Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Tea Bone posted:

The Jonestown massacre, from wikipedia


The really chilling part is the audio tape With Jones encouraging the mass suicide and the sound of children screaming in the background. The entire thing is eerie as gently caress but the famous part starts at around 35:40.

:nms:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peoples_Temple_Cult_Death_Tape_Q042.ogg:nms:

I've always found Jonestown super creepy and interesting. This is a really good documentary on it for those that're more interested in everything.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Lampsacus
Oct 21, 2008

CodfishCartographer posted:

I've always found Jonestown super creepy and interesting. This is a really good documentary on it for those that're more interested in everything.
I've always known about Jonestown and read the wiki pages ages ago. But that doco.. Oh my! And that audio too!

I never realized how close it was to collapsing before the mass suicide. You had people handing notes to reporters hours before saying they want out. When Jones realized it wasn't going his way he "quickly quickly quickly" started that awful process.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Lampsacus posted:

I've always known about Jonestown and read the wiki pages ages ago. But that doco.. Oh my! And that audio too!

I never realized how close it was to collapsing before the mass suicide. You had people handing notes to reporters hours before saying they want out. When Jones realized it wasn't going his way he "quickly quickly quickly" started that awful process.

The Congressman's visit seemed to seal the deal, although what happened was probably inevitable. Jones had planned to show Congressman Ryan only a very limited, surface portion of Jonestown that they had set up specifically for his visit. I think it worked for a little while, but then like you said, multiple people handed notes to his team asking for help. Ryan's mistake was probably in being up front with Jones that several people had asked to leave instead of getting the gently caress out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. Once the Congressman was dead everybody was hosed.

Hummingbirds
Feb 17, 2011

I'm kind of surprised that Jones actually killed himself along with his congregation. Seemed like the type who would've razed the earth and moved on.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Lampsacus posted:

I've always known about Jonestown and read the wiki pages ages ago. But that doco.. Oh my! And that audio too!

I never realized how close it was to collapsing before the mass suicide. You had people handing notes to reporters hours before saying they want out. When Jones realized it wasn't going his way he "quickly quickly quickly" started that awful process.

Yeah, the documentary does a pretty good job of painting how crazy the whole thing was, but also how Jones went about bringing normally completely sane individuals to the point where they'd think that poisoning their own babies and then themselves was the best choice of action. I can't imagine how frightening it must have been for the few people that survived, having to hide in the jungle or under beds hoping that the guards with guns didn't come find ad shoot them because they refused to kill themselves.

Tea Bone
Feb 18, 2011

I'm going for gasps.

CodfishCartographer posted:

Yeah, the documentary does a pretty good job of painting how crazy the whole thing was, but also how Jones went about bringing normally completely sane individuals to the point where they'd think that poisoning their own babies and then themselves was the best choice of action. I can't imagine how frightening it must have been for the few people that survived, having to hide in the jungle or under beds hoping that the guards with guns didn't come find ad shoot them because they refused to kill themselves.

Yep, the fact that these were once completely normal people is really hosed up. It really hits home how anyone could be brought into cult in a time of weakness. The bit about them having to hide for fear of guards shooting them, were the guards actually instructed to shoot anyone who refused to kill themselves, or where they just there to imply it? From the wiki: "A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning" One of them was obviously Jones himself, I'm not sure about the other, but it looks although nobody was shot trying to escape. It's mind blowing to think that with the exception of the few who hid, nobody tried to actively resist. Also the guards themselves must have taken the poison willingly. I just can't imagine how brain washed they must have been to go through with it after everyone else was dead.

Chicken McNobody
Aug 7, 2009

IAmNotYourRealDad posted:

The Chowchilla school bus kidnapping has always struck a chord with me.

Basically, a school bus is en route to dropping the children off at their homes one afternoon. The driver sees a motorist in distress and stops to assist only to have the bus overtaken by three men wearing nylon stocking hats and waving guns. In a matter of minutes, the driver and 26 students (ranging from ages 5-14) find themselves as hostages. They are forced to board a van and taken on an 11 hour disorienting drive. They are then made to climb into a hole into the ground. After about 12 hours, and with no idea of when or if they would be freed, the captives began to look for any possible way to escape. They manage to climb out of their chamber and 36 hours after their capture, the driver and children are free. However, during the hours that their captives had been underground, their kidnappers had not been inactive. The next step of their plan was to demand a $5 million ransom. Unfortunately for them, they are soon greeted with the news that the hostages had safely escaped. The article goes more in depth as to their panic at this point and time because they had failed to plan for this particular scenario and investigations quickly zoom in on their men.

I can't imagine being one of those school children heading home only to be confronted with scary men brandishing weapons.
I can't imagine being the driver, responsible for the children under such duress.
I can't imagine the terror of the parents wondering where their children have disappeared to.

The whole thing is pretty damned unnerving. The article is worth a read as I've left out some fascinating details including, but not limited to, the driver being hypnotised for clues (he remembered their license plate!) to the bungled plans of the perpetrators who had set out to perform a "perfect crime" (as one of the defense lawyers later told The Chronicle, the trio's plan "would make a great...comedy because nothing went right.")

Jeez, I sure hope that bus driver never drove a school bus again. Seems like the logical course of action when driving a bus full of children would be more "finish the drop-offs and notify highway patrol" and less "effectively extend 26 children's school day by an undetermined amount of time while I change this tire for a stranger". The former would of course have been harder in 1976 but I can't imagine anyone at any time thinking that leaving a busload of hot, tired children on the side of the road, even to help someone out, was a good idea. Even at my podunk school (only a few years later than this incident) no bus driver would have done this.

Zombie Chow
Jun 17, 2010

We interrupt this program to increase dramatic tension.

Hummingbirds posted:

I'm kind of surprised that Jones actually killed himself along with his congregation. Seemed like the type who would've razed the earth and moved on.

I think he didn't actually killed himself, but someone killed him.

EDIT: Nevermind. According to wikipedia: "Jones was found dead in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head that Guyanese coroner Cyrill Mootoo stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound".

cptn_dr
Sep 7, 2011

Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies


I was home sick from school one day, and ended up watching the History Channel screening a documentary about Jonestown followed by one on Waco. That was a hell of a day for 11 year old me.

kanonvandekempen
Mar 14, 2009

Tea Bone posted:

The Jonestown massacre, from wikipedia


The really chilling part is the audio tape With Jones encouraging the mass suicide and the sound of children screaming in the background. The entire thing is eerie as gently caress but the famous part starts at around 35:40.

:nms:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peoples_Temple_Cult_Death_Tape_Q042.ogg:nms:

Every child you hear crying on this tape is about to die, most killed by their own parents. Completely crazy that one guy could bring people to do this.

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

CodfishCartographer posted:

Yeah, the documentary does a pretty good job of painting how crazy the whole thing was, but also how Jones went about bringing normally completely sane individuals to the point where they'd think that poisoning their own babies and then themselves was the best choice of action. I can't imagine how frightening it must have been for the few people that survived, having to hide in the jungle or under beds hoping that the guards with guns didn't come find ad shoot them because they refused to kill themselves.

You wouldn't think to look in Sports Illustrated for an article on Jonestown. There were others who survived it. Mainly because they weren't in Jonestown at the time. Jones allowed some basketball hoops to go up at the camp and agreed it was a way of spreading goodwill between them and Guyana, so he sent a team to play a few games.

Among the roster was Jim Jr., Stephan and Tim Jones. They weren't there when everything went down, but they had to hear it as it happened because Jim Sr. called them up and told them it was time to die. They had to help identify bodies. Jim Jr. and Tim were adopted children, but Stephan was the Jones' one biological child.

BurnBlackJay
May 31, 2011

by Lowtax

Medieval Medic posted:

Of course the weirdo had a lithsp.

You ableist oval office

slinkimalinki
Jan 17, 2010

Tea Bone posted:

Yep, the fact that these were once completely normal people is really hosed up. It really hits home how anyone could be brought into cult in a time of weakness. The bit about them having to hide for fear of guards shooting them, were the guards actually instructed to shoot anyone who refused to kill themselves, or where they just there to imply it? From the wiki: "A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning" One of them was obviously Jones himself, I'm not sure about the other, but it looks although nobody was shot trying to escape. It's mind blowing to think that with the exception of the few who hid, nobody tried to actively resist. Also the guards themselves must have taken the poison willingly. I just can't imagine how brain washed they must have been to go through with it after everyone else was dead.

It's unnerving for me because most cults would never have appealed to me even at my weakest points. This one though - if you watch the beginning of the doco, it's easy to see the appeal. Completely racially integrated at a time of great racial turmoil; based on ideas of sharing wealth and supporting the poor; full of hip young people. It's really easy to see how smart, sane people got drawn in.

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



BurnBlackJay posted:

You ableist oval office
You misogynistic sperg.

BurnBlackJay
May 31, 2011

by Lowtax

KoRMaK posted:

You misogynistic sperg.

You racist slut

LaughMyselfTo
Nov 15, 2012

by XyloJW

BurnBlackJay posted:

You racist slut

You homophobic retard.

Arsonist Daria
Feb 27, 2011

Requiescat in pace.
The jerk store called, it's running out of you.

BurnBlackJay
May 31, 2011

by Lowtax

LaughMyselfTo posted:

You homophobic retard.

Ew gross no my bread isn't buttered that way

acephalousuniverse
Nov 4, 2012

Hummingbirds posted:

I'm kind of surprised that Jones actually killed himself along with his congregation. Seemed like the type who would've razed the earth and moved on.

I think he was also fairly unstable himself. I mean obviously any cult leader is some kind of hosed up, but Jones was bipolar or something and his decision to have a mass suicide was definitely influenced by actual apocalyptic type feelings in his own mind. A lot of people feel legitimately infuriated that he took the easy way out (gunshot) compared to the agony of the people who drank the poison, though.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

acephalousuniverse posted:

I think he was also fairly unstable himself. I mean obviously any cult leader is some kind of hosed up, but Jones was bipolar or something and his decision to have a mass suicide was definitely influenced by actual apocalyptic type feelings in his own mind. A lot of people feel legitimately infuriated that he took the easy way out (gunshot) compared to the agony of the people who drank the poison, though.

The documentary linked earlier definitely confirms he was pretty nutso. He killed small animals as a child so he could hold funerals for them, and he believed (or at least preached) that he was the only actual straight person on the planet, and every other person that acts straight is actually just doing so to cover up the fact that they're gay. He also made sexual advances on both men and women in the temple.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Tea Bone posted:

Yep, the fact that these were once completely normal people is really hosed up. It really hits home how anyone could be brought into cult in a time of weakness. The bit about them having to hide for fear of guards shooting them, were the guards actually instructed to shoot anyone who refused to kill themselves, or where they just there to imply it? From the wiki: "A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning" One of them was obviously Jones himself, I'm not sure about the other, but it looks although nobody was shot trying to escape. It's mind blowing to think that with the exception of the few who hid, nobody tried to actively resist. Also the guards themselves must have taken the poison willingly. I just can't imagine how brain washed they must have been to go through with it after everyone else was dead.

The other gunshot victim was Jones' personal nurse, so its possible that they were the last two alive and he's the one that shot her. Nobody knows exactly.

There was one woman on the tape, and she became one of the more well known victims because of this, that grabbed the microphone and tried to debate Jones and refute the philosophical bullshit that he was using to justify the suicide. Her name was Christine I think, in the end she died of poisoning too though. I think a large number of the victims most likely saw it as a choice between dying peacefully and getting shot. What they didn't know was that the cyanide was not a peaceful death, the first people to take the poison were carried off presumably so that those still alive wouldn't see them in pain, convulsing, etc.

KoRMaK
Jul 31, 2012



Basebf555 posted:

The other gunshot victim was Jones' personal nurse, so its possible that they were the last two alive and he's the one that shot her. Nobody knows exactly.

There was one woman on the tape, and she became one of the more well known victims because of this, that grabbed the microphone and tried to debate Jones and refute the philosophical bullshit that he was using to justify the suicide. Her name was Christine I think, in the end she died of poisoning too though. I think a large number of the victims most likely saw it as a choice between dying peacefully and getting shot. What they didn't know was that the cyanide was not a peaceful death, the first people to take the poison were carried off presumably so that those still alive wouldn't see them in pain, convulsing, etc.
I'm doing my best to avoid reading the article, but are you implying that these people were forced at gunpoint to drink the kool-aid? Like they showed up, and had second thoughts about it, and then there he was with a gun to ensure that you didn't back out? I didn't know that part.

oldpainless
Oct 30, 2009

This 📆 post brought to you by RAID💥: SHADOW LEGENDS👥.
RAID💥: SHADOW LEGENDS 👥 - It's for your phone📲TM™ #ad📢

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole_%28Scientology%29

I always thought Scientology was a religion for rich people and celebrities because it was the cool thing to do in Hollywood, but always harmless. Xenu thetans lol and so on. But apparently workers are terrorized and literal prisoners in their headquarters and the government/police is constrained by the religious status of Scientology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Base

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

KoRMaK posted:

I'm doing my best to avoid reading the article, but are you implying that these people were forced at gunpoint to drink the kool-aid? Like they showed up, and had second thoughts about it, and then there he was with a gun to ensure that you didn't back out? I didn't know that part.

Totally speculation on my part based on the fact that basically every single one of them took the poison, and there were in fact guards there with guns. It seems very very unlikely that at least some of the people didn't disagree with the plan but the alternative was clearly still death, just slightly different.

When everyone came to gather around and listen to Jim Jones' final speech they didn't know that's what was happening exactly. They didn't know yet that the Congressman was dead, and Jones' speech is the first time they are told that this is definitely the end. They didn't show up to the pavilion knowing what was going to happen.

Hummingbirds
Feb 17, 2011

oldpainless posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole_%28Scientology%29

I always thought Scientology was a religion for rich people and celebrities because it was the cool thing to do in Hollywood, but always harmless. Xenu thetans lol and so on. But apparently workers are terrorized and literal prisoners in their headquarters and the government/police is constrained by the religious status of Scientology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Base

I live in Tampa, right next to the scientologist capital of the world (Clearwater/Ybor). It's really fun to go to Ybor and see 30 scientologist drones literally forcing dianetics pamphlets on people. They really don't come off as being normal people. I should engage one in conversation next time and see if they say anything crazy.

E: better yet, I should probably attend a dianetics seminar. Might be interesting.

Hummingbirds has a new favorite as of 16:30 on May 29, 2014

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


Hummingbirds posted:

I live in Tampa, right next to the scientologist capital of the world (Clearwater/Ybor). It's really fun to go to Ybor and see 30 scientologist drones literally forcing dianetics pamphlets on people. They really don't come off as being normal people. I should engage one in conversation next time and see if they say anything crazy.

E: better yet, I should probably attend a dianetics seminar. Might be interesting.
Don't give them your real name or address. They're a step beyond the most persistent telemarketers.

ninjahedgehog
Feb 17, 2011

It's time to kick the tires and light the fires, Big Bird.


Basebf555 posted:

Totally speculation on my part based on the fact that basically every single one of them took the poison, and there were in fact guards there with guns. It seems very very unlikely that at least some of the people didn't disagree with the plan but the alternative was clearly still death, just slightly different.

When everyone came to gather around and listen to Jim Jones' final speech they didn't know that's what was happening exactly. They didn't know yet that the Congressman was dead, and Jones' speech is the first time they are told that this is definitely the end. They didn't show up to the pavilion knowing what was going to happen.

That said, this wasn't the first time Jones had told them all to drink some poison. I think the Wikipedia article mentions that they knew that mass suicide was a possibility, and they had even had drills where everyone drank something they thought was poison, but wasn't.

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice

Hummingbirds posted:

I live in Tampa, right next to the scientologist capital of the world (Clearwater/Ybor). It's really fun to go to Ybor and see 30 scientologist drones literally forcing dianetics pamphlets on people. They really don't come off as being normal people. I should engage one in conversation next time and see if they say anything crazy.

E: better yet, I should probably attend a dianetics seminar. Might be interesting.

Way back when I was an undergrad, our campus had a sort of "religion day" once in a while, where groups or churches or whatever could ask to have a table set up in a frequently-traveled area near the student union, so they could talk to interested students. I had nothing better to do that afternoon, so when my classes were done for the day, I wandered over to see what was up. There were more than a dozen tables set up, each one staffed by a couple of people, and most covered with pamphlets. I spent over an hour visiting with people, chatting them up, and learning quite a bit. Nobody was pushy at all--everyone just wanted to have a chat and maybe invite you to a service or a meeting or something. I'd been speaking with some hilarious guys from the Jewish fraternity (who told me every horrible Jew joke they could think of) for a few minutes when someone walked up behind me and grabbed my arm.

"...Can I help you?"

"We can help you!"

"Um, what? I don't get it."

The dye-job blonde with a spray tan and enormous fake breasts wearing a shirt cut so low that an on-duty stripper would say "honey, you gotta cover up your junk" responds, "I'm with the Church of Scientology! Come over to our table and--"

The Jewish guys were turning red in the face and trying their best not to laugh, so I thanked them and took off walking, but she wouldn't relent:

"Hey, were are you going? We can help! We have answers to all of your questions!"

Sure. I loving bet.

Arsonist Daria
Feb 27, 2011

Requiescat in pace.

oldpainless posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole_%28Scientology%29

I always thought Scientology was a religion for rich people and celebrities because it was the cool thing to do in Hollywood, but always harmless. Xenu thetans lol and so on. But apparently workers are terrorized and literal prisoners in their headquarters and the government/police is constrained by the religious status of Scientology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Base

There's also the time they successfully infiltrated the government and the time they attempted to drive a journalist insane for being critical of them.

Scientology is fuckin' scary, dude.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Scientology fun facts: they are only classified as a religion because they harassed the IRS with endless frivolous lawsuits.

Also, Leo Ryan--the senator killed by the People's Temple for taking people with him--was going to go after Scientology after he got back from Guyana. It was the very next thing on his agenda.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Also there was a cult awareness group founded because of Jonestown called the Cult Awareness Network that Scientology sued into oblivion because they listed it as a cult. Scientology bought out their trademarks during bankruptcy proceedings and continued to run it as a backdoor recruiting agency.

They are scary as gently caress, which is what you'd expect from an organization that actively recruits paranoid crazy people.

Arsonist Daria
Feb 27, 2011

Requiescat in pace.
Don't forget the Sea Org! Billion year contracts, child labor, women pressured into abortions, and more!

Culex
Jul 22, 2007

Crime sucks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

A crazy cult back in '84 buys a ton of land in Oregon, forms a commune, and plans to overwhelm public votes for their own purposes (as they had done in another, small town, which they renamed after their cult leader). Faced with many more people that are not them, they bring in homeless people from other areas to their commune, not just to vote, but also for experimenting on. They have a full medical lab, and buy samples of contagious diseases, and infect the town with salmonella close to voting time to make all non-commune folks too sick to vote.

They had planned to infect people with typhus and a few other nasties, thank goodness they stuck with plain salmonella until caught. It's a lot spookier though, since they had poisoned officials that visited them, and had a list of people to kill that were against them. The town's population was terrified of them, being weird foreign cultists and homeless people, and kept saying the food poisoning was the fault of the cult, but to not look racist, they weren't investigated by officials until far later.

benito
Sep 28, 2004

And I don't blab
any drab gab--
I chatter hep patter

Culex posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

A crazy cult back in '84 buys a ton of land in Oregon, forms a commune, and plans to overwhelm public votes for their own purposes (as they had done in another, small town, which they renamed after their cult leader). Faced with many more people that are not them, they bring in homeless people from other areas to their commune, not just to vote, but also for experimenting on. They have a full medical lab, and buy samples of contagious diseases, and infect the town with salmonella close to voting time to make all non-commune folks too sick to vote.

They had planned to infect people with typhus and a few other nasties, thank goodness they stuck with plain salmonella until caught. It's a lot spookier though, since they had poisoned officials that visited them, and had a list of people to kill that were against them. The town's population was terrified of them, being weird foreign cultists and homeless people, and kept saying the food poisoning was the fault of the cult, but to not look racist, they weren't investigated by officials until far later.

In the comic strip Bloom County, Bill the Cat joined the Rajneesh cult and Opus went to go get him out of it. For decades, I assumed that Breathed just made up the name as a vaguely Indian-sounding cult.

One strip, and some photos and details about the cult

Longer set of strips from that story line

benito has a new favorite as of 23:06 on May 29, 2014

acephalousuniverse
Nov 4, 2012
People interested in Scientology HAVE TO read Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. It's the best book on the cult ever published and has so many incredible anecdotes, from Hubbard's early career as a weirdo in the navy, to the loving bizarre Sea Org days, to disturbing poo poo like The Hole, blackmailing and kidnapping celebrities, bullying governments into doing what they want, etc. It's a quick read too, well-written.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


Free zone Scientology weirds me out. It's a movement of people who want to practice Scientology outside of the official Church of Scientology and asserts that they have a right to use the same documents and materials as a matter of religious freedom.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Zone_(Scientology)

GAPO
Apr 24, 2014

by Ralp


I helped a guy get weed once who was working as a cameraman for a Scientology led smear campaign against a defector. He wasn't a Scientologist, but he said the money was good, so he took the gig. He freely admitted to being paid to harass the defector and try to get him to make himself look bad on camera.

Nckdictator
Sep 8, 2006
Just..someone

slinkimalinki posted:

It's unnerving for me because most cults would never have appealed to me even at my weakest points. This one though - if you watch the beginning of the doco, it's easy to see the appeal. Completely racially integrated at a time of great racial turmoil; based on ideas of sharing wealth and supporting the poor; full of hip young people. It's really easy to see how smart, sane people got drawn in.

Yeah, that's the scary part of Jim Jones and the People Temple. Normally you can look at a cult and say "Wow, those are wackos". But Jim Jones had the support of genuinely good people like Walter Mondale,Angela Davis, Harvey Milk, and Jimmy Carter. Alot of reports of Jones's horrific activity was dismissed as right-wing propaganda at the time and I can't say I wouldn't have been one of those who trusted him.

Nckdictator has a new favorite as of 02:55 on May 30, 2014

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

ninjahedgehog posted:

That said, this wasn't the first time Jones had told them all to drink some poison. I think the Wikipedia article mentions that they knew that mass suicide was a possibility, and they had even had drills where everyone drank something they thought was poison, but wasn't.

Yes. White Nights.

Wikipedia posted:

Jones made frequent addresses to Temple members regarding Jonestown's safety, including statements that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were conspiring with "capitalist pigs" to destroy Jonestown and harm its inhabitants.[50][65][66] After work, when purported emergencies arose, the Temple sometimes conducted what Jones referred to as "White Nights".[67] During such events, Jones would sometimes give the Jonestown members four choices: attempt to flee to the Soviet Union; commit "revolutionary suicide"; stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers; or flee into the jungle.[68]

On at least two occasions during White Nights, after a "revolutionary suicide" vote was reached, a simulated mass suicide was rehearsed. Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton described the event in an affidavit:

"Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands."[69]

[quote=""Interview with former Jonestown resident Teri Buford O'Shea in The Atlantic"
What were the warning signs that things might get really dangerous?

One big warning sign was that he had revolutionary suicide practices. He called them White Nights. He did this several times, both in the United States and in Guyana.

That sounds like a pretty big warning sign. How did those work?

There were loudspeakers all over the compound, and Jim Jones's voice was on them almost 24/7. He couldn't be talking all the time, but he'd tape what he said and then play it back all day long. And the rule was that we couldn't talk when Jim Jones was talking. So on the loudspeakers, he'd suddenly call out, "White Night! White Night! Get to the to the pavilion! Run! Your lives are in danger!" Everyone would rush to the pavilion in middle of the encampment.

Then he would tell us that in the United States, African Americans were being herded into concentration camps, that there was genocide on the streets. They were coming to kill and torture us because we'd chosen what he called the socialist track. He said they were on their way.

We didn't know this at the time, but he'd set up people who would shoot into the jungle to make us feel as if we were under attack. And there were other people who were set up to run and get shot -- with rubber bullets, though we didn't know it at the time. So there you were, in the middle of the jungle. Shots were being fired, and people were surrounding you with guns.

Then a couple of women brought out these trays of cups of what they said was cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, or Flavor-Aid -- whichever they had. Everybody drank it. If we didn't drink it, we were forced to drink it. If we ran, thought we'd be shot. At the end of it, we were wondering, Why aren't we dead?

And then Jim would just start laughing and clapping his hands. He'd tell us it was a rehearsal and say, "Now I know I can trust you." And then, in the weirdest way, he said, "Go home, my darlings! Sleep tight!" We weren't really in mood for sleeping tight at that point.

Do you think the people who died on November 18 thought at first that it was another dress rehearsal?

No, when the final time came, I think people were aware it was real thing. It had been a very, very bad day. Congressman Ryan had come to investigate the compound and people were leaving with him. People argued with Jim, but anyone who didn't want to commit suicide was held down and shot with needles filled with potassium cyanide. Unless you were one of the lucky ones who happened to sneak off into the jungle, you were dead. They went around with stethoscopes, and if you still had a heartbeat, you'd be shot.

Furthermore, they killed all the children first. That killed a lot of the people at heart before they actually took the Kool-Aid.
[/quote]

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Arsonist Daria
Feb 27, 2011

Requiescat in pace.

GAPO posted:

I helped a guy get weed once who was working as a cameraman for a Scientology led smear campaign against a defector. He wasn't a Scientologist, but he said the money was good, so he took the gig. He freely admitted to being paid to harass the defector and try to get him to make himself look bad on camera.

Oh yeah, they loving love that poo poo. If you've spoken out against the Church in any way, they consider it a religious obligation to come after you however they see fit. Some even say it should be a right protected by religious freedom laws. It's probably one of the most frightening things about the cult, especially since they've infiltrated government organizations before.


Nckdictator posted:

Yeah, that's the scary part of Jim Jones and the People Temple. Normally you can look at a cult and say "Wow, those are wackos". But Jim Jones had the support of genuinely good people like Walter Mondale,Angela Davis, Harvey Milk, and Jimmy Carter. Alot of reports of Jones's horrific activity was dismissed as right-wing propaganda at the time and I can't say I wouldn't have been one of those who trusted him.

Jim Jones had such a crazy cult of personality surrounding him. He studied everyone from Hitler to Ghandi as a kid, and it shows in his ability to get people willing to follow him to hell and back. What's most interesting about Jones is that he honestly seemed to believe in total equality, being a huge proponent of racial integration and socialism. However, he had no qualms with manipulating the hell out of people to turn them to his way of thinking, and got incredibly petty and selfish whenever things didn't go his way. You can't help but wonder if he could have been an agent change instead of the instigator of tragedy.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply