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Jonestown is Some Fucked up Bullshit

Penguin IncarnatePenguin Incarnate King of KafiristanRegistered User regular
edited April 2009 in Social Entropy++
Jonestown is, of course, the sight of the mass suicide of 918 people who belonged to the Temple of the Peoples.

I bring this up because just now I watched a documentary on PBS about the beginning and the end of James Jones' organization and the unfortunate end of his organization. The documentary (found here) is told primarily through first hand accounts of people that belonged to the Temple, people who lost their spouses, parents and elders to this man's insane dream.

Jim Jones, as you all know not only founded the Peoples Temple, but also wrote such novels as The Thin Red Line and the Kirk Douglas vehicle From Here to Eternity*. He also voiced such mas media luminaries as Darth Vader, Mustafah, Bleeding Gums Murphy and that CNN Guy.

He began the Peoples Temple as a semi-socialist activist group in the 1970's, composed of both white, middle class Americans as well as African Americans. It was a fully integrated church-- a noteworthy thing at the time-- which due to pressures from the media and the government fled to Guyana in order to escape what many saw as persecution. This was mostly bullshit.

Jim Jones was a reprobate abuser of himself and of others. He wasn't a messiah, he was a man bent on controlling others and telling them what to do.

Eventually, a congressman visited the Jonestown Compound in Guyana. While there he and his entourage encountered many people who loved Jones and his cult. He also encountered many people that were being held against their will.

Shortly after the congressman's visit, he was murdered along with several others who were trying to escape the compound.

In less than 24 hours, most of the population of Jonestown had killed each other or commited suicide by drinking Kool-Ade laced with cyanide. Their messiah, Jim Jones, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. Like a fucking pussy.

If anything it underlines how human beings can attempt at doing good in the world and in a horrific medley of insanity. How they can believe in the right thing and attempt the right thing, but end up murdering hundred upon hundreds of people.

Good times, though.

Here's an entry about a person with the same last name as I have. Just so you know, the only people I've found with my family name either died in an Arctic expedition, commited suicide along side Jim Jones or are skinheads. Then again, the town of our namesake is only two miles away from where Alan Moore lives. Cousins, mayhaps?

The Simpsons episode "The Joy of Sect" is more or less about the Jonestown Massacre (as anal retentively analyzed here). Plus, you know, there's also
a band bearing the namesake.


This shit has been poured into our culture as Americans. When Scarlet and Ascot stayed at my house I asked him about cults in England. He told me that the UK didn't have any events like Jonestown or Waco or Heaven's Gate. There just weren't those kinds of people mulling around the moors and fields of England. And while that seemed like a good thing, it also seemed incredilbly sad. These suicides, these mass acts of destruction are a part of our culture. They're a part of what makes America. I don't know. I just feel sorry for someone that doesn't think about mass suicides.

*That's a lie.

So. What are your thoughts?

[My "News" Podcast with Nads.] [My Cult Movie Podcast with BusterK]
Penguin Incarnate on
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