. My suggestion is that Ms. Howard maintain her memorial in Los Angeles so that she can frequently visit a site locally for remembrance. Don't smear our faces in it or bring this back to San Francisco."

The late cult leader's adopted son, Jim Jones, Jr., is clear about his place in the revisionist camp, alleging that "the tragedy is we're villainizing Jim Jones," who he claims "was also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

It's obvious that Rhonda appreciates the Jones, Jr. perspective about as much as she does Howard's. We get the feeling she's equally unenthused over our favorite cult apologist film maker, Stanley Nelson.

"I am tired of those who continue to surface as self-appointed spokespersons for black victims of People's Temple," she says, "I'm tired of the ignorance, lies, and misstatements of Jimmy Jones, Jr., who....is an embarrassment to every intelligent black person in the world.

Jim Jones, Jr. makes ridiculous statements about what a great man his dad was. We must remember that his dad killed his wife and their unborn child in Jonestown. He goes on speaking engagements for pay and has used the death of others as a major source of income.

My question: Why would you continue to bear the name of a murderer? This is sick, just as disgustingly sick as his adopted dad.

I think of the Lela Howards and Stanley Nelsons as the “Aunt Janes” and “Uncle Toms” of the world....Their mission is an attempt to portray Jim Jones as a "victim". They attempt unconvincing arguments that Jim Jones’ name should appear on a wall with the true victims’ names. He is not--and never was--a victim!"

Rhonda voices much support for Dr. Jynona Norwood's work in getting the Jonestown Memorial Wall erected, calling her "a faithful and humble servant trying to give the lost souls their own identity, a name, and dignity. However, she meets constant roadblocks."

Obviously one of the biggest challenges has been raising funds for the wall. It's time to petition former Jones allies such as Willie Brown and Cecil Williams to cough up a substantial chunk of the expense. After all, they're part of that California political rabble with blood on their hands from November 18, 1978.

Let Brown, Williams, and the rest of those self-serving elites make their financial amends next Wednesday at Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery, right after they've publicly apologized to the grieving relatives of every one of the real victims of their Prized Marxist Missionary.

I'm sure they'll have an undoubtedly receptive audience, judging from last year's memorial service:

Jonestown Massacre Memorial Wall: "Something is Wrong!"

2009-11-09T23:03:00.003-05:00

Another anniversary of that senseless, horrific day of slaughter is crawling towards us again.

Last year's 30th Remembrance at Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery saw the unveiling of two black granite panels of what was promised to eventually be a 36 foot-long stone wall with the names of all the victims. A year has passed and the question remains:

Where are rest of the panels?

What's more, will they show all the names?

Can you just imagine having those Jonestown assassins carved in granite right next to the men, women, children, and babies they brutally murdered??

Would you like to see names like Sharon Amos, the bestial Temple executioner that slit the throats of her two young children? Or any of the monstrous guards and Temple inner circle, such as Carolyn and Annie Moore, who personally orchestrated the cyanide mass murder of their "suicide" targets?

There are still some voices of furious discord amongst the relatives of the Jonestown victims, who continue to question the management of the memorial wall construction, currently overseen by Jynona Norwood, a Los Angeles evangelist who lost 27 family members in the Guyana bloodbath.

Less than a month after last year's memorial, an anonymous reader "Confused and Getting Upset" wrote to the Apologists Alert:

"How are the marble panels going to be secured at the Oakland cemetery? It was brought out on a tracker, so the weight must be over a ton. It was beautiful, but left me thinking: How the ground is going to handle the weight? Also, I have donated money to that fund and after 27 years of collecting money, why is $70,000 more still needed to complete the wall?

There is a website called 'The Miracle Wall.' On the site, Jynona Norwood claims to be a "prophet" and predicted Jonestown (if so, why didn't she do something about it?), the Iraqi war and Princess Diana's death....

I am starting to feel uncomfortable about this.

The original focus is being lost and celebrity is sought. Jones said he was a 'healer' and 'prophet.' Now Norwood is claiming to be the same charlatan, who passes around a collection bucket after the ceremony at the cemetery? I was literally sickened and walked away.

The wall in Oakland is designed to include the names of known killers?

Why?

They killed! They killed! They killed! Their names should not be on the wall!

I am outraged! It is not right! Their names next to they those killed?!
How can this be stopped? I don't want my money used for this.
I think you or your dad need to really look into this!

Something is wrong!"

Last November, this blog reported the brewing controversy. Norwood demanded that only the most notorious name should be left off the wall, while some of her other detractors insisted that all, killers and victims alike, be featured. The excerpt:

"Jones was not a victim," said Norwood, "To me, that's like putting Hitler's name on a memorial to the Holocaust."

It's clear, however, that her sentiment is not shared by all the relatives and survivors, including Lela Howard, who lost an aunt in Jonestown and had contacted the Apologist Alert late last year. She has publicly questioned Norwood's accounting of memorial funds (See "Division and Controversy Roils Construction of Jonestown Memorial," January 4, 2008 post.)

But that's not all. Howard's rival group of survivors unveiled their own memorial plaque at the ceremony, bearing all the names of the dead, including a vicious sociopath named James Warren Jones. They've arranged to have the plaque displayed at San Francisco's African American Historical and Cultural Society.

Norwood said she intends to inscribe the names of the Temple assassins that murdered Congressman Leo Ryan, three journalists, a defector, and shot 11 others (including Ryan's aide, Jackie Speier, who now holds his Congressional seat) at the Port Kaituma Airstrip.

But not Jones. Not ever. "To put Jim Jones's name on that wall is an insult ... to all the dead," she said. "He was the most evil man who walked on this earth."

Not so, says the man that carries his name, who survived the bloodbath with his bothers, thanks to a basketball tournament in Guyana's capital city, Georgetown. Jim Jones, Jr. sides with the Howard faction. "The tragedy is we're villainizing Jim Jones," said the cult leader's adopted son. "Jim Jones was also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

Other victims of their own hyper pathology include a pair of notables that Father Jones in his early years studied voraciously to learn the finer techniques of sadism, power, and mind control.

His cult of personality ended up fitting like an iron glove and crushing like a charm.

Memorial, anyone?

Manson, Jones, And Koresh: MSNBC's Halloween Banquet Of Cult Horror

2009-10-25T19:28:00.004-04:00

Some TV network execs have apparently now been bitten by the cult bug.

More than two weeks ago, long before the November anniversary marking the tragedy, CNN rebroadcast Soledad Obrien's "Escape From Jonestown".

Now, tonight on MSNBC, we're getting served a triple entree of cult crazies. From 7 to 9 p.m., the saga of those ferociously poisonous flower children is being presented in "Will You Kill For Me? Charles Manson And His Followers."

Between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., we'll see the replay of last Sunday's "Witness To Waco," detailing the horrifying end to David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult.

In 2003, ten years after the Waco holocaust, Cult Expert Rick Ross wrote an expose in his Cult News Network about one of the many cult apologists that continue making excuses for Koresh's slaughter of nearly 80 men, women, and children.

Her name is Catherine Wessinger, a professor of religious studies at Loyola University. Ross reported the following:

"It seems Wessinger can be depended upon for an apology no matter how bizarre and/or destructive the cult. Today in the Waco Tribune-Herald’s second installment of its nine part series about the Branch Davidians she once again offers her unique spin on a cult’s demise.

What does Wessinger make out of the Davidian cult tragedy?

Well, she says it was largely about 'the militarization of law enforcement and the problems … and abuse that arise from such militarization.'

Right.

Apparently this college professor doesn’t wish to acknowledge the implications of a purported 'psychopath' leading a cult group. Wessinger admits, 'I’m not trained in psychology so I don’t articulate those opinions....I’m sure he [Koresh] had some psychological issues.'

What an understatement.

Wessinger offers her usual apologetic spin. She has previously attempted to explain away cult tragedies such as Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown. Wessinger once said, 'If Jones and his community had succeeded in creating their Promised Land, they would still be here. But due to the attacks and investigations they endured, they opted for the Gnostic view that devalued this world.'

Again, no meaningful blame is placed upon the deeply disturbed cult leader and the inherent destructive dynamics of his control over the group. Apparently almost any cult and/or cult leader’s behavior may be largely excused according to Wessinger’s reasoning under the general heading of 'persecution'....

Koresh broke the law, failed to comply with a warrant, murdered federal officers and then refused to surrender for 51 days, despite the repeated pleas and guarantees of law enforcement. In the end he chose instead to kill himself and all his followers within the compound.

The cult leader’s behavior had little if anything to do with 'biblical prophecy' and his 'work' was really more about criminal violations of gun laws and sexual abuse than the 'Book of Revelation.'

However, 'apologists' like Wessinger apparently ignore such facts in favor of speculation based upon specious, but supposedly 'politically correct' views, instead of reality."

You'll see Ross interviewed in the documentary. If Wessinger shows up, we'll know there's something amiss.

Oh yes, and that leaves the hours, 9:00 to 11:00 p.m.--what notorious cult show might be sandwiched between the twin terrors of the Manson Family and the Branch Davidians?? Why, it's yet another "witnessing," like Waco, entitled "Witness To Jonestown."

Thaaaaat's right, people. The Good Reverend and his Temple of--at least, of course, til the very end--Good Works. After this program ran last year, one of my readers, "Dave," had this to say about MSNBC's distorted reporting:

"I observed all the same criminal omissions. The most glaring being the way they always present the People Temple's accommodation of old people and children as 'humanitarian' and ignore that it was the primary source of income. (California child welfare and social security checks were coming in at the rate of $65,000 per month)....."

Dave also had some rather harsh criticism of a certain religious studies professor that runs a particular "institute" all about Jonestown and the People's Temple cult. Except it's not a cult!!, sayeth Dr. Rebecca Moore, of San Diego State University.

"Moore and her ilk," charged Dave, "have reduced the label for these destructive, con-games-on-a-massive-scale to the word 'cult' and have then dismissed the word.

She should be ashamed of herself.

As a religious scholar, she needs to know that putting cults and the worship of God on the same plane diminishes religion. Period."

And here's an utterly amazing coincidence: Blue Ribbon Jonestown Apologist Becky juuuuuust so happens to be a real good buddy of our Koresh Booster, Cathy Wessinger. In fact, they both co-edit the insidious "New Religious Movements"(translation--CULTS) propaganda journal, "Novo Religio."

The lady scholars get a little help from a third flaming cult apologist named Douglas Cowan. He runs the online "Religious Movements Homepage Project," currently under renovation. Cowen is celebrated for his crafty embellishments of virtually any and all cults, no matter how ruthless or rapacious.

That's probably why Becky and Cathy have Cowan helping to co-pilot their barge, U.S.S. Apologia. In a 2004 academic paper, Cowen announced the very destructive Scientology "has an image problem."

Image problem?

Oh, yeah. That sometimes happens.

High Politicos Continue Milking The Man That "Gave Hope" To A Doomed Cult

2009-10-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

The Harvey Milk shrine gracing the top of San Francisco City Hall's grand staircase has an inscription from the late supervisor's famed speech claiming his election "gave young people out there hope. You gotta give 'em hope."

Hope clearly is fast gaining steam in some quarters now that this new & improved milk propaganda blitz has hit the stratosphere. Last Tuesday California Gov. Schwarzenegger followed Pres. Obama's lead in deifying the Jim Jones accomplice, with the signing into state law "Harvey Milk Day" every May 22nd. This comes on the heels of Governor Musclehead's plan to induct the Milk Man into the California Hall of Fame in December.

That next side show will follow the month after another Jonestown Massacre anniversary, which Harvey also gets a bow for being one of the preventable tragedy's most notable official facilitators.

Sure, there's some folks that continue taking issue with me here, some of them who just can't resist playing apologists for all the brazen allies of the torturers & murderers that ran the People's Temple cult. One of my readers, "Emily," wrote in earlier this year (and PLEASE do excuse me for letting some of the comments fall through the cyber cracks!) pleading compassion for the self-serving slobs, living and dead, who have Jonestown blood-stained hands.

Emily, an apparent fan of fictional bio-pics, set the record straight about the "Milk" movie:

"Come on. Even Ryan himself was initially fooled by the supposed utopian socialist paradise while he was standing within its very walls. Jones was a masterful con man and was very, very deft at appearing kind to outsiders. Even initial criticisms and reports of abuse could have been disputed as a disgruntled or intolerant agenda against what, from the outside, very easily could have appeared to be nothing more than a loving group of people committed to a self-sustaining lifestyle apart from the real world.

Yes, you and I know that was far, far from the case now, but we have history on our side. It's very easy to sit back in judgement when you know what was going to happen next.
Do you honestly think any of those people would have been complacent and done nothing if they had hard, factual evidence that there was extreme abuse that would result in everybody in Jonestown being killed? Do you think nobody feels any guilt for being a part of what ultimately enabled Jones to get away with it all?

The movie is about Harvey Milk and his activism for gay civil rights, not Harvey Milk and everybody he ever knew in his lifetime. Introducing the Jones aspect would have been an almost awkward non sequitur that couldn't have been done in a manner that would do the severity of the subject justice, unless you made the entire film about that association. It's the stuff of dense biographies, not a two-hour biopic. Simply brushing over the subject as if it were not important would have been worse than not mentioning it at all.

A lot of people were fooled by Jim Jones. I can't condemn every last one of them for not knowing the horrific fate of his followers."

Emily, it looked like it was cinch for Harvey Milk to sing the cult praises as a "loving group of people committed to a self-sustaining lifestyle apart from the real world," just as long as he (A) kept on getting their invaluable election support and (B) averted his eyes to the continuing avalanche of substantiated reports of Temple fraud, abuse, slave labor, beatings, extortion, and death drills.

Not a problem either, for other shameless wonders like Willie Brown and Cecil Williams. They cheered on Jones right up to day of the slaughter in Guyana. And the film's fantasy Adventures In Milkville? Understandable. After all, a Hollywood saint's working relationship with a mass murderers might just be very "awkward."

I hardly agree with the right-wing on anything (left-wing, for that matter, too.) But once and while they actually manage to right a flagrant wrong. The issue of the culprits that had repeat dance cards with Jim J. Frankenstein, for instance. Author Daniel Flynn wrote the following in his devastating expose, "Drinking Harvey Milk's Kool-Aid," which appeared in the online City Journal magazine last May.

Hopefully Emily and others will consider Flynn's cogent warnings

against whitewashing/mythologizing--on or off the silver screen--people that have sinned something terrible. Even those no longer with us. It's bad for future generations.

As the ol' saying goes, "Those that do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them...."

".....Milk makes a rather unremarkable subject for the silver screen," writes Flynn, "In his seven years in San Francisco, he made four bids for elective office, only emerging victorious in his last—a 1977 run for city supervisor. For his persistence, Milk jokingly referred to himself as the 'gay Harold Stassen.' He served for less than a year.

In naming the onetime camera-shop proprietor one of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century, Time conceded, 'As a supervisor, Milk sponsored only two laws—predictably, one barring anti-gay discrimination, and, less so, a law forcing dog owners to clean pets’ messes from sidewalks.' Eleven months on the city council hardly seems the stuff of Hollywood legend.

So Hollywood invented a legend.

Rather than the gentle, soft-spoken idealist portrayed by Sean Penn, the real Harvey Milk was a short-tempered demagogue who cynically invented stories of victimhood to advance his political career. During his successful run for city supervisor, for instance, Milk’s camera store was the object of a glass-shattering attack by low-grade explosives.

Milk blamed singer Anita Bryant, the outspoken opponent of gay-friendly legislation. 'Years later friends hinted broadly that Harvey had more than a little foreknowledge that the explosions would happen,' biographer Randy Shilts noted. One friend explained to Shilts: 'You gotta realize the campaign was sort of going slow, and, well...'

The stunt would hardly have been the sole instance of Milk’s employing deceit to further his standing within the victimhood cult. In the upside-down world of San Francisco politics, Milk curried favor with voters by boasting that his homosexuality had resulted in a dishonorable discharge from the Navy in the dark ages before the sexual revolution. But far from the in-your-face, ponytailed 'Mayor of Castro Street' of the 1970s, Chief Petty Officer Milk of the 1950s was a closeted homosexual whose discharge papers reflected four years of honorable service.

Milk was far more cavalier about the privacy of others than he was about his own. When Bill Sipple became a national hero for tackling gun-toting kook Sara Jane Moore before she could kill President Gerald Ford in 1975, Milk anonymously leaked news of the former Marine’s homosexuality to the media. 'It’s too good an opportunity,' Milk reasoned. 'For once we can show that gays do heroic things.' Just as Milk anticipated the 'outing' tactics of ACT-Up and Queer Nation, his rhetoric, too, foreshadowed the hyperbole of AIDS activists of the following decade.

Milk liberally tossed the 'Nazi' label at opponents of various gay-rights proposals and even compared politically moderate homosexuals to Nazi collaborators. 'We are not going to allow our rights to be taken away and then march with bowed heads into the gas chambers,' Milk proclaimed at 1978’s Gay Freedom Parade in San Francisco.

Such unflattering details made neither the final draft of the 'Harvey Milk Day' legislation nor the final cut of the Milk biopic. Milk’s cheerleaders are guilty of sins of omission and commission. What the film and legislation insinuate--in an effort to depict Milk as a martyr for the gay rights movement on par with Martin Luther King’s martyrdom for the Civil Rights movement--is that homophobia killed Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978.

But Harvey Milk’s homosexuality played about as much of a role in his murder as San Francisco mayor George Moscone’s heterosexuality played in his. Their murderer, troubled political neophyte Dan White, had donated $100 to defeat the Briggs Initiative, which would have empowered school boards to fire teachers for homosexuality. White hired a homosexual as his campaign manager and voted as a city supervisor to fund a Pride Center for homosexuals. White wasn’t driven to murder by Milk’s vision of gay rights but rather by something more pedestrian: the petty politics of City Hall. What makes for good history doesn’t always lend itself to good theater.

In a sign of the instability he would so dramatically display on November 27, a cash-strapped White had resigned his seat on the Board of Supervisors on November 10, only to demand four days later that the mayor reappoint him. Mayor Moscone publicly responded by saying that he still regarded White as a member of the board, handed back his letter of resignation, and promised him the seat.

Enter Harvey Milk, who saw White as an obstacle to progressive initiatives. As the movie depicts, Milk successfully lobbied Moscone to refuse to reseat the former policeman, fireman, and Vietnam veteran. Believing Milk and Moscone guilty of perfidy, the tightly wound, sore-loser White assassinated Moscone and then Milk.

Perhaps the most amazing historical detail of the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone is that their dramatic assassinations weren’t the biggest story to hit San Francisco in November of 1978. Bowdlerized from the Hollywood treatment is the role Harvey Milk played in the news story that eclipsed his own murder.

Nine days prior to Milk’s death, more than 900 followers of Jim Jones--many of them campaign workers for Milk--perished in the most ghastly set of murder-suicides in modern history. Before the congregants of the Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones’s deadly Kool-Aid, Harvey Milk and much of San Francisco’s ruling class had already figuratively imbibed.

Milk occasionally spoke at Jones’s San Francisco–based headquarters, promoted Jones through his newspaper columns, and defended the Peoples Temple from its growing legion of critics. Jones provided conscripted 'volunteers' for Milk’s campaigns to distribute leaflets by the tens of thousands. Milk returned the favor by abusing his position of public trust on behalf of Jones’s criminal endeavors.

'Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness,' Supervisor Milk wrote President Jimmy Carter seven months before the Jonestown carnage. The purpose of Milk’s letter was to aid and abet his powerful supporter’s abduction of a six-year-old boy.

Milk’s missive to the president prophetically continued: 'Not only is the life of a child at stake, who currently has loving and protective parents in the Rev. and Mrs. Jones, but our official relations with Guyana could stand to be jeopardized, to the potentially great embarrassment of our State Department.' John Stoen, the boy whose actual parents Milk libeled to the president as purveyors of 'bold-faced lies' and blackmail attempts, perished at Jonestown. This, the only remarkable episode in Milk’s brief tenure on the San Francisco board of supervisors, is swept under the rug by his hagiographers.

Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is as real as Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man.

Who has time for the sordid details of purportedly staged hate crimes and boosterism of America’s most prolific mass murderer when there is a gay Martin Luther King to be mythologized? Even the fervent atheist Milk understood the need for patron saints. When confronted by a jaded supporter over his fabricated tale that the Navy had booted him out because of his sex life, Milk responded: 'Symbols. Symbols. Symbols.' He understood his movement better than his movement did.

When the facts didn’t fit the script, both Milk and his present-day admirers adjusted the facts. As the elected sponsors of Harvey Milk Day realize, Californians are more likely to remember the celluloid hero they saw depicted by Sean Penn earlier this year than the obscure city official who walked largely unnoticed in their midst three decades ago.

The advocates of a Harvey Milk Day know box office. They don’t know the real Harvey Milk."

And the ones that did?

They're not talking.

An Early Anniversary Kick Off With CNN's "Escape From Jonestown" Laundering Of The People's Temple Saga

2009-10-10T18:14:00.022-04:00

Looks like the annual People's Temple White Wash Festival arrives early this year.

Tonight, Saturday, at 8 p.m. EST, CNN will be rerunning Soledad O'Brien's "Escape From Jonestown" documentary shown during last year's 30th Anniversary of the massacre. Of course you wouldn't know it unless you've kept tuned to CNN for the past several days and seen the promos.

For some unfathomable reason, none of the TV listings off or online have the program listed. I had to call CNN headquarters, where their spokesperson admitted they had made a "boo-boo" and that it would be posted. Maybe, maybe not. Likely a lot of audience will miss out (unless, of course, the CNN rep got it wrong, and the TV promos were misplaced....)

Nope, surely not the first or last time for a Big Media screw-up. To err is human, the ol' adage says, but mass media behemoths have a whole lot of latitude. Save the day. Send multitudes into oblivion. The gamut has been long and wide, and just too often unaccountable when it came to things like the lethal sins of omission.

And then, what do ya know, this marvelous information highway shows up and all that fog wafts magically right out of the public eye!

This episode of abysmal failure to do their jobs to stop an utterly preventable slaughter of over 900 Americans was one of the most appalling in history.

It must be said that "Escape" is one of the better of the People's Temple retrospectives because there are some good solid interviews with survivors. Nonetheless, the cover up continues on the media's conspiracy of silence on the real evolution of the Crime of the Century.

See if you notice these choice excerpts from tonight's show:

O'BRIEN: By his own account, Jim Jones was born on the wrong side of the tracks, in a small Indiana town in the Depression years. By high school, Jones was going to a revivalist style church and preaching to others from the sidewalks of his hometown. At 21, Jones became a student pastor by taking a correspondence course. Within a few years, he had started his own church in Indianapolis, named it Peoples Temple and opened its doors to African-Americans.

He and his wife Marceline became an interracial family through adoption and embraced racial harmony in an era that resisted it. But even then, Jones preached of catastrophe.

G. PARKS: At that time, the cold war was going on. And he was yelling a bomb was going to fall and there would be a nuclear war.

O'BRIEN: In the mid-'60s, Jones moved his church outside the town of Ukiah in Northern California.

G. PARKS: So he got this revelation somehow to come to Ukiah, California. And there was a cave out here.

O'BRIEN: A cave in the hills around Redwood Valley that would shield everyone from nuclear fallout.

G. PARKS: I know now as sure as I'm sitting here -- and I knew, you know, I have for a long time, there was no such place. It was all one of his lies.

O'BRIEN: Jones built this church and offered sanctuary there -- a safety net to the elderly and poor, usually blacks from the inner city. They signed over their Social Security checks and the Peoples Temple cared for them for the rest of their lives....

"Offered sanctuary"? "A safety net"? "....Cared for them for the rest of their lives...."?? Interesting take on it, Soledad. Not a whole lot of discussion, though, about the fraud or extortion or electroshock torture carried out by those "caring" Temple folks on five year-old children.

Nothing, either, regarding the San Francisco Examiner's four page one 1972 articles on a host of nefarious activities occurring in this "safety net," part of a devastating series of exposes that would have obliterated Jim Jones's death camp march. Unfortunately, that came to a screaming halt when that grand Hearst newspaper decided that turning coward was easier.

So the Examiner ceased examining--for five long critical years.

No, such details are just too much of an "inconvenient truth" for CNN's, or any other Big Media Script.

Another excerpt:

O'BRIEN: Verne Gosney joined the church in California about that same time. He and his wife, an interracial couple, were welcome.

GOSNEY: The Peoples Temple was a rich tapestry of people. They were people who had survived adverse situations -- racism, discrimination -- just very difficult lives. And they had triumphed to that point.

O'BRIEN: In 1975, Jones moved his church headquarters from Redwood Valley down to San Francisco, to a larger stage, where he became a political force and a face in photo-ops....

Oh, come now, Verne. The cultists "had triumphed to that point"?

Was this before, or after, they had been bludgeoned and brainwashed into slave laborers??

This last O'Brien statement is the one parroted faithfully by just about every pundit head that runs around Investigative Reporting Wonderland:

O'BRIEN: "....In that summer of 1977, Jones was facing increasing criticism from some members who fled the church because they no longer believed in Jones. When 'New West' magazine published an expose article about church beatings, Jim Jones suddenly decided to leave the country...."

Keep the tradition alive. NO ONE in the Fourth Estate knew anything--until those sleep-walking crusaders Marshal Kilduff, Tim Rieterman, and others leaped out from under their rocks a whopping five years after the Examiner had exposed Jim Jones. Nice work covering their collective tails--err, tales, CNN.

Again, this is not to say that "Escape From Jonestown" doesn't have a lot of solid reporting. It does. But sadly, outrageously, there's enough of a credibility hole here to toss it in with all the other disingenuous servings on Big Media's "true story" slag heap about the People's Temple cult.

Oh, yes, there's also the little matter about the late Harvey Milk, who not only was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom over the summer but was also recently inducted into the California Hall of Fame, along with the great Carol Burnett, George Lucas, and Chuck Yeager.

They're even waiting for Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign into law an official "Harvey Milk Day" for California. Let's just hope that The Terminator can guess who--out of Burnett, Lucas, Yeager, and Milk--faithfully helped Jim Jones keep his flock for the cyanide slaughter in Guyana.

Coming up.....

Pres. Obama's Glittering Award For A Mass Murdering Cult Lord's Accomplice

2009-08-18T01:30:00.000-04:00

The Rev. Jim Jones couldn't have asked for a more rousing endorsement.

This one, priceless: A letter from a big city official, addressed to the President of the United States.

And no ordinary politician, oh no. As one of the first openly elected Gay public officials in American history, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk surely had the attention-getting pull the People's Temple cult craved.

Milk was more than happy to dress up his ravenous wolf pal in a real nice sheep's vestment.

"There are some facts you should be informed of," he wrote to Pres. Jimmy Carter on February 19, 1978. "Rev. Jones is....a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness."

Mind you, Milk is writing this well after Jones had escaped the country to take refuge in his Guyana Gulag, long after all the evidence was out about his fraud, extortion, sadism, and suicide drills forced on cult captives.

No matter, the big city supervisor owed his good buddy who had garnered him votes. Clearly the men, women, children, and infants now trapped in the Guyana Death Camp--with just nine months to live--were expendable.

The thrust of his letter was a withering attack on two key members of the Concerned Relatives group that was desperately trying to rescue their loved ones, only to be repeatedly scorned by California's political (with the exception of Cong. Leo Ryan) and religious leaders. The Milk Man was on a whitewash mission. So he viciously denounced Tim and Grace Stoen, who were trying to get their son--that Jones claimed as his own--out of the cultist's murderous hands.

"Timothy and Grace Stoen, the parties that are attempting to damage Rev. Jones' reputation," Milk continued in his letter to the president, "and seriously disrupt the life of his son, John, have both already been discredited by the media here." Accusing the Stoens of everything from "blackmail" to "bold-faced lies," the supervisor added:

".....the life of a child is at stake....Mr. President, the actions of Mr. Stoen need to be brought to a halt. It is offensive to most in the San Francisco community, and all those who know Rev. Jones to see this kind of outrage taking place."

An "outrage." Interesting perspective, Mr. Milk.

Now, I just wonder. You think that "outrage" would have been the same sentiment of screen writer Dustin Lance Black and director Guy Van Sant had anyone even remotely suggested including anything that might have soured their 2008 silver screen canonization, "Milk"??

All the film's propaganda signs point to YES.

They clearly wanted under no circumstances a public that would get confused or find even the smallest speck of doubt about who was their real Harvey Milk. Yes, his untimely death, along with Mayor George Moscone, was tragic. His role in the Gay Rights battle could not be understated. These aspects of the film were of course dramatic and compelling.

Nevertheless, while audiences certainly deserved to learn about all this, it was unconscionable to deliberately present an distorted portrait. Especially in light of his criminal connection to Jim Jones.

Aiding and abetting. Obstruction of justice. Ironically, unlike just about all the other accessories to the Crime of the Century (Willie Brown, Rev. John Moore, Cecil Williams, et al), soon after Milk helped ensure the worst mass murder of Americans until 9/11, he received his own death penalty, along with George Moscone.

Harvey Milk's subsequent sainthood bestowed by Black & Van Sant did not go unnoticed by Pres. Obama. I voted for Obama and think he's more conscientious than most. But he still is what he is: Another politician. Currently Obama's got some serious problems to deal with, such as steadily slipping poll numbers; some of which is attributed to policy flip-flops and betraying promises made during an inspiring campaign. The latest is his shameful surrender, of we the people, back into the rapacious tentacles of our Big Insurance/Pharmaceutical Corporate Mafia.

Obama has also angered the Gay Lobby by not pushing for repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military, as well as not trying to get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that does not recognize same-sex marriage.

So it's predictable he tried to score whatever points he could by giving Harvey Milk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom last Wednesday. Please note carefully if you hear one word about Harvey's pal, Jimmy:

"Gotta give 'em hope," said Milk? "Hope"--for all those doing time in that forced labor camp called Jonestown, and for the children being tortured at night, in a deep, dark well his cult playfully named "Big Foot"??

Milk's nephew had the honor of accepting America's highest civilian award for his uncle. Again, listen carefully to the voice-over. The narrative might as well have been lifted right out of Van Sant's puff piece film:

Once again, that "H" word! "Hope," said Milk, "will never be silent." Except, of course, for 900 Americans silenced forever by the maniac that our Hope Merchant so faithfully promoted, while all the time privately admitting his feelings about the "dangerous" and "wierd" cult. What integrity, eh?

It would be fair to say that had Milk not aided & abetted Jim Jones (again, not the only crooked politico to do so), he would surely deserve this presidential award for all he did for his oppressed minority group.

"....This is a moment that will transcend identity politics," writes Chuck Wolfe, head of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, "because Harvey Milk represents the aspirations of all Americans. More than 200 years ago Washington, Jefferson and Adams fought to create a more perfect union. They probably had no idea that their vision would be embodied in the late 20th century by a gay, Jewish camera shop owner in San Francisco.

Milk's story, as recounted in last year's Academy Award-winning movie 'Milk' and books such as 'The Mayor of Castro Street', involves his struggle to become one of the first openly elected gay public officials in the U.S. His political ambitions coincided with the rising gay rights movement and resulted in him winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors."

Again, however, the roughshod side of Milk's politics, even beyond his sordid connection to a death cult, is something altogether different. And few want to talk about it for fear of deflating the myth.

Except for a highly irreverent fellow named "Molotov" Mitchell. He's a self-described Conservative Film Maker (watch out when they trumpet ANY title spiked with "conservative"!) that runs "Illuminati Pictures" out of North Carolina, in which he cranks out unorthodox, extreme right-wing videos. See a few of his videos and you might even suspect that he's actually a covert progressive doing needed parodies of this country's lunatic reactionary fringe.

Part of his mainstay is nonsensical smears of Barack Obama, Islam, and just about everything else not fitting snugly into a xenophobe's microscopic gray matter. One especially inflammatory incident said it all, when an episode from his weekly show, "Flamethrower," had Mitchell munching away at a specially prepared "Mohammad" cookie.

Hmmmmm--any investors out there interested in sending this enterprising fellow over to Saudi Arabia to run a cookie kiosk??

Even Faith TV, a national Christian Right network that runs Mitchell's show, had to censor the episode, "All Things Islam," because network president Jim West said "We feel this program just goes beyond the bounds of good taste." Now just why would a good Christian say such a thing?

But it has to be said that one of Mitchell's "For The Record" videos, replete as it is with trademark offensive, politically incorrect antics, happens to be a potent, much-needed antidote to our disengenuous left-wing Hollywood cover-up. Sit down with the rampaging Molotov as he provides an eye-opening serving of "Milk and Kool-Aid." And don't worry about those scattered moments when our host's horns and forked tail pop out....

On the other hand, and I'm gonna say PLEASE --for the record (mine)-- DISREGARD completely all the rest of the utterly inane, borderline insane DEN ("Domestic Emergency Network") videos attached at the end of the Milk expose.

Unless, of course, you're in the mood for some hardcore comedy.....

There was, of all places, something incriminating in a November, 2003 edition of "The Advocate"(The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine.) It was the 25th Anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre. The article was entitled: "Death of Dreams: in November 1978, Harvey Milk's murder and the mass suicides at Jonestown nearly broke San Francisco's spirit. Eerily, Milk knew and worked with Jonestown founder Jim Jones"

An excerpt:

"Milk was of two minds about the temple. He accepted temple members' help in his successful 1977 campaign for board of supervisors--which made him one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country and certainly the most popular. But he also reportedly said temple members were 'weird and dangerous.'

He was not alone in this assessment. As the temple grew in size and status, Jones faced increasing scrutiny from the press, which investigated reports of 'suicide drills,' physical and sexual abuse, and extortion. In August 1977 the San Francisco Examiner published a damning two-part investigation on its front page. The stories were headlined, 'Rev. Jones: The Power Broker, Political Maneuverings of a Preacher Man,' and 'The Temple, a Nightmare World.'

Under pressure, Jones and some 1,000 followers started moving to Jonestown in late 1977. A settlement in the Guyana jungle, Jonestown was promoted as a multiracial socialist paradise far from the racism and class oppression of American life. Many hundreds more temple members stayed in San Francisco, where services continued under the leadership of associate pastors. Milk spoke at a service for the last time in October 1978. He had been enthusiastically received at Peoples Temple several times before, and he always sent glowing thank-yon notes to Jones afterward.

After one visit, Milk wrote, 'Rev. Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something real today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours mad energy, placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.' Milk may have been disingenuous in his praise, or perhaps the rousing services at Peoples Temple made him feel a genuine bond."

I'll put my bets on the "disingenuous," despite the real possiblity this utterly unscrupulous man could have bonded quite nicely with the "wierd" and "dangerous" cultists to whom he so readily sold himself.

- END OF PART I -

Stay tuned for Part II, when we look at another sizzling expose that takes an even deeper look at the machinations and maneuverings of The Man Who Would Be Saint.

"Milk": Another People's Temple Political Strongman Gets The Whitewash -- And Just Maybe Even An Oscar Or Two?

2009-02-22T14:52:00.027-05:00

Tonight the Academy Awards Community has to make a decision: Should they, or shouldn't they--despite the well-honed production--reward a film that both mangles history and portrays a man that deliriously supported a mass-murdering cultist?

How much longer will Harvey Milk's tragic murder continue to allow him this waiver, to the point to sanctifying him now in a multi-Oscar nominated film, that includes not just Best Picture and Best Actor, but a couple of other categories that seem to say it all:

"Best Original Screenplay" and "Best Editing."

Right. Very "original screenplay." The very "best editing."

But not for the same reasons that our august Academy members would say, of course. The "original screenplay" is an amazing thing, because it can give carte blanche to all manner of fictional add-ons, while the "best editing" is that enchanting process that, in equally unscrupulous hands, may produce small & large milestones in fantasy-turned-reality.

No one of course knows this better than the man running "Firelight Media," our acclaimed left-wing Producer/Director Stanley Nelson. With joyous and unlimited "expert guidance" from those rousing official National People's Temple Cheerleaders, Becky Moore & "Mac" McGhee, the three of them cooked up the most insidious cult apologist film in history, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple."

The good news is, folks: The Academy didn't get suckered in and refused Nelson and his revolting cult whitewash even a nomination. He does, however, manage to keep on getting film gigs in "fantastic fiction" documentaries, the latest of which is part of PBS's upcoming American Indian series. Nelson's fantasy segment is on the gun-slinging militant American Indian Movement (AIM) that blasted its way through a 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee Battlefield.

I'm suuuuuure that ol' Stan will, like he did with the People's Temple, provide ALL the relevant facts so that viewers have an sterling accurate portrait of history, with not a trace of leftest bias. Now if anyone out there has the slightest question about how Nelson manages his magic, I'd say just give him a call at the office:

STANLEY NELSON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FIRELIGHT MEDIA
Phone: 212-234-1324

You can also send Stan a fax: 212-234-6688 in case you want more
details about what he terms his "evocative technique" in film making.

I'm certain that Lord Nelson was more than pleased over any and all aspects of "Milk," even if he can't take credit. The important thing is that the Great Spirit of Obfuscation was in full cinematic force, right?

"Milk," of course, is a very interesting part of history, dealing with the very first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. It is a poignant story, and worth telling, no question. The big problem, however, comes with this "original screenplay" and "editing." And for that, all the rest of the awards should go out the door, just to teach these fabricators a lesson about telling THE WHOLE TRUTH.

The "whole truth"? What whole truth? What, pray tell, is MISSING from our Oscar-nominated film, that has such a spectacular performance, as is almost always the case, by lead actor Sean Penn.

Well, how about this little tidbit for starters.
It's a letter written to President Jimmy Carter, in February, 1978, by none other than St. Harvey himself. He wrote it just nine months away from the slaughter, but LONG after all the long-overdue 1977 exposes had finally told him, his fellow Temple boosters such as George Moscone, Willie Brown, and the rest of their degenerate San Francisco political cronies about Jim Jones's reign of terror, his extortion, fraud, torture of children, and all the rest.

And did Milk, or any of them--except for one courageous man named Leo Ryan--do ONE DAMN THING TO HELP THOSE POOR PEOPLE TRAPPED IN JONESTOWN?

More importantly: how much does the film "Milk," nominated for multiple Academy Awards tonight, have of this in the script?

25 minutes? No.

15? Guess again, people.

5 minutes?? You're gettin' warm.....think "Nelsonesque Film School" now.

Zero???

A "biopic" about a man that, while achieving greatness in fighting for his minority's rights, doesn't want you to know that before his own tragic murder, he aggressively aided in condemning over 900 Americans to death?

Incredible. Utterly incredible.

While Jones was busy in his Guyana Gulag dunking little children at the bottom of dark wells, confining others for weeks in a box, and doping up dissidents with heavy narcotics, Milk insisted on describing him as a "loving protective parent" and "a man of the highest character."

Gay activist and historian Michael Bellefountaine, who passed away in 2007 had been working on the final stages of his book "A Lavender Look At The People's Temple." A couple of years earlier, in the midst of all his research, the real picture of a far less saintly Harvey Milk appeared to emerge, as Bellefountaine explained in an article he wrote on the 25th Anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre.

"Harvey Milk’s name appears throughout San Francisco," wrote Bellefountaine, "A municipal railway station and plaza, a park and recreation building and one of the city’s most influential political clubs are all named in his memory. A local elementary school is known as the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, and the Eureka Valley Library is now called the Harvey Milk Branch.

"The theme for this year’s gay pride parade was 'give them hope,' Milk’s inspirational rallying cry from gays and lesbians in San Francisco to their brothers and sisters living in rural America. The International Gay and Lesbian Historical Society is producing an extensive exhibit of Milk memorabilia which includes the blood-stained suit he was wearing when he and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down in San Francisco City Hall on November 27, 1978. Twenty-five years after his murder, Harvey Milk has been catapulted to the level of gay martyr. Without question, he has left his mark on San Francisco.

"Despite all the exhibits and memorials of Harvey Milk throughout San Francisco, though, none of them acknowledges Milk’s relationship with Jim Jones and Peoples Temple....

"When Milk and Moscone were killed, San Franciscans were still reeling from the murder of Representative Leo Ryan and the news that hundreds of Jonestown residents, previously thought to have saved themselves by running into the jungle, were apparently willing participants in a suicide ritual. In the aftermath of their murders all mention of connections between Milk, Moscone and Jones were intentionally obscured.

"Out of respect for the politicians, their followers took all necessary steps to sever Milk and Moscone from the pariah Jones. It was not the only mass exodus of political support in the wake of the Jonestown tragedy. Politicians who once enjoyed volunteers, donations and votes from Peoples Temple, could not distance themselves from Jim Jones fast enough.

"Many of these people are still in politics today.

"....One story has it that Milk asked Peoples Temple to remove his name from the church’s list of supporters when reports of violence and theft first came to light, and that he was outraged when the Temple failed to comply with his demand. Eventually, history settled on an official story: Jim Jones was a master manipulator who used unwitting local politicians to gain power for himself.

"The politicians, including Milk and Moscone, used Jones for volunteers and votes, while remaining personally distant and blissfully unaware of rumors of Temple violence, abuse, theft, and even murder. The timing of Dan White’s murderous rampage was deemed coincidental.

"However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Harvey Milk was a strong advocate for Peoples Temple and Jim Jones during his political career, including the tumultuous year leading up to the Jonestown tragedy.

"Milk spoke at the Temple often, wrote personal letters to Jim Jones contacted other elected officials on the Temple’s behalf, and used space in his weekly column to support the works of the Temple, even after the negative New West article went to press. Milk appeared in the pages of the Peoples Forum, the Temple newspaper, and received over fifty letters of sympathy from the residents of Jonestown when his lover, Jack Lira, killed himself in September 1978.

"It is readily apparent from the letters and historical memorabilia that Milk and the Temple enjoyed a mutually supportive relationship until their concurrent deaths. Why then is the relationship such a secret, even taboo to discuss?

"The only biography of Milk to date, 'The Mayor of Castro Street,' by Randy Shilts, downplays the Milk/Temple relationship, even going so far as to paint Milk as one of the countless people who cruelly ridiculed and ostracized the surviving Temple members and their supporters. Like most historians, Shilts opted for an image of an expedient politician, instead of truthfully portraying how Milk worked with Peoples Temple until the end of his life."

Congratulations, Randy Shilts, you have have definitely earned your honorary membership in the People's Temple History Hall Of Shame.

Of course, your portrait will most certainly be in one of the lower tiers, Randy. There are too many others--sleazy politicos, scribes, academics, and wolves in clerical garb--whose depraved notion of ethics will forever ensure them top billing.

As for tonight's Academy Awards spectacle, should for some godawful reason the heavily whitewashed "Milk" take home even one golden statue, let's hope that someone includes in their insufferable acceptance speech a recognition of just how St. Harvey traveled on Beatification Highway.

Reflections Of Fading Anniversary -- And For Many, A Lesson Still Lost

2008-12-31T22:50:00.005-05:00

The world rocks and rolls into 2009 in just over an hour as we watch our Jonestown Turns Thirty year officially sink into oblivion.

One of the most ironic things about self-appointed "prophet" Jim Jones was that painfully prophetic sign hanging over his jungle kingdom's throne, bearing Santanya's warning that "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Consider carefully the cult carnage of the Branch Davidians, Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. All were a senseless slaughter like that madman's "revolutionary suicide," all a hideous byproduct of brainwashing and coercion.

All taking place in the years after the Guyana holocaust. Grim oracle indeed.

How many more will we witness? Moreover, how much longer will cults, if not committing outright murder, continue exploiting, brutalizing, and destroying lives? That really depends on the direction of the raging battle by present-day cults and their apologist brigades for today's hearts and minds gullible enough to fall for the dangerous false advertising of "New Religious Movements (NRM)."

Such a perky little euphemism, don't ya think? Throw it onto the rest of the pile, along with so many well-used ones. My favorites include some of the military gems, "pacification," "ethnic cleansing," and "enhanced interrogation techniques." The last one, in fact, is real close to home, isn't it?

But George Bush's torture tag teams have to share some credit. Our Jonestown "pioneers" -- as Becky Moore likes to call them -- had their own special little waterboarding parties just for uncooperative kids, in a quaint ritual called "Big Foot," where terrified children were repeatedly dunked at the bottom of a dark well. On the other hand, film maker Stanley Nelson told the world: "I see them in Jonestown and part of me sees a huge party, you know what I mean?....They can party as hard as they want. All the people are there, everybody that you know and love, you can go put the kids to bed, and they're safe in their beds..."

Ah, so then perhaps the children were treated to the Temple Waterboard Ride around lunchtime, Stan?

What we can almost certainly count on in 2009 and beyond is more of the same doling out by cult aplogist hordes of generous servings of thought-crushing cliches and propaganda pyrotechnics. Sometimes even the most noxious cultists such as Lafayette Ronnie Hubbard's science fictionologist flakes manage to have a rampaging Tom Cruise be their featured act on a leash.

Entertainment Nirvana!

Recently I heard from reader, Alan Havlick, who shared the frustration of having to deal with an especially twisted cultist in Texas, Doyle Davidson, who's been menacing the public from the airwaves.

"A few years ago," wrote Havlick, "I came across a cult leader and decided to inform cult-stopping groups of his activities. I went online thinking, 'After Jim Jones, there must be hundreds of groups out there, keeping track of these evil men...'

"Sadly, I was wrong.

"I had to open my own website and expose him. We have removed him from every TV station but one and now no one can search his name without also seeing the truth about him at my site. But I am still amazed by the people who continue to follow him -- they have been to my website and seen the truth. Several ex-members post there and confirm the truth, yet they refuse to get out.

"I think you're right about his (Jim Jones) adopted son; he is hanging around with the wrong people. 'Villainized'?? Get real, Jones, Jr.

"While researching Jim Jones I saw that there are several former members and family who still excuse everything with that crud about 'Oh, we helped the poor and elderly.' I would ask, 'So you don't mind if I kill 900 people as long as I help the poor and elderly?!'

"Again, I say: 'Get real.'"

Below is a sampling of the "Water of Life" ministries Grand Guru Doyle, warmly embracing a sinful follower, in a room that appears populated with department store mannequins.

Davidson, besides bedding down with a married member of his flock (and going bonkers when she finally returned to her spouse & children), also equates modern medicine with "witchcraft."

Scientologists, you got a friend.

Speaking of friends, not all my readers are quite as agreeable as Alan is. "Joanne" (no last name) takes a psychoanalytical, if not just plain heated viewpoint.

"I can't help but look," she wrote, "at all these different websites and filmakers and make a spectrum. Rebecca Moore and Mac all the way to the left....you all the way to the right. I don't understand why you can't wrap your head around the similarities you have with Moore and McGhee. You are obviously warped by your father's experience. You can't see past what information you get from that. Rebecca is obviously warped by her family's experience.

"I just don't understand YOUR obvious hatred. There were people in power in the Peoples Temple that were evil and believed in the evil they were doing. But there were many people, who were never in a position of power, who were predominantly black, who were desperately searching for something better. Yes, they were duped, but how can you shamelessly ignore the positive efforts of some of these people?? I believe that's what Stanley Nelson's intentions were...

"To me you are so filled with hate, rage, and self righteousness, I can't read any more of your blogs. You are the equivalent of a four year-old having a temper tantrum..."

Ouch.

Sometimes I never know when it's one of Mac or Becky's pals writing in, so I'll just have to give my critic Joanne the benefit of the doubt. I will say this, as I've said before: I do not hate Becky or Mac.

What I hate is what they're doing. Because cult apologist promotion is WRONG. It's unethical. It's outright dishonest. They have been dishonest and I have proof.

Yes, it does make me feel enraged to know that the imprisonment, abuse, and mass murder of over 900 Americans was entirely preventable, Joanne. PREVENTABLE. That doesn't seem to make any more difference to you than trying to grasp the social psychological dynamics of thought control.

Meet Frankie Fountain (L), David Sanders (R), and Jewel Fountain (above). Two brothers and a sister that helped make up the nearly 300 children slaughtered by Jim Jones.

Frankie was five years old, David, nine, and Jewel, well, this little girl was all of four years old when she was murdered by selected Temple mass murderers. You ever wonder if or how many times they got beaten up, abused, or receive that horrifically cruel cult water torture?

Four year-old Jewel. Maybe she had a temper tantrum when they held her down and forced cyanide down her throat.

Say hello to Dr. Lawrence Schacht (top), Annie Moore (L), and Carolyn Moore (R).

Top-ranking Jonestown death camp executioners who, after their unspeakable crimes, took their own lives. Becky referred to this as "poetic justice."

Wondrously convenient things, these euphemisms.

Grief And Discord Mark Jonestown's 30th Anniversary; Cult Leader's Son Claims His Father A "Victim" Being "Villainized"

2008-11-28T03:20:00.033-05:00

Another Thanksgiving gone and there's little doubt about one thing:

For this group of people, their great American family event was forever shattered 30 years ago by an unspeakable horror.

Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons, massacred by a madman in a distant jungle. Senseless and appalling. More than this -- what nearly all the religious, media, and political powers-that-be still refuse to admit to this day -- preventable.

For the Concerned Relatives and all the others, seeing Cult Ruler Jim Jones destroy their loved ones was unimaginable anguish. And only a little over a week before that Thanksgiving Day in 1978.

But many of them were in for a shock last week during the annual memorial service at the Jonestown mass grave in Oakland, California's Evergreen Cemetery.

The Rev. Jynona Norwood, a Los Angeles evangelist who lost her mother and 26 other family members, unveiled the first two black granite panels of what will be a 36 foot-long stone wall with the names of all the victims.

Actually, all except one: The man who ordered his thugs to slaughter more than 900 people, nearly one-third of them children and infants. "Jones was not a victim," said Norwood, "To me, that's like putting Hitler's name on a memorial to the Holocaust."

It's clear, however, that her sentiment is not shared by all the relatives and survivors, including Lela Howard, who lost an aunt in Jonestown and had contacted the Apologist Alert late last year. She has publicly questioned Norwood's accounting of memorial funds (See "Division and Controversy Roils Construction of Jonestown Memorial," January 4, 2008 post.)

But that's not all. Howard's rival group of survivors unveiled their own memorial plaque at the ceremony, bearing all the names of the dead, including a vicious sociopath named James Warren Jones. They've arranged to have the plaque displayed at San Francisco's African American Historical and Cultural Society.

Norwood said she intends to inscribe the names of the Temple assassins that murdered Congressman Leo Ryan, three journalists, a defector, and shot 11 others (including Ryan's aide, Jackie Speier, who now holds his Congressional seat) at the Port Kaituma Airstrip.

But not Jones. Not ever. "To put Jim Jones's name on that wall is an insult ... to all the dead," she said. "He was the most evil man who walked on this earth."

Not so, says the man that carries his name, who survived the bloodbath with his bothers, thanks to a basketball tournament in Guyana's capital city, Georgetown. Jim Jones, Jr. sides with the Howard faction. "The tragedy is we're villainizing Jim Jones," said the cult leader's adopted son. "Jim Jones was also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

"Villainizing" a mass murderer??

Now there's a thought. And while we're at it, just quit all this villainizing of some of the late reverend's famously sadistic and murderous colleagues.

Lovable John Wayne Gacy, Jr. would be a good start. Yeeesssss, it's true he had some issues with an overcharged libido, torture, and burying bodies under the house. But you see, the plain and simple fact is that Gacy was a victim. After all, would you enjoy the terrible ordeal of being a misunderstood clown?

Label him a "villain" -- and create more tragedy? Absolutely not. Besides, we gotta give "Pogo The Killer Clown" some credit for doing social work for the needy, entertaining all those children at neighborhood block parties. One more thing: he was Democrat, and an active one at that. When First Lady Rosalynn Carter came to Chicago, guess who had a photo op with her (like that other activist in San Francisco.)

And speaking of entertainers, here's a famous fellow who plays a mean guitar and even befriended a real Beach Boy in sun-baked Southern California. Yes, it's all true, Charles Milles Manson did have some rather helter skelter notions about the future (which seems to be a common thread with these c----, aahhmmm, "New Religious Movements".) But remember; he had a really bad childhood, got locked up a lot, and did a whole lot of drugs. He continues to be a wee bit overbearing and manipulative, yes. But, no, definitely not a villain, that Charlie. Victimhood granted.

Rounding out this tragic trio is perhaps the most original of all "victims," Milwaukee's Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. Tragically, he suffered all manner of terrible vices at once: rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism. A struggling taxidermist, as well. His biggest fear was reported to be rejection & abandonment. That sounds eerily a bit like that fellow from nearby Indiana, who liked "God" for a nickname.

So tread lightly with such troubled souls, victimized by their madness and acting out. Avoid "villainizing" them whenever possible.

Maybe, though, I just misinterpreted Mr. Jones, Jr.'s message. Or, it could very well be he's been spending a bit too much time with the wrong crowd. Here he is, hanging with a scowling Stanley Nelson (on left.) Lord (of illusions) Nelson is the proud producer/director of the infamously disreputable, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple." Besides winning the biggest trophy as the most accomplished cult apologist film in history, Stan took care to give Jones, Jr. a starring role! Not that he necessarily needed to, since his editing/revisionist witchcraft alone was spellbinding.

On the other hand, Nelson billowed with so much amazing "info" fed by those Cult Apologists Titans Becky Moore and Mac McGehee, that he simply couldn't resist chiming at every interview about all "the good that People's Temple did" and that "the old people were cared for..." and the "sense of family -- a sense of community."

Try, try, though, to find anything in Nelson's film that goes beyond a sugar glazing of, say, this cult's horrendous, sadistic abuse of children and adults alike, or the full measure of Jones's astonishing partnership with California officials (who again and again, ignored the evidence LONG before 1977), the fraud & extortion, or even his Marxist-Leninist fanaticism that is so blatantly clear.

Now hold on, just one moment. You think that just maybe.....perhaps.....that all this really might boil down to, hmmmmm -- possibly some curious political bend afflicting Mr. Nelson, and, yeeahhh, Ms. Moore, too??.....and, even a chance that hoard of Lotus Land power brokers has it too?

I wonder....

One quite cogent observation comes from author Dan Flynn, who though receiving an automatic caveat as an unabashed right-winger, I think is worth a listen. See, Flynn's particular outlook doesn't necessarily mean a permanent confinement to perpetually twisted arguments, any more than it does for some some quick & clever leftist, such as, say, a Noam Chomsky. What matters: Do the polemics measure up?

You be the judge.

"On November 17, 1978," writes Flynn, "Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 people and strangely morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic. An unfortunately well-worn narrative, playing out contemporaneously in Pol Pot's Cambodia, of socialist dreams ending in ghoulish nightmares, then, conveniently shifted to one about the dangers of organized religion.

"But as The Nation magazine reported at the time, 'The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church. In the course of the 1970s, its social program grew steadily more disaffiliated from what Jim Jones came to regard as Fascist America and drifted rapidly toward outspoken Communist sympathies.' So much so that the last will and testament of the Peoples Temple, and its individual members who left notes, bequeathed millions of dollars in assets to the Soviet Union.

"As Jones expressed to a Soviet diplomat upon upon his visit to Jonestown the month before the smiling suicides took place, 'For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland.'

"Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. 'I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism?,' remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana. 'The thought was, infiltrate the church.' So in the forms of Pentecostal ritual, Jones smuggled socialism into the minds of true believers -- who gradually became true believers of a different sort.

"Unless one counts his drug-induced bouts with self-messianism, Jones didn't believe in God. Get it -- a Peoples Temple. He shocked his parishioners, many of whom certainly did believe in God, by dramatically tossing the Bible onto the ground during a sermon. 'Nobody's going to come out of the sky!' an excited Jones had once informed his flock. 'There's no heaven up there! We'll have to have heaven down here!' Like so many efforts to usher in the millennium before it, Jones's Guyanese road to heaven on earth detoured to a hotter afterlife destination.

"The horrific scene in a Guyanese jungle clearing could have been avoided. Thousands of miles north, for years leading up to Jonestown, San Francisco officials and journalists had looked the other way while Jones acted as a law unto himself.

"So what if he abused children, sodomized a follower, tortured and held temple members at gun point, and defrauded the government and people of welfare and social security checks? He believes in socialism and so do we. That was the ends-justifies-the-means attitude that enabled Jim Jones to commit criminal acts in San Francisco with impunity. The people who should have stopped him instead encouraged him.

"....By virtue of producing rent-free rent-a-rallies for liberal politicians and causes, Jim Jones engendered enormous amounts of good will from Democratic politicians and activists. They allowed their political ambitions to derail their governing responsibilities. Frisco pols like Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could, at the snap of his fingers, direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign.

"City Councilman Milk just knew that he benefited from that control, and therefore never bothered to do anything to inhibit the dangerous cult operating in his city. Instead, he actively aided and abetted a homicidal maniac. It wasn't just local hacks Jones commanded respect from. He held court with future First Lady Rosalyn Carter, vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and California Governor Jerry Brown.

"A man who killed more African Americans than the Ku Klux Klan was awarded a local Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and won the plaudits of California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally, state assemblyman Willie Brown, radical academic Angela Davis, preacher/politician Jesse Jackson, Black Panther leader Huey Newton, and other African American activists.

"From Newton, whom Jones had visited in Cuban exile in 1977, Jones got his lawyer and received support, such as a phone-to-megaphone address to Jonestown during a 'white night' dry run of mass suicide. This was appropriate, as it was from Newton whom Jones appropriated the phrase 'revolutionary suicide' -- the title of a 1973 Newton book -- that he used as a moniker for the murder-suicides of more than 900 people on November 18, 1978.

"'We didn't commit suicide,' Jones announced during the administering of cyanide-laced Flavoraid to his flock, 'we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.' Newton's comically idiotic slogan boomeranged on him, as several of his relatives perished in the Kool-Aid carnage.

"It's worth remembering that before the people of Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, the leftist political establishment of San Francisco gulped it down.

"And without the latter, the former would have never happened."

Final note (excerpt from "Madman In Our Midst"):

"Gray skies dripped sadness and sorrow over San Francisco yesterday", wrote Herb Caen, "Headlines told of tragedy and madness in steaming jungles...how to judge the insanity surrounding the end of Rev. Jim Jones...Who would have expected THIS?"

Willie Brown stated "he has not regrets" over his past association with Jones and the People's Temple. Brown also mentioned he would not try to dissociate himself like so many other politicians were. "They all like to say, 'Forgive me, I was wrong', but that's bulls--t. It doesn't mean a thing now, it just isn't relevant."

"....Not regrets..."?

Doesn't psychiatry have a word for that, Mr. Mayor?

On This Day, A Special Memoria For All The Children Of Jonestown

2008-11-18T16:24:00.006-05:00

"I'll lend you for a little time a child of Mine," He said,

"For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he's dead,

It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,

But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for Me?

He'll bring his charms to gladden you, and shall his stay be brief

You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief.

"I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return,

But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.

I've looked the wide world over in my search for teachers true

And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes I have selected you.

Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labor vain,

Nor hate me when I come to call to take him back again?"

I fancied that I heard them say, "Dear Lord, Thy will be done."

For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we'll run.

We'll shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may

And for the happiness we've known forever grateful stay;

But shall the angels call for him much sooner than we've planned,

We'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand."

--- Edgar Guest

CNN's "Escape From Jonestown"-- Powerful But Still Incomplete Reporting On The Eve Of A Terrible Anniversary

2008-11-17T19:25:00.003-05:00

"Thirty years ago," says CNN, "900 people died by murder and suicide. Only a few survived. Now, CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien reports on their untold stories...."
In its special report that originally aired last Thursday--five days before we observe the anniversary of that horrific day--CNN did a fine job interviewing former cult members who miraculously survived the slaughter. They told the truth about life in Jonestown, in all its graphic, shocking details.

But what the CNN producers refused to reveal was just how preventable this crime of the century really was. Not that this coverup wasn't expected. But just imagine if all the guilty parties that aided and abetted Jim Jones
in his rise to power were to step forward with one massive, long-overdue apology (in the style of Robert MacNamera's Vietnam mea culpa) AND media behemoths like the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle admitted they could have stopped Jones's cult assassins LONG before November 18, 1978?

Imagine if, just once, the San Francisco Examiner came clean about their cowardice in not standing up to Jones and his threats to sue because of the paper's exposes in 1972 (half of which were shelved by those editors.) Imagine, too, if the San Francisco Chronicle at last gave us an accurate retrospect of what they did and didn't do to save the Temple cult members from their hellish captivity and ultimate destruction

Imagine.

Maybe this could be made into a song. Call it "Imagine II." Much less sanguine than the first.

As it is, the Chronicle's series, "Ten Days That Shook S.F.," kicked off yesterday, bringing on an added dimension to the world of media whitewash.

Imagine (sorry, the thought keeps poppin' up) the public's reaction if the Chronicle revealed how their "Institution", the late, great columnist Herb Caen, had been in virtual cahoots with Jim Jones. Caen did all kinds of shimmering plugs for the cult; just a little over a year before the November, 1978 mass murder, Caen claimed Jones was the "target of a ceaseless media barrage" and was actually "doing the work of the Lord" in Guyana.

Oh, but of course, Herb. The "work of the Lord", .....

Don't worry folks, the secret's safe. Current Chronicle editor-in-chief Phil Bronstein would no more disclose this on his pages than he would discuss the shameless behavior of his former employer, the S.F. Examiner. The Examiner, of course, had been bullied by Jones's attack dog attorney, Tim Stoen, to shelve half of my father's 1972 Temple exposes, even after he had returned from Ukiah with taped sworn statements and signed affidavits from members of the Concerned Citizens who were facing down--unlike the Chronicle & Examiner--the cult terror all around them.

That brings us to yet another exceedingly dishonest voice that has already been telling his Anniversary Historic Fiction Story over the Associated Press network: Mr. Tim Reiterman. Ol' Tim, as I have said, was unquestionably brave in going down there to Jonestown with the Ryan party, and nearly got killed on that airstrip. Still, this can't excuse his lying about investigative reporter Les Kinsolving, loaded down with sworn statements and affidavits fresh from Ukiah, and falsely accusing him of having exposes "not well substantiated."

Clearly our "Raven" star author was angling for some insurance that it would be REITERMAN that would stay bathed in limelights, despite the fact that he, like Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff and all the rest, did NOTHING for all those years leading up to 1977. NOTHING to lift a hand to write a critical word about this dangerous cult leader. NOTHING to try and save all those people trapped in a madman's crushing iron grip.

Better late than never?? Not this time.

That's the truly phenomenal thing about this People's Temple Saga. Like the astoundingly evil Indiana con man that gave birth to this frightful cult, so also came a school of relentless bottom feeders.

Be they ruthless opportunists or gutless appeasers, their sordid behavior was the ultimate key to Jim Jones's breath-taking success before The Fall.

San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church's Radical Reverend Cecil Williams gave his blessing......
"We are pleased and honored that you will be with us...to accept Glide's 4th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award", Williams wrote to Jones, in January, 1977, "in recognition of your leadership to many communities of people."

Rev. Williams presented this coveted honor to Jones at the height of the Temple's power in San Francisco. Interestingly enough, the Martin Luther King Award was offered up just two years after Humanitarian Mister Jones had stuffed $6,500 into Williams's pocket. Who knows, maybe Jones was flush with some freshly extorted cash from some senior's "donated" life savings....

And what did the high and mighty local media baron Charles deYoung Thieriot have to say about all this? ".....The church is best known and highly regarded for its
social works," said the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, "which include housing and feeding senior citizens and medical convalescents, maintaining a home for retarded boys, rehabilitating youthful drug users. . ."

Now here's yet another famous fellow, something of a community leader in his day, who also was highly regarded for his social works, too. The city of Chicago surely must have been deeply grateful when "Uncle Al" started a program, which was continued for decades after his death, to fight rickets by providing a daily milk ration to Chicago school children. Not only that, but he ALSO opened up many soup kitchens for the poor and homeless....

But of all of Jim Jones's benefactors, none could dare hold a candle to flamboyant, dynamic, and dapper local politician, Willie Brown. "When somebody like Jim Jones comes on the scene," said Brown, in July, 1977, just after the New West expose hit the streets, "...and constantly stresses the need for freedom of speech and equal justice under law for all people, that absolutely scares the hell out of most everybody...I will be here when you are under attack, because what you are about is what the whole system ought to be about!"

Thus, a cornucopia of local celebrities......all of them did their part to make the truly avoidable massacre......unavoidable.

For all the agonizing questions regarding the "hows" and "whys" of such a thing like this happening, one need only look deep into the face of the social psychology dynamic working in tandem with the primeval acts of unscrupulous power brokers.

My best friend, Gregory, is still living in California. He remembers as well as I do the fall day in 1972 when Temple thugs broke into my house at the corner of Marin and Spruce Streets, in the Berkeley Hills. They got what they came for--copies of my father's future columns. The great & powerful Rev. Jim Jones and his top henchman, Tim Stoen, were reaching the point of plotting exactly how to murder the Examiner investigative reporter (no, not you yet, Reiterman.)

Gregory asked me, just after viewing the CNN documentary:

"Did the government officials believe Jones or did they think he was a non-violent quack they could use for political gain? What happens to peoples brains when people like Jones or Hitler or a screaming Drill Sargent keep on screaming at them?

"Is there something hard-wired in children (and adult dumb f----) that when someone screams at them long enough, they will do what they say, and believe anything, because the ones who didn't believe and do what the group did, were taken out of the gene pool....?"

Excellent, relevant questions. One of the best resources available for such inquiry is the renowned Stanford social psychology scholar, Prof. Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo, whose famed 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment set a standard in gauging the capacity for cruelty, recently authored, "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."

Judging from the reviews, including these kudos from author Gail Sheehy, there seems little doubt about this book offering some solid insight.

"Stunning!" says the 'Passages' author. "Drawing on a lifetime of brilliant social psychological research, Zimbardo demonstrates how good people can be transformed into 'evil doers' by the power of situation--even you! He decodes how the Bush administration, in the delusion it alone can rid the world of the evil of terrorism, has turned into a model of 'administrative evil.' But Zimbardo also offers us a vision of how we can challenge an unjust system."

A number of sections in Zimbardo's book ultimately had to be deleted for lack of space. One of them was entitled (and can be found on the book's website): "Killing Your Children on Command: Ultimate Demonstration of Situational Power by Reverend Jim Jones"

It is enthralling, to say the least.

"Our final extension of the social psychology of evil from artificial laboratory experiments to real-world contexts comes from the jungles of Guyana, where a very popular American religious leader persuaded more than 900 of his followers to commit mass suicide or be killed by their relatives and friends on November 18, 1978.

"Jim Jones, pastor of Peoples Temple congregations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, set out to create a Socialist utopia in South America where brotherhood and tolerance would be dominant over the materialism and racism he loathed in the United States. But Jones was transformed over time and place from the caring, spiritual 'Father' of this large Protestant congregation into the Angel of Death--a truly cosmic transformation of Luciferian proportions. For now, I want only to establish the obedience link between Milgram’s basement laboratory in New Haven and the jungle killing-field in Guyana.

"The dream of the many poor members of Peoples Temple for a new and better life in Utopia were demolished as soon as Jones instituted forced extended labor, armed guards, the total restriction of all civil liberties, semi-starvation diets, and daily punishments for the slightest breach of any of his many rules that amounted to torture.

"When concerned relatives forced a Congressman and his media crew to inspect the compound, Jones arranged for them to be murdered. He then gathered almost all of those members who were at the compound and gave a speech that lasted less than an hour in which he exhorted them all to take their lives by drinking cyanide-laced Kool Aid. Those who refused were forced to drink by the guards or were shot trying to escape, but most obeyed their leader.

"Jones was surely an egomaniac; he had all of his speeches and proclamations, and even his torture sessions tape-recorded -- including this last hour suicide drill. In it Jones distorts reality. He lies, pleads, makes false analogies, appeals to ideology, and gives assurance of transcendent after lives. Finally, he outright insists that they follow his orders, as his staff efficiently distributes the deadly poison to the more than 900 members gathered around him." [NOTE: Link above ("Torture Sessions")--then click the "Audio"--for a sampling of the cult's unspeakable brutality in CNN's "Punishment With Snake" audio. Jones's shocking sadism is all the more chilling with the sound of his hideous high-pitched laughter as the woman is tortured while the cult mob cheers it on.]

"And they did; they died for 'Dad.' The power of charismatic tyrannical leaders, like Jim Jones and Adolph Hitler, endures long after their deaths, even though they have done terrible things to their followers. Whatever little good they may have done earlier, however, somehow comes to dominate their legacy in the minds of the faithful.

"Consider the example of a young man, Garry Scott, who followed his father into The Peoples Temple but was expelled for being disobedient. Listen to his brief statement as he called the National Call-that followed the broadcast of the NPR show, 'Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,' by James Reston, Jr. Listen to how he was punished for an infraction of the rules. But more importantly, listen to his articulation of his enduring reaction to this torment.

"Does he hate Jim Jones? Not one bit. He has become a 'True Believer,' a 'Faithful Follower.' Even though his father died of poisoning in Jonestown and he himself was brutally tortured and humiliated, Gary still admires and loves his 'Dad'--Jim Jones. Not even George Orwell’s omnipotent 1984 Party could honestly claim such a victory.

"Gary: 'Like a lot of other young people, I had my sort of rebellion against some of the doctrinal methods that were taking place in the church, and I rebelled, and for that I was punished to become a better Christian. I was physically abused. Beaten with a two-by-four. I was whipped.

'One of the big problems I have in life is I have a phobia against snakes and for one punishment I was tied up and a snake [a boa] was put on top of me and that was psychological torment that I had to go through for a while. And I was sexually abused as well.'

"Moderator Bill Moyers then asked: “What did you see in Jim Jones when you were in the Temple that caused you to be faithful despite your treatment?

"Gary: 'I think the guilt. I felt that I was responsible for everything that was taking place around me. If there was any bad attitudes or any bad feelings emitting from persons in the Temple, I felt that they were my actions.... I followed Jim Jones because he was a very caring person.

'And even today, you know, despite the fact that a lot of my friends, which I considered my brothers and sisters, died, and a lot of them were forced to their death, there is a very personal part of Reverend Jim Jones that still lives today. And even though I’m very frustrated and very disappointed by what happened to my father, there’s still a peace (piece?) here that I see in Reverend Jones.'

"Like Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, Gary Scott seems 'to have won a victory over himself. 'In the end, they love Big Brother and Father Jones, alike. Powerful Authority Systems conquer individual personality systems more often than does the reverse."

So true, Dr. Zimbardo.

I'll have to take issue, however, with his statement that "most obeyed their leader" in taking their lives. Guyanese Chief Coroner Leslie Mootoo examined the corpses at Jonestown and discovered that up to 90 percent of the victims had been injected with the cynanide, shot, or strangled.

In the final analysis, over 900 plus Americans were simply coerced, brainwashed, and enslaved. One Jonestown visitor said it resembled a southern antebellum slave plantation, with "Dad" Jones acting the part of the white master, surrounded by his lily-white planning commission crew serving as the overseers, carrying out Marxist Master Jones's crazed orders.

In the end, of course, Temple planning commissioners cold-bloodedly murdered nearly every one in sight. One of these killers, Becky Moore's own sister Annie, left a final note that corroborates how she, as Gary Scot and Orwell's Winston Smith, had won a victory over herself. For Annie Moore, this meant simply surrendering to a "Big Brother" named Jones.

"Where can I begin — JONESTOWN — the most peaceful, loving community that ever existed,' wrote Annie, 'JIM JONES — the one who made this paradise possible — much to the contrary of the lies stated about Jim Jones being a power-hungry sadistic, mean person who thought he was God — of all things.

I want you who read this to know that Jim was the most honest, loving, caring concerned person whom I ever met and knew.....His love for humans was insurmountable and it was many of those whom he put his love and trust in that left him and spit in his face....."

Maybe it was that ringing endorsement that transformed older sister, Rebecca, into one of today's most unabashed cult shills. In fact, the other day she told the Palo Alto Daily News the following:

"The larger question that we should ask," claimed Moore, in that beguiling pitch she uses so effectively on an unaware audience, "is what would have happened if relatives or the media hadn't pressured the community? If they had tried different means, would they have succeeded, and would 900 people be alive today?"

THAT is the "larger question"??

Okay, then. It appears the issue of accountability is at last solved. We'll all remember that on tomorrow's anniversary of when a captive group of men, women, children, and babies were annihilated by a Frankenstein in sunglasses.

With a little help from his friends, of course.

Postscript: JONESTOWN ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 18, tune into the online WCBM (Baltimore) radio broadcast of "The Les Kinsolving Show", 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time). Les will be joined by both myself and sister Kathleen, as we continue our fight to get the WHOLE story told about Jim Jones and The People's Temple.

Remember, 9 p.m. EST, at URL: WWW.WCBM.COM

Join us and call in with your comments! Talk to you soon.

MSNBC's Jonestown "Witness" Documentary Verdict: PERJURY. And Tonight-- More Of The Same From CNN?

2008-11-13T02:40:00.000-05:00

Move over Stanley Nelson. You've got company.

As predicted, MSNBC's "Witness To Jonestown" carried all the earmarks of a Rebecca Moore behind-the-scenes production. One of my readers, "Dave," had this to say about the two-hour program last Sunday:

"I observed all the same criminal omissions. The most glaring being the way they always present the People Temple's accommodation of old people and children as 'humanitarian' and ignore that it was the primary source of income. (California child welfare and social security checks were coming in at the rate of $65,000 per month.)

Moore and her ilk have reduced the label for these destructive, con-games-on-a-massive-scale to the word 'cult' and have then dismissed the word.

She should be ashamed of herself.

As a religious scholar, she needs to know that putting cults and the worship of God on the same plane diminishes religion. Period."

An unquestionably cogent observation, Dave. Bravo.

Unfortunately, however, for a flaming cult apologist like our "religious scholar" Moore, it's next to impossible for her to feel ashamed until she changes her shameless ways.

Becky Moore and husband "Mac" McGehee's San Diego-based "Jonestown Institute" offers up an endless dunghill range of cult apologist propaganda, to any and all gullible individuals, with extra heavy shovel loads for knuckle headed producers, directors, editors, and reporters. To make it truly palatable, Mac & Becky market their message with an insidious concoction of fact & fantasy that works the public like some macabre supermarket tabloid.

They're willing, able, and ecstatic dispensing all the data, just as long as it's spiked with compelling "evidence" promoting all the wonderful, cheery facets of this so-very destructive cult.

And the Moore/McGehee dynamic duo knows exactly how to play such corporate media outfits like MSNBC, so that a nice, sturdy apologist undercurrent will run in the script just enough to chalk up another "mission accomplished."

And so it was with "Witness To Jonestown." One after another of Becky's friends testified to the "bad" as well as the "good" of the Jones Cult. Interesting, though, because Producer Stephen Stept seemed to have not cared less about interviewing a very relevant source named Pat Lynch.

Pat Lynch is a former NBC (as in the corporate chunk that completes MSNBC) Nightly News producer who had prepared a series of reports on the increasingly dangerous People's Temple cult in the months preceding November, 1978.

Last year, with the circulation of Stan Nelson's outrageous People's Temple whitewash ("The Life and Death of Peoples Temple"), Lynch could no longer remain silent. She wrote in the Huffingon Post about NBC's withholding of hours of footage she had produced:

"I didn't realize the extent of the media cover-up," said Lynch, "until I began revisiting these issues 28 years later. How could NBC lose -- or worse, destroy historical footage of an event like Jonestown? Why? And what about my interviews with the people who predicted from firsthand experience what would happen if the Ryan party entered Jonestown? The documentaries aired recently as the anniversary approaches are a revisionist history of the event. 'Lovely people. Tragic story.'

The real story has yet to be told and must be told for at least three reasons. First, there's the matter of accountability for 918 needless deaths. Second, there's the issue of journalistic responsibility. Those who made these fateful decisions at NBC, including former company president Fred Silverman, former NBC News president Les Crystal and NBC lawyers, are still alive. Finally, at a time when the media is criticized for missing the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and for its own lack of transparency, telling this story is not only a way to come clean but a cautionary tale for all news organizations."

Come clean, indeed. Not a hopeful scenario as long as media moguls like Fred Silverman continue keeping it all swept under their very dirty little rug.

In addition to Dave's comment about the "Witness" load of half-truths, I received this little invite from one of Mac & Becky's cronies, named "Roger":

"Tom,

I am a family friend of the Moore's (Rebecca and Mac McGehee). I've written many articles on the website and I've invited your father to write an article for the Alternative Considerations of Jonestown website. Trust me, they have NOTHING against you or your father. Recently at our annual gathering in San Diego, I suggested we solicit Les to write an article of his experience....."

Well, Roger, please don't think me ungrateful, but this side of the fence will have to take a rain check. One of the more obvious sticking points is the fact that Rebecca's father, Rev. John Moore, delivered--quite cunningly--the contents of my father's briefcase (containing Temple exposes) to Jim Jones himself in 1975. This was to be my father's last-ditch effort to stop the cult--two entire years before Marshall Kilduff rose from his lazy, negligent duff to finally do his job responsibly. Rebecca, meanwhile, has lied outright about why my father left the San Francisco Examiner, in her apologist magnus opus, "A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: The Moore Family Involvement of People's Temple."

We'll discuss that particular Moore scandal a little later, in all its sordid details.

In the meantime, did anyone out there bother taking up my little wager (in the last posting) on the odds that MSNBC would cover up, distort and serve up a generous serving of half-truths, per the "Jonestown Institute's" schematic?

Payday, folks!

Incredibly, there are other apologists like Moore who continue to sing praises for the "bright side" to The Guyana Gulag That Jim Built. Denise Stephenson, Becky Moore's college roommate, produced the atrocious 2005 book "Dear People: Remembering Jonestown," containing "joyful" letters cult captives frequently were forced to send back to the United States.

Some of the letters in particular raved about the "marvelous" food available at Jonestown. Interesting. What a flagrant contrast to then-12 year-old Tracy Parks's (daughter of slain cult defector Patricia Parks) account of the "People's Temple Agricultural Project."

In a recent interview with the Ukiah Daily Journal--a newspaper that once served as one of the many mouth organs for Jim Jones--Tracy recalled the reality of Jonestown:

"It turned out to be hell on earth," she said. "Once we were there it just finally sunk in and I said, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die here.' We couldn't really get caught talking to each other. Because they knew if you did that you would be planning something."

Diaz [her current married name] said that although the community was advertised as a self-sustainable jungle paradise, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

"My breakfast consisted of rice and milk with bugs in it," she said. "And I joke today that that's how I got my protein. We were just severely malnourished. We found out later it was the rice they fed to the hogs. They would test you periodically. You had to know Chinese, Russian. You had to teach yourself these things. If they asked you something when you were line for food and you didn't know the answer you'd get turned away. It was a constant fear, exhaustion to keep you from rebelling and keep you more able to brainwash, keep you pretty sedate."

Sedated, fearful, and exhausted.

Oh, AND brainwashed,too??

Not a chance--that is, if our renowned Cult Apologist Queen and her pals can help it.

Rebecca Moore and Massimo Introvigne, on an official 2006 visit to the California headquarters of "Unarius," a flying saucer cult. Introvigne is founder and managing director of CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions), as well as a proud director of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. One of Introvigne's more well-known "scholarly papers" was entitled: "'Brainwashing': Career of a Myth in the United States and Europe."

NOTE: Tonight, Thursday, November 13 (9 p.m. EST), CNN will debut its own Jonestown anniversary special, "Escape From Jonestown." They have disclosed recently the discovery that Jim Jones and his inner circle--including Moore's two sisters, Annie and Carolyn--had been importing cyanide every month into Jonestown, for at least two years before their mass murder of the rest of the cult in 1978.

Of course, the real question is whether CNN, like MSNBC, fell prey to the toxic revisionist charms of Mac & Becky's Jonestown Apologist Institute.

Stay tuned, one and all.

Now The Really Big Question: Will MSNBC Honestly Bear "Witness To Jonestown"?

2008-11-09T10:01:00.002-05:00

Tonight, on network television, we're going to once again be served another purported slice of the real story of the People's Temple.

This month, after all, is a banner anniversary--the 30th--of the November, 1978 Jonestown Massacre in a South American jungle. So a retrospect of this so very, very avoidable tragedy is more than appropriate.

The only question, of course, again is: Will our Big Media finally, at long last, tell the whole truth this time? Or will MSNBC's "Witness To Jonestown" special turn out to be just another truncated tale, with the same old media smokescreen covering up their shameless sloth and cowardice that let Jim Jones get away with mass murder?

Even worse, will it be a companion piece to Director Stanley Nelson's scandalous 2006 cult apologist mockumentary, "The Life and Death of Peoples Temple"?

This is not to say it might not have valuable components, featuring credible interviews with survivors, including the very significant ex-Temple insider, Terri Bufurd. But what really concerns me have been some of the remarks by "Witness To Jonestown" producer/writer Stephen Stept.

"And what is a cult anyway?" writes Stept in the MSNBC website, "Even former members disagree on whether that 'four-letter word' applies to Peoples Temple."

Really?

Quite astounding. That's just exactly the bunkum we've been getting for years and years from Official Jonestown Apologist Rebecca Moore.
She's more than qualified for the job, as the sister of two Jonestown mass murderers as well as daughter of one of that "four-letter word's" most ardent propagandists.

"That's a term [cult] we use to describe groups we don't like," Moore told the Sacramento Bee in 2002. "But it's so loaded with negative connotations. If we label something a cult, then we don't make any effort to understand it."

Of course, Professor Becky. She currently uses the San Diego State Univ. Religious Studies Department to promote--not cults, mind you--but what she and her nationwide network of academic cronies like to call "New Religious Movements" (NRM). Scientologists. The Moonies. The Children of God (reported to be child abusers.)

My question is: Who did the Good Professor spend more time lecturing the joys of cult life to, Director Nelson or Producer Stept?

On the other hand, there's always the chance that Stept didn't bother with Rebecca Moore or take seriously her landmark book, "A Sympathetic History of Jonestown," which has countless gems such as, "....Peoples Temple followed a long tradition common to other groups trying to forge a new society."

A long "tradition"? Say, like, attacking five year-old children with cattle prods, and dunking them at the bottom of a well?? Then again, Jim Jones lived and breathed like a good Stalinist, so sure, that would make perfect sense.

So stay tuned tonight, 9:00 p.m. EST, to see if MSNBC finally fesses up the WHOLE story, including how their former San Francisco affiliate station KRON promoted this sadistic cult in the early 1970s, and the way the San Francisco Examiner ran away from Jones and his law suit blustering enforcer, Tim Stoen.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat is virtually the only newspaper decades later to finally tell the authentic story of the Temple cult's terrorizing of Redwood Valley, California, in the 1960's and early 70's.

Will MSNBC have the guts and honesty to do the same tonight, as the Press Democrat did five years ago with this report?

Peoples Temple:
FRIENDS' WARNINGS IGNORED

by Mike Geniella
Press Democrat

Nov. 16, 2003

Twenty-five years have done nothing to diminish the anger of Brenda Ganatos and Nancy Busch.

The two women still get fighting mad about how Mendocino County officials and the local news media, and later their counterparts in San Francisco, turned a blind eye to the Rev. Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple. Jones arrived in Mendocino County in 1965, and he and his followers quickly infiltrated the local political and government establishments.

Temple members worked at every level of local government, from the Social Services Department to the District Attorney’s Office. Jones was to repeat the pattern on an even grander scale when he moved on to San Francisco in the early 1970s.

“We can live with ourselves today because we know we did everything we could to try and stop this madman,” Ganatos said.

“Frankly, I still don’t understand how all those people who should have been concerned and weren’t can look themselves in the mirror today,” adds Busch.

Ganatos first learned of Jones and his Peoples Temple when some followers from Indiana moved in next door in the late 1960s.

“They were lovely people. I liked them, and helped get them settled,” said Ganatos.

But by 1970, Ganatos began to take note of persistent rumors about misconduct at the Redwood Valley church.

Ganatos went into action after hearing a story about a 4-year-old boy named Tommy. On a “survival training” camping trip, Jones allegedly forced the boy to eat his own vomit after he became ill at dinner.

“That was it. I couldn’t handle any more of these stories without doing something,” Ganatos said.

Ganatos and Busch organized about a dozen friends and co-workers into a group called “Concerned Citizens.”

The group began to plead with local and state law enforcement agencies and government officials to take notice of the many concerns that were being outlined to them by neighbors and former temple members. They included a litany of incidents at Jones’ Redwood Valley church, including armed guards, beatings, sexual abuse and financial wrongdoing.

Ganatos and Busch say they were rebuffed at every level of law enforcement, government, and the news media.

“We were dismissed as busybodies and kooks,” said Ganatos, a retired telephone company supervisor who now lives in Oregon.

Busch, who still lives in her Ukiah home, believes she was frequently put under surveillance by Jones, and said it wasn’t easy to be among the few who were publicly questioning a man so eagerly accepted by community leaders and the local political elite.

“We kept being reminded what good deeds Jones was doing on behalf of the poor and the elderly, and how he was so informed that a local judge decided to name him foreman of the county grand jury,” recalled Busch.

Finally, in 1972, a San Francisco Examiner religion writer — the Rev. Lester Kinsolving — took notice of Ganatos and Busch and their citizens’ group.

Kinsolving, working with an Indiana reporter who also was investigating Jones, soon wrote the first published stories in Northern California about a man he dubbed the “messiah from Ukiah.”

The response from Jones and Temple members was swift. They threw up a picket line around the Examiner building, and Jones’ lawyers threatened legal action. Four more Kinsolving articles were shelved.

It wasn’t until publication in 1977 of a damning article in New West magazine that media attention was revived in Jones and the temple’s surging influence in San Francisco politics.

“By then it was too late. The wheels were already in motion,” said Ganatos.

After the Jonestown mass murder-suicide in 1978, Ganatos and Busch received calls from reporters around the globe inquiring about the information they had gathered.

“It probably wasn’t very smart, but I used to snap at them and say, ‘Where were you then?’” Ganatos recalled.

How about that. These Redwood Valley residents fought to stop the cult LONG before the "Concerned Relatives" ever started making waves. Now what do you think are the odds that you'll hear even one word mentioned tonight, or any night, by our MSNBC about the valiant fight by the "Concerned Citizens"?

I'll predict it may have something do with them being rebuffed by not just all levels of local law enforcement and government, but just by a wild coincidence, our courageous, crusading media!

Anybody taking bets out there??

The horrendous consequences of our law enforcement, government, and media officials doing NOTHING--except backing up Jones as they were all backing away--until it was too late are all too obvious, as much as the disgrace of this California power elite in its attempt to keep it covered up.

Ponder this reality. Be devastated by the unbearable grief in this preview of "Witness To Jonestown." Know that it was all completely preventable.

Then dry your tears. Get angry.

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

2008-09-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rest of the story is on the way.

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

2008-07-04T22:07:00.000-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Banned boating, fishing and other water activities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FANATIC NATIONALISTS -- JUST CULTISTS WITH BIGGER GUNS??

2008-05-31T23:18:00.000-04:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or equal treatment.

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

www.incandescentplanetreflections.blogspot.com

38 Years Ago Today: Temple Cult Assassins Devour Their First Victim--In California

2008-03-28T23:17:00.000-04:00

The very first victim of Jim Jones's brand of "revolutionary suicide" didn't have her life snuffed out with a force-feeding of cynanide punch. No, turned out it was a hangman's noose.

Daniel remembers that terrible moment being woken up in the middle of the night in his home in Talmage, California. It was March 28, 1970, more than eight years before the cult's mass slaughter in a South American jungle. Maxine Harpe's young son and two daughters discovered their mother's lifeless body in the garage of their house. Their nightmare as cult captives would now go into overdrive.

The Temple's squad of enforcers made certain to conceal all the evidence, so the very cooperative local powers-that-be conveniently glossed it over as a "suicide." There would be five other killings to follow in the cult's "Golden California Years" that proceeded the mass flight to Guyana in 1977.

Like Maxine Harpe, the others all had suspicious deaths. The kind that have "unsolved murder" written all over. Ones which our sterling film maker Stanley Nelson just didn't care a damn about investigating.

Daniel Harpe today remembers life in that "loving church," recalling: "At temple meetings, we were not allowed to talk, go to the bathroom, or fall asleep. Jones said if you got caught chewing gum at a meeting, you were to be automatically thrown into the pool. One day a black man wearing a suit got caught and he got thrown into the pool....There were these men walking around, keeping people awake, and moving people who where talking.

These men also wore guns on their sides....These meetings would go on all night. With locked doors, no one in, no one out. Several nights a week. I saw a grown man pass out and piss all over himself. I would be like a zombie in school each following day--totally out of it."

That wasn't all, either. Daniel was forced to undergo the cult's "kids' survival training", chock-full of generous servings of mental and physical abuse. Surely Daniel is not the sole child survivor today, either. But somehow, that amazing Nelson "documentary" flew blindfolded right over all these details. He just couldn't be bothered with the trivial matter of all the abused and battered children, like Daniel, who managed to survive the horror.

Then again, one has to understand that Nelson is a true believer in achieving a sparkling whitewash of any and all unsavory, incompatible realities that would stunt his landmark docuganda.

But don't worry, Stan. We'll be happy to address all the ever-widening chasms in your credibility. Coming up next time is more about Daniel's ordeal and the brutality carried out against his doomed mother.

Maybe one day Mr. and Mrs. Nelson (his writer) will offer up confessions on why so many film makers behave no different than the armada of morally bankrupt politicians currently running this country into ruin.

The Cult Apologists Parade Continues--With Drum Major J. Gordon Melton

2008-03-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

And the question remains: How do these cult psychopaths continue scoring goals, capturing and enslaving souls, with cash registers swelling with fresh cash??

A reader calling himself "Vannevar Bush" (there was a famous American scientist of the same name, but he's been dead for close to 25 years) offers up an interesting theory. While I'm not sure about his contention that every family ultimately leaves all their wealth to the church, he has some unquestionably peppery insights:

"There is a very organic, very fundamental reason," wrote Bush, "why psychopaths will always (ALWAYS) be free to plunder and abuse within the confines of the church:

In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estate General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'

There is a reason why the clergy holds the position of the "first estate." And it has nothing to do with divine authority.

Sooner or later, every family leaves its wealth to the church. Sooner or later, the church inherits it all. Some old heir decides to leave it to the diocese, and not the nieces and nephews. Sooner or later, it always happens.

And that is the reason that professional religious academics look the other way when they break out the brainwashing and the homicides. That is the reason why cults are tolerated. Why the rape of a congregation by a gifted huckster is always protected. Celebrated even.

Were it not for the flavor aide, Jones would still be celebrated by the religious academics. Because he understood how to butter the bread.

Simple as that, Serpico."

Serpico, eh?

Yeah, well, considering the depravity of the legions of these "professional religious academics", a Serpico-strength investigation and public hearing on their corrupt alliance with cults is long overdue. But considering the track record of our chronically self-serving, mushy headed media, don't count on breaking news anytime soon. Just more of the same predictable fluff. And the same tired old cover up.

Cult Apologists, Inc. can be found all over the map. Go crisscross the nation, and the Atlantic, to see them perform, usually under the bright lights of a university stage. The cast includes:

Nancy Ammerman

Philip Arnold

Eileen Barker

David Bromley

J. Gordon Melton

Ah, a grand pause for the highly provocative Mister Melton. The Gallery of Notorious Cult-coddlers has still more mugs to present, but for now give J. Gordo some well-earned basking in the spotlight.

It's the least we can do for the one they call "The Father of Cult Apologists."

He's received this honor for serving as perhaps the most brazen faced cult shill in the universe, for groups ranging from those star-studded Scientologist parasites all the way down to Aum Shinrikyo terrorists. That's right, Aum, the same gang that unleashed the 1995 sarin nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway, murdering 12 people and injuring over 5,000.

Among Melton's close associates is another gusting cult apologist that runs her racket as a religious studies professor at San Diego State University.

My guess is that Rebecca Moore is rightly inspired by her colleague's exploits, which help fuel her own wildly ruthless campaign to dress up the most murderous cult in American history. The finer details of Becky's (and father John) shockingly corrupt rendition of the People's Temple are yet to come.

Today, however, let us give the Father of Apologists his due. The following report comes courtesy of cult expert Rick Ross, who has the blessed knack for leaving no slime-encrusted stone unturned. Among other things, we're reminded of our Big Media's incurable habit of bedding down with any apologist hustler on the block.

In the next posting, you'll learn about one man's chilling account of what life was like as one of the child captives of the People's Temple during its Redwood Valley years. Stanley Nelson covered up all the child torture in his celebrated "documentary," which the Big Media--surprise, surprise--let him get away with.

Just like they did for so long, with a certain mass murderer named Jim Jones.

Now sit back and hear this expose of Melton, who claims that the Jones cult was "a respectable, mainline Christian group.”

Los Angeles Times Promotes “Cult Apologist” Recommended By Scientology

By Rick Ross
Cult News

April 13, 2006

According to Los Angeles Times staff writer Louis Sahagun, J. Gordon Melton is “eternally curious,” has an “encyclopedic mind” and “is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on religion.” Scientology, which has recommended Melton as a “religious resource," would certainly endorse the reporter’s view.

But serious journalists have often found Melton’s expertise a bit biased to say the least and he has been called a ”cult apologist.”

The 64-year-old Melton was apparently using the article to tout his ”Encyclopedia of American Religions,” a boring book that weighs about seven pounds and retails for $320.00.

But don’t expect to find weighty research within his creation, at least not anything that the groups listed don’t want the general public to know.

There seems to be something like a “quid pro quo” understanding between Melton and groups frequently called “cults,” which is essentially that he won’t write up anything they don’t like.

For example, you won’t find out about the Scientology belief in space aliens and how that’s linked to pesky little critters the controversial church calls “body thetans,” because Melton’s “encyclopedic mind” doesn’t allow such information to leak out, at least not to the public.

Note this short study by Melton about Scientology. He doesn’t even mention the mythical Xenu, who 75 million years ago sent billions of beings to earth that still haunt us.

Melton could easily add a page or two about the legendary galactic overlord within his 1,250-page book, but Scientology wouldn’t like that.

Maybe its cost and/or the questionable quality of his research that makes the ranking of his book so low at Amazon.com. Melton’s encyclopedia has at times been listed below 500,000, though the LA Times article gave it a bump up recently.

Melton is not known for meaningful analysis about what he calls “new religions.” The itinerant academic doesn’t appear all that “curious” when it comes to the darker side of groups more commonly called “cults.”

Perhaps that’s why many of those same groups have paid Melton hefty fees to help them out with a friendly book, or as an “expert witness” and “consultant.”

The part-time teacher and library worker lionized within the LA Times, basically is known to reiterate whatever “cults” want and/or need for him to say.

However, first he attempted to sell himself as a resource to “help” those working against “cults,” but for “$5,000.00,” to expose the “soft underbelly” of cults because he was “convinced that such groups cannot stand the light of day.”

But later Melton found that the real money lay on the other side of the ”cult” question.

J.Z. Knight, a purported “cult” leader who claims she channels the spirit of a 35,000-year-old dead general from the lost continent of Atlantis, had no problem getting Melton to take her seriously. She paid him to write a book for her titled "Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha’s School of Ancient Wisdom."

And after Scientology lawyers bankrupted the Cult Awareness Network, they gave that organization’s files to Melton, who subsequently went through them before he eventually handed them over to UC Santa Barbara.

Melton has often collaborated with Scientologists and was also recommended as a “religious resource” by so-called “new Cult Awareness Network” essentially controlled by Scientology.

The librarian/author seems eager to help “cults” whenever he can.

Once he flew all the way to Japan to defend the cult Aum, right after it released poison gas within Tokyo’s subway system murdering twelve. While thousands of victims were being rushed to hospitals Melton came to the rescue, of the cult that is.

Melton’s traveling companions were James Lewis, another “religious resource” recommended by Scientology and Los Angeles attorney Barry Fisher, recommended by the “new Cult Awareness Network.” The trio’s expenses were paid for by the Japanese cult.

The Washington Post reported that the three Americans pronounced the subway gassing cult “innocent of criminal charges and…a victim of excessive police pressure.”

This remains a profound embarrassment for Melton, since Aum was ultimately proven guilty by overwhelming evidence and its leaders are now sentenced to death

Melton’s insists otherwise, “We concluded that there was a high likelihood that the groups’ leaders had done what they were accused of,” he told Sahagun at the LA Times.

It appears that Sahagun didn’t take the time to Google Melton, or he doesn’t care about such research search results.

Cult News thinks the Washington Post got it right and the LA Times apparently was taken in by Melton’s spin.

For a “scholar,” Gordon Melton often seems indifferent regarding historical facts.

Jim Jones was responsible for the cult mass murder-suicide of more than 900 people in Jonestown November 18, 1978. However, Melton says, “This wasn’t a cult. This was a respectable, mainline Christian group.”

Melton most often completely dismisses or ignores the testimony of former cult members that he calls “apostates.”

Professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi of the University of Haifa noted, “In every single case since the Jonestown tragedy, statements by ex-members turned out to be more accurate than those of apologists and NRM researchers…It is indeed baffling…the strange, deafening, silence of [such scholars]…a thorny issue…like the dog that didn’t bark… should make us curious, if not outright suspicious.”

Is Gordon Melton and example of a silent scholar, or perhaps more like a “silent partner”?

Melton was prominently mentioned within a confidential memo written and distributed by Jeffery Hadden. This memo has been cited as a kind of “smoking gun,” regarding the tacit cooperation of like-minded “cult apologists” within academia cooperation in a kind of network.

Within that memo the now deceased Hadden cited Melton’s importance and willingness to cooperate in an organized effort, which would hopefully be funded by “cults,” to essentially quell criticism about them.

Hadden said, “We recognize that Gordon Melton’s Institute is singularly the most important information resource in the US, and we feel that any new organization would need to work closely with him.”

More recently Melton was exposed for receiving a specious gift, or what looked like a possible payoff, from a notorious group once known as the “Children of God” (COG) now called “The Family.” The purported “cult” taught its members to sexualize their minor children and encouraged women to become “hookers for Christ.”

Melton apparently hooked $10,000.00 for his so-called “International Religious Directory,” a pet project he runs.

Melton was exposed by Moving On.org, a Web site created by young adults that were raised within COG, but have left the group and formed a support network through the Internet.

Their Web site made public a portion of a 2000 IRS disclosure document filed by a charity linked to COG listing Melton as a recipient of a $10,000.00 gift.

Sahagun didn’t report about the cash Melton has received, but did find the space to discuss Melton’s “fascination with vampires.” The supposed scholar once was paid to testify in court about “vampire and werewolf relationships.” An attorney that worked with Melton lauded his ability to recall examples off the top of his head.

Maybe that’s because just such a relationship has become J. Gordon Melton’s stock in trade?

Melton markets himself to groups often seen as something like werewolves in sheep's clothing, and he feeds on the misery they create much like a vampire.

And now, please say "gooooot eeeeevening" to Mr. J. Gordon Melton, President of the American chapter of The Transylvanian Society of Dracula, as he prepares for another feeding with gal pal "Elvira" (Princess of the Dark).

Bloody good work, Count.

Question: Active Cults--STILL the best place for psychopaths to dabble??

2008-01-25T02:07:00.000-05:00

The marvel of Internet publishing. Who could have imagined 50 years ago the extraordinary freedom everyone now has to connect with the rest of the world?

One of the greatest achievements of the Information Interstate is the demolition of that constrained little world once ruled by self-serving corporate media hacks. For too long, too many of them were corrupted by the power they used to extinguish the corrupt. For too long, this unelected congress of the Fourth Estate dictated the agenda and created their own version of reality.

Like the Newseum, there's more than enough "reality" exhibits to fill up a temple. We could call it, oh, how about "The People's Temple II: Media Atrocities".

At last, this is a real Global Village, with an unfettered 24-hour marketplace of ideas. Now the public can truly interact and become empowered. Big Media Punditry can go furrow their highbrows, and get over it.

And when it comes to village interactions, some are downright luminescent enough to earn a trip from comments section to center stage. This was a recent exchange I had with "Anonymous" reader:

T.K. ".....That's one thing never to be underestimated in the macabre Alice In Wonderland world of the cult apologists: their talent for creative, endless self-delusions--which they want to share generously with an unsuspecting public.

Your first reference of course alludes to the classic "Animal Farm," by one of history's greatest prophet-writers, George Orwell. Comrade Jones would go on and on and on about racial equality and integration, yet oddly enough the little Stalinist's spiritual politburo ("The Planning Commission") was about as Lily White as a pre-civil rights Mississippi county board.

And double the level of evil.

True, also, is the fact that the "free enterprise" exploitation that Jones himself exploited for his own megalomaniacal mission still goes on, e.g., witness the human cost of today's "Globalization."

But Barnum, like Orwell, has been proven correct time and again. The suckers keep on falling for the charades, political, religious, or otherwise. Take a good look at all the hollow, hackneyed rhetoric spewed about by so many of the current candidates hoping to succeed the unquestioned worst president in our history (whose hollow, hackneyed rhetoric makes all else refreshingly poetic.)

Becky Moore and Massimo Introvigne, prominent cult apologists at large.
They're posing at a flying saucer cult's "Star Map" (not making this up.)
Click on "Becky & Massi's Space Cadets" for more info and entertainment.

The day will come, my friend, when that apologist barn door will suddenly spring open and all those chickens will come home to roost.

Cluck, cluck."

Anonymous: "Active cults are still the best place for psychopaths to dabble in their most evil and cruel tortures..."

Scientology high priest Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, who, shall we say, made more than a million clams...

"...all behind a cloak of spiritual open-mindedness. A few apologists still singing the songs and making the bliss ninny noises thirty years after the thing was tragically shut down is just a curious side show. Not a thing of any consequence.

Some of those apologists lost daughters. Sisters. Nephews. They have paid. But they failed to learn what they ought to have learned. Now they teach about "new religions." They let the family members of the modern day recruits suffer the same fate that they suffered.

They've condemned others to suffer the same tragic loss. And there are your chickens."

Warm-and-Fuzzy Cultist Cruise: One good round of sofa boogie and he'll make things perfectly "clear".

"Roosting on the families of all those concerned relatives connected with all the kids in all those groups currently being tracked by Rick Ross and Steve Hassan.

As regards Mr. Orwell, most of us read him and took heed of his dire (and completely accurate) warnings. Others - like Jones and Koresh and Father Divine read his warnings like a blueprint. Like a get rich quick scheme.

The People's Temple criminal enterprise, and others like it, don't just grow up out of the ground. They are crafted and carefully orchestrated.

That lily-white planning commission was discussing the intricacies of setting the trap, controlling the people and stealing their money from day one."

"Anonymous" later gave this afterthought:

"P.S. There is a very conscious reason why I post anonymously. I never wanted a cult in my life. I didn't want it. And when it came, I did not welcome it. My argument is now, and always was, that there are a few minor adjustments that the cult needs to make, and I will simmer down. Open up your books. Stop using brainwashing techniques - giving kids a diet of coca cola until they are so protein deficient they can't think straight. Stuff like that. But of course I was ignored.

So I use the Internet and I use this forum to voice opposition.

But I don't want it in my life. I consciously choose to not do the brave thing that Les Kinsolving did. I chose to stay in the background - fuming. But not making myself a target. These are nasty people, and they don't play nice. And I don't need it in my life.

So I come here, and I voice my opinion, and I speak my truth, and I don't leave my name, and the guy in the next cube doesn't even know I have an opinion. And that is exactly the way I want it. And frankly, I think my right to privacy is respected in our little Republic, and protected. So I'll sign off 'Anonymous' -- again."

It's prudent to be especially vigilant of the right to privacy, in light of the Bush Regime's methodical shredding of our civil liberties. Meanwhile, we suffer with the other plague, destructive cults--lead by their apologist cheerleaders--that continue ruthlessly exploiting "religious rights" in order to rob people of their cognitive, financial, and spiritual freedoms.

The battle rages.