Jonestown, a tourist attraction

Do they serve koolaid?

just wow

It was really Flavr-aid

Why not? Other then Disney Devil's Island are there any other tourist attractions in Guyana?

Congresswoman Jackie Speiers was one of Congressman Leo Ryans aides that were ambushed....she was shot 5 times and played dead next to the wheels of the plane until help came the next day.

Since this place is anonymous, I'll admit it. If I were ever in Guyana, I would go. I mean, I wouldn't go out of my way to pay for a plane ticket just to go on this tour. But if I happen to be there, why not?

As this was 40 years ago, I can't imagine there is much of anything left to see? Didn't the jungle reclaim the entire site? I guess there would be some ruins left ..

The Jonestown death tape audio, where you can hear people dying from the Flavor Aid, is rather horrific.

I would go see it, but I wouldn't be some idiot taking pictures while smiling. It's macabre, but we can't deny it's history.

Actual footage of Jonestown members shooting down congressman at the airstrip. Don't know if you can see Jackie Speier here.

Humans are morbid, OP. Just look here. There have been about 5 ongoing threads about dead bodies atop Mt. Everest..

I can't wait for Trumptards to have their own Jonestown here in the US.

Did Flavr-Aid ever recover from the bad press?

They should have had a commercial with Lauren Bacall extolling the virtues of FLAVAH!

"I don't need cyanide--I'm dead enough, thank you!"

[quote] Congresswoman Jackie Speiers was one of Congressman Leo Ryans aides that were ambushed....she was shot 5 times and played dead next to the wheels of the plane until help came the next day.

I'm baffled she didn't bleed to death without her (or anyone else) taking care of her wounds.

Really?

There used to be a thread on here some years ago that linked to an article about how noxious the badly bloated, decomposing bodies smelled. That the rescue workers who were sent to ID and clean up the mess had to burn their own uniforms after because the smell never washed off..

R17 I remember that thread. I remember some military message board where an Air Force vet said that the helicopters used to transport the bodies still had the smell years later.

[quote]As this was 40 years ago, I can't imagine there is much of anything left to see? Didn't the jungle reclaim the entire site? I guess there would be some ruins left ..

There were some fires in the 80s that took destroyed the buildings and the jungle reclaimed the site. Here is one account about a college professor's visit to the site in 2010.

nice place to visit. they should let the bodies decomposed naturally and fertilize the land

The bodies were bloated like raisins by the time the military tried to transport them back to the states.

If one dropped or mishandled a corpse, they would burst, oozing a foul goo.

Grape kool aid by Obama!

R21, you can see the cyanide bloat here.

Holy Shit. I've only ever seen the aerial shots of the dead bodies. God, what a tragic end. I can't imagine having to clean up the bodies.

Are those sutures on the man at R23's chest?

What is it like for a person to die from ingesting cyanide? Is it painful?

Like dying warm and peacefully in your sleep upon a bed of roses, Rose.

In all seriousness though, R26:

[quote] It’s horrifying. It is not in any way a painless death. The deaths in Jonestown took anywhere between five and 20 minutes. First, your entire body starts to convulse. Then your mouth fills with a mixture of saliva, blood and vomit. Then you pass out, and then you die. Your body is deprived of oxygen completely. It’s a horrific death.

[quote]it is now offering regularised visits

What the hell does that mean? I've never heard the word "regularised" before.

So it was kind of like a religious MichFest, but with Flavor-Aid instead of nutloaf?

[quote]The mass murder and suicide took place in the western section of this South American Republic, near neighbouring Venezuela where an American religious leader, Reverend Jim Jones, set up his People’s Temple Church bringing with him hundreds of American followers who put their faith and trust in him.

This sentence makes it sound like the church was in Venezuela, not Guyana. Factual, or just poorly written?

It was deep in the jungle of Guyana.

R26, it's usually not too bad, except when the dose is too small for a faster death and the headache and seizures and confusion make one miserable until the victim loses consciousness. The doses in Jonestown were large so not much Flavor Aid needed to be ingested,, and the symptoms would have been affected by all the other drugs, mainly sedatives, and Valium.

The had to clean up some of the bodies with snow shovels.

Yes, R25. Probably to keep the innards and fluids from spilling out all over the place.

[quote]There used to be a thread on here some years ago that linked to an article about how noxious the badly bloated, decomposing bodies smelled. That the rescue workers who were sent to ID and clean up the mess had to burn their own uniforms after because the smell never washed off..

My neighbour across the hall died last year and no one found him for about a week. The odor of a rotting corpse sticks in your nose even when you're not in the area. They've been spending the last month cleaning up the condo to put it back on the market and occasionally, I can still smell the odor in the hallway.

[quote] I can still smell the odor in the hallway.

Now multiply that x 900 under 100-degree+ jungle humidity.

I can barely imagine what a foul, thankless job that cleanup operation must have been.

I was 20 when it happened, and frankly I wasn't nearly as interested in it at that age as I would have been later in my life.

But the main thing which resonates with me to this day is how incredibly unhappy black people must be for them to put their lives and blind faith into a white man who made promises of a new world of equality for all. Yes, I know that there were a small number of white people, but for the most part it was older black folks who had lived a life of misery.

I feel bad for all the kids who died through no fault of their own.

What R9 said.

People visit Auschwitz, Chernobyl, even NORTH KOREA, so what's the biggie?

Here is the article about the grisly Jonestown cleanup

The body at R23 is Jim Jones. He didn't drink the Flavr-Aid,he was shot in the head.

Honestly, MAJOR respect to the military personnel who had the job of moving the bodies.

Interesting that the buzzards stayed away.

[quote]Honestly, MAJOR respect to the military personnel who had the job of moving the bodies.

I agree. I read Jeff Brailey's manuscript and he described the physical and mental toll it took on the personnel. I sort of understood why they did that gorilla prank after what they had been through.

I have read other articles about what happened after the bodies were returned to the US and it was quite sad as many families couldn't afford the costs of transporting the bodies back to the hometowns and many were unclaimed. It's been noted that some families were embarrassed their loved ones were cult members and opted not to claim the bodies.

In 2014, some of the cremains of the victims were found in an abandoned Dover, Delware funeral home.

And what food and drinks will they serve at this tourist attraction?

wanna have sex with those bloated corpse. Make me horny

Is there a definitive documentary on Jonestown?

Christine Miller was the only one who tried to talk Jones out of making everyone drink the koolaid.

Here's one of the workers cleaning up. Damn.

More.

Getting them ready for transport.

Without a face mask.

What's the relation between Jim Jones and Harvey Milk?

Parrot still alive.

Vat of flavor aid.

Would be a great body farm

Loaded onto choppers.

Hard at work.

Jim Jones took the advantage of progressive liberals.

Now this should be the next "American Crime Story."

I remember an amazing doco about Jonestown a few years ago. Gripping. And oddly hilarious: at the very start, a woman is talking about how she first met Jones. She said she had a pet monkey who hanged itself, and she needed a new monkey. She opened the paper and Jones was selling a monkey. And that's how they met. I'll never forget how matter of fact she was about that story.

Table of cyanide-filled syringes.

R63, search youtube Jonestown The Life and Death of Peoples Temple

More macaws amongst the carnage.

Jim Jones and a toucan.

I didn’t realise the vast majority of them were black.

Jonestown workers toiling for 12 hours in the jungle heat.

Bodies ready for transport.

I don't understand why you'd want to visit Jonestown instead of Roraima.

Getting coffins ready for shipment.

Guyanese soldier observing.

R68, yep, people temple is a cult version of Democratic party. It was very diversified. Jim Jones himself fucked lots of his male believers. He said everyone was homosexual

Oh shut the fuck up, you piece of shit, R74. Jonestown is more like what Trump voters would do if he became imprisoned, or even more to the point, what the entire nation of Russia would do if Putin was assassinated!

R75, Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his "rainbow family", and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."[23] Jones portrayed the Temple overall as a "rainbow family". Typical liberal

R75, Jim Jones was a racial integrationist. Here are the facts: During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.[1] After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight.[19]

Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers[19] and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media.[20] When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.[21]

Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.[1] White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him.[19] A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call.[20] Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them.[20]

Yeah, and?

Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Oklahoma City Bombing is what happens when batshit Republicans lose their shit.

R78, wanna more? The Temple distinguished itself from most new religious movements with its overtly political message.[57] It combined those genuine political sympathies with the perception that it could help turn out large numbers of votes to gain the support of a number of prominent politicians.[58] Jones made it known after he moved to San Francisco that he was interested in politics, and legal changes strengthened political groups like the Temple.[59][60]

After the Temple mobilized volunteers and voters instrumental in George Moscone's narrow election victory in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.[61][62] Jones and the Temple received the support of, among others, Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, Assemblyman Willie Brown, San Francisco mayor George Moscone, Art Agnos, and Harvey Milk.[63] Willie Brown visited the Temple many times and spoke publicly in support of Jones, even after investigations and suspicions of cult activity.[64][65]

Give Boris some time, R78. He is busy looking up the Wikipedia, English-to-Cyrillic translation of what Waco and Ruby Ridge was.

Did anyone survive?

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.

[quote] [R78], wanna more?

Yes, R79. We all wanna more of your bad English and wikipedia footnotes.

Because Milk and Moscone were murdered so soon after the Jonestown tragedy, there was immediate speculation that Peoples Temple was somehow involved. Ann Kronenberg, Milk’s hand- picked successor, told Milk biographer Randy Shilts, that when she first heard Milk was murdered, she thought Jim Jones was responsible. Rumors began to circulate (and some persist today) of obscure connections between Jim Jones and Milk’s murderer, Dan White. Vague rumors of a falling out between Milk and Jones also surfaced. 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.

Enough time has passed since Milk’s brutal murder to reanalyze this relationship, to explore how and why Harvey Milk supported Peoples Temple. As people who hold Milk in high esteem, we should honestly and openly explore and reevaluate what we know about Peoples Temple, to see what it was about the church that appealed to Milk. Whether it was its pro-gay public persona, its support for embattled gay teachers, its opposition to anti-gay ballot measures, its active opposition to racism and sexism, the multiple stories throughout the pages of the Peoples Forum denouncing violence against gays and lesbians, or simply its acceptance of him and its continued support for his political campaigns – whatever the reason – Harvey Milk irrefutably supported Peoples Temple.

It may be understandable why in November 1978 the supporters of Milk would attempt to distance the newly martyred supervisor from the still-unfolding horrors of Jonestown. However, we as witnesses, historians, researchers and writers have an obligation to tell future generations the whole truth, as we understand it, to record as much documentation as possible and let the biases and subsequent interpretations transform over time. As Dr. Susan Stryker states in the curator’s statement of the Milk exhibit, “While I wanted to respect Harvey Milk’s legacy, I also wanted to suggest that in venerating him, we risk obscuring a great deal of other equally compelling gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender history.”

If Milk supported Peoples Temple, now is the pivotal time for us to unveil the truth. What we cannot do is let our animosity toward Jim Jones and our horror of Jonestown taint our understanding of the individuals who made up Peoples Temple, including their incredible community based work as well as their relationships with prominent people like Harvey Milk. We should challenge the image of Temple members as mindless, uneducated zombies, and instead, portray them as the passionate, loyal and committed people who inspired Harvey Milk. It is most important that we not participate in or settle for the revisionism and obfuscation that has passed for the historical account of this relationship to date.

The extent of Milk’s relationship with Peoples Temple may never be fully known. Certainly his murder, along with that of Mayor Moscone, was yet another blow to Temple survivors. Milk and Moscone were the two most powerful San Francisco politicians who maintained close ties to Jim Jones and Peoples Temple; they could have demanded an investigation into the murder of Leo Ryan and the Jonestown tragedy. When Jones tells the residents of Jonestown in the community’s last hours that the “folks in San Francisco won’t be idle over this,” he could have been referring, in part, to Milk and Moscone. Indeed, recently-uncovered research refutes the supposition that Jones ordered Dan White to execute Milk and Moscone; to the contrary, if there were any connection between the City Hall murders and Peoples Temple, it would clearly have been because Milk and Moscone were too closely tied to Jones and the Temple.

A Lavender Look at the Temple, scheduled to be published in early 2004, examines the connections between Harvey Milk and Peoples Temple as part of its consideration of the church’s internal and external relationship with gay men and lesbians. Reviewing letters from Milk, news clippings and first hand accounts, A Lavender Look not only pieces together this complex and obscured relationship, it also includes accounts from gay and lesbian Temple members and Jonestown survivors.

We are still conducting research for this project, and are still seeking gay or lesbian members of the church who are willing to be interviewed for their perspective. As gay men and lesbians ourselves, we understand and appreciate the difficulty of coming forward with information, and will abide by whatever conditions you stipulate before such an interview takes place. We ask you to contact Michael Bellefountaine at 415-864-6686 or ACTUPSF@hotmail.com.

He distributed his campaign literature anywhere he could, including among one of the most influential political groups in the city, the Peoples Temple, an organization that Milk attended regularly. Milk's volunteers even took thousands of brochures and because the Peoples Temple leader, Jim Jones, was a politically powerful individual in San Francisco, Milk encouraged Temple members to work his phones, spoke at the Temple and later wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter defending Jones character. Milk's relationship with the Temple was not entirely similar to other politicians' in Northern California. According to The San Francisco Examiner, Jones and his parishioners were a "potent political force", helping to elect Moscone (who appointed him to the Housing Authority), District Attorney Joseph Freitas, and Sheriff Richard Hongisto. (Jacobs, John [November 20, 1978]. "S.F.'s Leaders Recall Jones the Politician", The San Francisco Examiner, p. C.) Milk spoke at the Temple ("Another Day of Death", Time, December 11, 1978.) and defended Jones in a letter to President Jimmy Carter in 1978. (In that letter he called Jones "a man of the highest character," and criticized outspoken Temple defectors for trying to "damage Rev. Jones' reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies".)[1] (Coleman, Loren (2004), The Copycat Effect, Simon & Schuster, p. 68.). However, When Milk learned Jones was backing both him and Art Agnos in 1976, he told friend Michael Wong, "Well fuck him. I'll take his workers, but, that's the game Jim Jones plays."[61] But to his volunteers, he said: "Make sure you're always nice to the Peoples Temple. If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it."

R81, there were a handful of survivors who hid in the jungle.

Good for Guyana. Aren't they a poor, struggling nation? Why shouldn't they make a few bucks off of something some crazy Americans did 40 years ago?

Flavor Aid is still made. You could make a gruesome Halloween party punch with grape Flavor Aid (The variety used), some almond extract for the cyanide taste, and vodka or grain alcohol for the kick.

And if you're hosting the Halloween party, why not make it a real [italic] killer [/italic] party with a dozen or so stuffed bodies wearing bellbottoms and lying facedown on the lawn?

What business did US politicians have traveling there on taxpayer money?

My brother did that in the 80s, R90. With the tapes playing to close the evening. He's a fun guy.

They should've just bulldozed the place and all the bodies.

I'm sure the families wanted the bodies back... that's the reason Congressman Leo Ryan went to Jonestown in the first place. Family members were begging him to intervene

Those birds in those photos are surreal.

r95 Tough shit. If those morons were stupid enough to go down there and kill themselves, why should I have to pay for it?

Hate to break it to you, R97, but you pay for American morons doing moronic things everyday, whether you like it or not.

r98 ... but enough about the White House ...

This also happened nearly 40 years ago, so to be still upset about "paying for it" is kind of ridiculous.

Yeah, I get the feeling R97 is one of those irritating people who complain about [italic] their [/italic] taxpayer money whenever they handpick something they don't like. Don't worry, bitch. The rest of us pay for it, too. You're not that special.

Did anyone survive?

[quote]In total 7 people survived the deaths in Jonestown: Stanley Clayton, Odell Rhodes, Grover Davis, Hyacinth Thrash, Mike Prokes, Tim Carter and Michael Carter. The last three were sent away from Jonestown by the leadership while the deaths were still going on.

Survivor Odell Rhodes Interview

R62, I would watch a Jonestown-themed "American Crime Story."

Who would play Jackie Speier? More importantly, who plays Jim Jones?

A few years ago I could have seen John Travolta as Jim Jones.

They need to make it into a full-on amusement park with rides and shows. JonestownLand.

Joaquin Phoenix as Jim Jones

Good one, R107.

Jim talking about fucking men.

[quote]Who would play Jackie Speier?

Maybe Aubrey Plaza or some other unattractive brunette actress.

Also, HBO has some Jonestown project in development.

It was announced in 2016 that Jake Gyllenhaal and A&E were developing an anthology series on cults with the intention of the first season being about Jones.

A&E recently aired a documentary called Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre. It was mostly about Jones' wife and mistresses.

I think the HBO series has a better chance of panning out.

Article about HBO series in development

[quote]A few years ago I could have seen John Travolta as Jim Jones.

If he could Ryan Murphy would do that kind of casting for a Jim Jones project. Murphy would probably cast Sarah Paulson as Jones' wife.

Regina King as Christine Miller, the Jonestown follower who tried to talk Jim Jones out of having everyone drink the punch.

Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.

Wow.

Octavia Spencer is probably angling to play Christine Miller in the HBO project.

Before the massacre.

R117, I can see more of that resemblance with Octavia.

R62 Is that a picture of Jim Jones himself? I mean the one in the red shirt with the huge ass grin on his dead face. .

That's just.....

Somebody else's video footage of Jonestown before,during, and after the tragedy. I'm usually not fond of videos that superimpose some cheesy song over archival footage, but given the song's subject matter and the fact that it was of that era, it seems eerily appropriate.

Deborah Layton, the woman who escaped Jonestown months before the mass suicide should be included in a mini-series or movie.

My new million dollar idea would be a ghost tour.

Camping at the site overnight.

Campfire side gathering.

Hidden speakers play the sound of a gorilla screaming.

Segue to the guide telling the story of the gorilla.

Ouija boards optional.

NBC news footage of the compound hours before the massacre. You can see footage of Jackie Spierer assisting a young woman in defection.

The photo in R62 looks like it was taken in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the bodies look very fresh. Who would have taken it then?

Wow, over 300 of the 900 who died were kids. Terrible.

Marcelline Jones had asked that the children be spared.

Free grape kool aid for ur trip!

This is Larry Layton, one of the airstrip shooters who shot at Congressman Leo Ryan and the Jonestown defectors. After spending time in prison, he is OUT (??) now, and currently living somewhere in California.

Larry was one of Jim's lovers.

They should have made him clean up the mess.

r49 Jonestown Paradise Lost is a good one and I think it's on youtube. There was also just an A&E doc about the women of Jonestown who all played a fucking major role in this since JJ was much to incapacitated to have orchestrated the final white night on his own. I'm actually in a Jtown survivor group on Facebook, a lawyer buddy of mine put me in because he knew I was very interested in it. It's really something. Rebecca Moore runs the SDSU Jtown library and is very intent on her sisters, who were Jones' "nurses" not being vilified. Her sister is the one who shot Jones and her other sister helped calm down the people and hand out the drinks, she can be heard on the death tape. This group infuriates me on the regular because they just can't fucking admit that they were stupid and hoodwinked. When Power Boothe died, a lot of them were happy as they thought he "made them look dumb" in that movie. It's so delusional in there and I just read it with my mouth agape. Anyhow, when they get wind of this they will be furious!

R125 See R124. Apparently the press was hanging around.

An excellent Rolling Stone article from a journalist detailing the gruesome aftermath of Jonestown. Some excerpts:

[quote] When the other reporters left for Jones' house Chapman decided to stay with the bodies, and he moved through them alone. He stopped for a moment, and in the stillness, he heard a body working. "It was ... gurgling. And it came from a black woman in a red shirt with viva written across the front. She wore gold earrings and she was arm and arm with a black man. Her head was swollen to the size of a bowling ball. Her eyes had popped completely out of her head. The entire eyeball was resting outside the socket." Chapman paused. "It didn't bother me then," he said. "I knew it would get to me in a few days.

[quote] "This is going to change my life," Chapman said softly. He lost the thread of his thought momentarily and his eyes went blank. In Vietnam, they called it the 1000-yard stare.

[quote] I waited for a while, then asked. "What else?"

[quote] "Okay. I moved to my left. There was a vat and then I saw Jones. As I moved toward him, I got a real bad whiff. I stepped away, almost tripped on a body, stumbled to get my balance, and as soon as I bent down, I was suddenly too close to one. There was a tremendous adrenalin shot, a fear." He had then stepped back and tried to tell himself that he had to go on, that he was an instrument of history.

[quote] "It was really sickening at this point. The bodies were all, well, they were oozing – literally. Fluids running out of the bodies on top of bodies. Some of them had guts hanging out. They had burst in the heat. Eyeballs, intestines, bodies virtually held in by clothing. Somehow it all reminded me of Salvador Dali's Resurrection of the Flesh. Did you ever see that? And I thought, 'What I'm doing here is a form of art."'

[quote] Chapman told me he saw seven needles. One was sticking out of a man's neck. Another was totally bent, as if it had been shoved into someone or something with a lot of force. There was about half an inch of milky fluid in the syringe.

[quote] There were some dogs that had been shot and some dead cats. Chapman decided not to photograph them. He thought there were a lot of sick people in the world who would be more angry about them than "this mind-boggling, nihilistic thing, this questioning of the very value of human life."

According to his son Steven, Jim's favorite TV show was Star Trek and he did a mean Shatner impression.

On why the Jonestown followers didn't attempt to escape:

[quote] Jonestown itself had become a joycamp in its last year. There was no barbed wire around the perimeter. It wasn't needed. Escape was a dream. The jungle stretched from horizon to horizon, thick, swampy and deadly. Armed security guards patrolled the few trails, and it was their business to know where an escapee would look for food and water. Rumor had it that captured escapees had had their arms broken. Toward the end, most of them were simply placed in the euphemistically named Extra Care Unit, where they were drugged senseless for a week at a time. Patients emerged from ECU unable to carry on a conversation, and their faces were blank, as if they had been temporarily lobotomized.

[quote][bold] They were told that even if they could survive the jungle, elude the guards and somehow make it almost 150 miles to Georgetown, they'd be stuck there. The temple held their passports as well as any money they might have had when they arrived.

Yep r136 and that's why it was especially despicable that Moore's sisters and Deborah Layton and others tricked people into going there by selling them the utopian party line Jim was spouting, they knew when they got there but it was too late then. Fuck all of them and all the apologists and families. Mainly blacks, the elderly and children were killed and they were tricked by people who knew better.

Jim Jones' body was "hastily sewn together after his autopsy by officials"

Dammit, you bitches got me sucked into reading all about Jonestown. Now I'm going to watch a documentary!

Jonestown did allow openly gay members.

Thank you, R132. The woman at 56:13 of R124's video is apparently Maria Katsaris, the voice of the "unidentified woman" at the end of the death tape who says, "they're [the children] not crying from pain, it's just bitter tasting..."

Why did they all die facedown?

Oh and Christian Bale would be the perfect JJ.

Rebecca, being put in her place: "Rebecca, I believe you are still having issues with the reality the roles your sisters, Marceline and Maria played in the demise of Jonestown and its residents. What you fail to understand is that they were the closest to Jim, probably more than his natural sons and they had the POWER to stop what happened. Jim at that point was in no condition to make rational decisions. Annie and Larry Schacht had access to drugs that could put “render him incapable” yet they chose to follow his direction. "

Wow, that Maria Katsaris woman was a true villain.

Layton was really one of JJ’s lovers? I knew he fucked the twinkier members as a show do dominance.

Layton admitted to having threesomes with Jim and Carolyn Moore.

[quote]Jonestown did allow openly gay members.

Yup. One member and survivor Vernon Gosney has done a lot of press over the years and was included in Jonestown:Paradise Lost. But, Gosney pissed off people when he forgave Larry Layton for the airstrip shootings and he helped Larry get out of prison.

Vernon Gosney left his son behind when he fled with Congressman Ryan's party.

Stephen Jones being interviewed after the massacre.

Gosney's stupid excuse was that he felt his biracial son would suffer in the US. A lot of the survivors and members of Jones' family who survived were shitty people. Jones' surviving sons Jim Jr. and Stephan also have a lot of haters.

Jones didn't just go for twinks. In the audio clip posted up thread he talks about "opening up big men,football players."

Larry Schacht, the Jonestown doctor was one of Jones' male lovers.

r125, my guess would be the CIA members who were already there.

"On September 27, 1980, a column by investigative reporter Jack Anderson was published under the title "CIA Involved In Jonestown Massacre."[10] According to Anderson, Dwyer and Jones had ties to the CIA, with Dwyer's ties dating to at least 1959; when quizzed directly about this alleged CIA involvement, Dwyer responded "no comment." At one point on the sound-recording made during the mass suicide, Jones' own voice commands, "Take Dwyer on down to the east house" and a short time later, Jones says "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him."[11]"

For some reason I could Desmond Harrington playing Larry Layton with a bald cap and wig. Natalie Morales, the actress who played Tom's girlfriend on Parks and Rec could maybe play Deborah Layton. Jennifer Carpenter with her big face could play Annie Moore.

[quote]Wow, that Maria Katsaris woman was a true villain.

The recent A&E documentary on the Jonestown women showed that. Maria's brother and father tried to get her out of the cult and she said nasty things about them.

A lot of the people involved with the Temple were awful. Jones' son Stephan participated in the abuse of Temple members and he used pet snakes in the abuse of one member who had intellectual disabilities.

What is the fb page called? Ive studied Jonestown extensively and read just about everything about it but didnt know about the fb page. No matter what you think of Rebecca and her fucked up sisters, she did put together one hell of a website that is rich in resources...first hand resources, which is fascinating .

[quote]No matter what you think of Rebecca and her fucked up sisters, she did put together one hell of a website that is rich in resources...first hand resources, which is fascinating .

I agree with you on Rebecca. She pisses me off and to an extent I sort get her need to defend her sisters. But, the website is a powerful tool for resources and research on cults.

r156 Yep, Katsaris was an ugly twat. She told people her father molested her and he was some kind of high up administrator at a school so he could have really been screwed. I guess looking like she did Jones knew how to work her and make her feel beautiful but she was fucking horrid. On one of the tapes where they are talking about Grace Stoen (don't even get me started on what an asshole she is) Maria was saying how little John Stoen said he wanted to hang his mother, Grace, from her titties, and a bunch of other little kid things that she seemed to find creative and awesome. r157 Yeah she did but she just doesn't seem to get that her sisters were not good people and she's one of those that gets pissed if you use the "c" word, no joke, I've seen people on the page say "cult" and they get banned. I don't know what the page is called, Jonestown survivors I think, it's set to private now after a bunch of arguing and people being kicked out. If you know a lot about it then you know Laura Kohl who is big in there and Michael Cartmell. Tim Carter comes and goes, I don't like or trust him at all, and I think Vern Gosney is also in and out. Yeah it's great she's catalogued all this but she makes a living talking about but not calling it a cult that her sisters were in, gotta think they had a fucked up family there.

R132, I thought Jones shot himself.

Wow, they all sound just as fucked up as the Manson clan.

r160 Either Annie or Carolyn Moore shot him, according to Rebecca but it's probably true. He knew they'd kill themselves if they killed him, and they did.

This blog is a fascinating read and Rebecca, Jim Jones Jr, and other ex Temple members were called out on their bullshit. It hasn't been updated in years though. It's still a fascinating read and the bloggers don't like that the infamous Moore sisters and Larry Schacht were included in Jonestown massacre memorials.

Oh wow that's great r163! How did I not know about that? Guess cause Moore doesn't want us to. and see, I told you: " Becky Moore is one of the more prominent cult apologists in circulation, publishing tripe about how "positive" the People's Temple cult really was and that, really, "cult" is dirty word that insults all the wonderful things that came from this group of brainwashed slaves."

R164 I somehow stumbled onto it last summer. I agree with their assessments of Becky and the others. If another Jonestown mini-series or TV show goes into production, I hope they include the shitty things that many Temple members did in addition to JJ.

With Jim Jones and Jonestown, I can sort of understand why people fell for his cult. Jones portrayed himself as a defender of the poor and minorities and there is evidence that he did help many people in Indianapolis and later on when they moved to California. There was a dark side all along and his ego just kept getting bigger and bigger. In a way I can sympathize a bit with ex Jonestown members than ex Scientology members. The ex Jonestown members wanted social justice and more equal world and were easy targets for Jones. But, Rebecca Moore and other apologists need to own up to the fact that Jones misused social justice and civil rights activism as his recruiting tools for a cult.

r165 Absolutely, people went along with him because of his civil rights activities and he also claimed to be a healer, which appealed to the older and minority members. Obviously we know this is bullshit but Annie was helping him to deceive the people at his "healings" She was always complicit in his bullshit right up to talking people into moving to Guyana, fuck her. And the HBO doc will be based on "Raven" so it will be honest, like it will show that Tim Carter infiltrated the concerned relatives group and had knowledge that they were coming to Guyana and was able to tip off Jones. The reason they hate that Powers Boothe movie is because it made them look stupid, because they were fucking stupid, they are pissed about this too and last year wondered if they'd be asked to technical advisors...um, no. You make shitty choices and then rationalize them. They have Tim Reiterman and Jackie Speers and some other survivors, they don't need these ones.

[quote]Wow, they all sound just as fucked up as the Manson clan.

The main women that had power in Jonestown reminded me a bit of the Manson girls. They were easily duped and were quite vicious like the Manson girls in their treatment of others.

Another person who might be able to play one of the creepy Moore sisters in a mini-series is Bridey Elliott. She is Chris Elliot's younger daughter. Bridey has done some film and TV work and she is downright creepy and sort of looks like Carolyn Moore.

r49 This one is good too.

The audio has to be the creepiest shit... EVER. All the sounds of crying, screaming children (probably terrified because they were witnessing people all around them convulsing in agony from the cyanide). And the woman's voice saying... "It's just a little bitter tasting..."

Did Jim jones himself believe all of his crazy apocalyptal lies and paranoia?

r170 He was a big time communist, that was the whole joke, he got people to join a church but really it was a commie movement. He had looked into defecting to Cuba or Russia before they just decided to do the whole suicide thing. He went crazy when Grace and Tim Stoen said they were going to take their son back from him, that's when he really did start to believe that maybe people would break into their gulag and take some people, but he knew the only person they wanted was John Stoen.

Interesting, R171

Jim was the father of John Stoen.

Yeah r173, I am starting to think that too, Grace was the mother though, and she shouldn't have left him there. I wonder if Tim Stoen's book is any good and if he says he is the dad.

Thank you, r154. The whole thing was largely a big CIA experiment gone extremely wrong. The CIA didn't care about the body count, but it cared immensely about whether the actual story came out for PR reasons, resulting in the contemporary suppression of the so much evidence.

Milk and Moscone's involvement also being suppressed was a partial result.

I bet the guyanese people were all thinking back then: Bitch you be crazy, when thinking of Americans.

They really fooled them and made them feel stupid r176, this is a story of some other deaths indirectly related to Jones. Jones basically employed his women to do "flirty fishing" type things and this girl, Paula, was sent to soften up the ambassador about all the weird packages and goings on in Jonestown, years later when he thought about it he clearly felt angry and duped.

[quote]What business did US politicians have traveling there on taxpayer money?

Looking out for Americans? I know that a foreign concept for Trumpeters. What business does all off Trumps swamp of paid billionaires have traveling all around the world networking making themselves richer on the government tit?

Congressman Leo Ryan and his staff were heroes, traveling to the heart of darkness on behalf of concern for the welfare of American citizens. Can you imagine any of our shitty congresspeople these days doing any such thing for their constituents?

Jackie Speier after she was shot 5 times.

I get it now! This is the “Jim” from Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence!

[quote]Yeah [R173], I am starting to think that too, Grace was the mother though, and she shouldn't have left him there. I wonder if Tim Stoen's book is any good and if he says he is the dad.

I have wondered about that book. I do remember seeing an interview with Tim somewhere on youtube where he said that he was John's father. I did think John looked a lot like Jones though.

R177 Thank you. I never read or heard about the ambassador and that Temple member. Paula sounds awful like Maria and the Moore sisters. Another piece of shit member was Sharon Amos who ran the house in Georgetown. She was Jones' spy and she killed her kids and then herself when the Jonestown suicides were going on. The apologist alert blog also has issue with her being included in Jonestown memorials.

r183 Yes, Sharon Amos was fucking awful, a diehard Jones supporter and was mentioned unkindly in Debbie Layton's book. She wasn't even there so didn't have to kill herself but she did, and she slit her own throat! Whenever people say that's impossible to do, I think of her. Her kids' dad was there with the concerned relatives too, to see them and try to bring them home.

Jonestown home movies

Group singing

Testimonials

Jim displaying the provisions including the Flavor-Aid.

Fascinating stuff.

Great link, R188.

An interesting documentary that came out in 1979. It features rare footage of Jonestown in the immediate aftermath and interviews with the Stoens as well as defectors Al, Jeannie and Daphene Mills who were murdered executioner style in their home in 1980.

Who murdered Al, Jeannie and Daphene Mills?

This thread has thrust me into a Jonestown black hole full of documentaries, interviews and articles over the past few days and I am seriously depressed. I cannot stop though.

r192 I don't even want to read that because of my disdain for Rebecca Moore but didn't their son kill them? If memory serves, I think it was their kid.

Damn, I read it anyway and yeah, their kid. Not hard to imagine why either, I'm sure he was pissed that his idiot parents got involved in that cult. Of course Moore likes to imagine it was some kind of "hit squad".

Does anyone else think Jackie Speier was fucking Leo Ryan? Their body language in much of the footage I have seen just gives me this vibe, they seem too close. He was an attractive older man and she was his hot young assistant, I would understand it. I guess no one wants to bring up a possible affair considering how he died?

That place must be haunted don’t go there at night

[quote] This thread has thrust me into a Jonestown black hole full of documentaries,

Me too. I've fallen down the rabbit hole and even checked some books out from the library, lol.

I can't even imagine how shocking and "wtf?" this news must have been at the time, although I suppose by 1978 people were already desensitized by the Manson Family, Patty Hearst kidnapping cult weirdness.

I hope you read "Raven" r198, that's THE book on it.

Who made the November 19th tape recording?

....

R199, that's one of them! I am reading it now in the cafeteria, to which an older, jolly co-worker asked me what I was reading and then seemed mildly disturbed.

The audio-book version of Deborah Layton's book Sedictuve Poision is available on Scribd. I'm thinking about listening to it, but Layton seems like a huge cunt like Becky Moore's sisters and Maria K.

For years, this was the only thing Guyana was ever known for. It kinda still is.

Jones took Layton's virginity in the back of a bus. She turned on him when he stopped fucking her.

r203 Oh do listen to it! She's kind of an asshole but less so than Moore and company, and it's an interesting perspective from the inner circle, also, she got out and told the authorities and tried to stop it, she didn't, obviously, but she tried. Besides "Raven" that's my favorite book on it.

This was the single largest loss of American lives on a single day, by one single act, until 9/11.

Why were most of the followers black? I usually think white people are more easily brainwashed.

Uh, Pearl Harbour, R207? Or are you referring to civilians only?

[quote]Why were most of the followers black? I usually think white people are more easily brainwashed.

When Jim Jones lived in Indiana he pushed for desegregation and civil rights and as a result black membership in his church over there grew and many of his black followers followed him to California and word spread about his focus on the poor and minority communities and many black people again joined People's Temple. There was also a People's Temple church in LA.

Jim and Marceline were the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child.

He wanted black bodies for numbers since he would bus people in to other voting blocs and churches but when it came to his inner circle, he only had white people.

I would prefer to tour the set of whereever Guyana Tragedy with Powers Boothe was filmed.

We had a thread about that once. It is like a DL all star cast. Brenda Vacarro! Diana Scarwid! Irene Cara! Meg Foster! Diane Ladd! Veronica Cartwright!

oh and Levar Burton (of Star Trek and Roots to most but of course from Looking For Mr. Goodbar to us.)

"Yes, I know that there were a small number of white people, but for the most part it was older black folks who had lived a life of misery."

Although his congregation had a great many African Americans Jones also had quite a few white followers. They bought into his blather about socialism and equality and honestly thought he was trying to create a better life for his flock where everyone is fed and clothed and housed and cared for without regard to race. All of his followers believed what "Father" or "Dad" said. Jones for a time was considered this man of God who worked on behalf of the poor and underprivileged; politicians were taken in by him and he was photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter being honored for his efforts. God, he was such a fraud; how in hell could people have put their faith in this very odd, creepy despot?

Why in the hell would anyone want to visit Jonestown? The place has got some VERY bad karma; I wouldn't want to go there. Murder and suicide took place in it; it's unhallowed ground. By the way, many of people that died there were murdered, forced to take the potion or injected with it. And of course all the children were murdered; hundreds of them.

Here are some good books about Jonestown, for anyone interested in the subject: "Raven: the untold story of the Reverent Jim Jones and his people", by Tim Reiterman, "The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and People's Temple" by Jeff Guinn, and "A Thousand Lives: the untold story of hope, deception and survival at Jonestown" by Julia Sheeres. "A Thousand Lives" ends with these passages:

Today few Americans born after 1980 are familiar with the Jonestown tragedy, although anyone with an internet connection can listen to the haunting tape of the community's mass extinction. And while the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" has entered the cultural lexicon, its reference to gullibility and blind faith is a slap in the face of the Jonestown residents who were goaded into dying by the lies of Jim Jones, and especially insulting to the 304 murdered children. As the FBI files clearly document, the community dissolved into a living hell from which there was no escape.

If anything, the people who moved to Jonestowns should be remembered as noble idealists. They wanted to create a better, more equitable, society. They wanted their kids to be free of violence and racism. They rejected sexist gender roles. They believed in a dream.

How terribly they were betrayed.

I think the saddest thing is that all of these people are remembered and made fun of for "drinking the Kool-aid," when instead it sounds like most of them were actually forcibly murdered (especially the children).

Not all of them were "noble idealists" r215, quite a few knew he was a phony and a megalomaniac and still went and tricked others into going there. His inner circle all had perks and didn't seem to fall in line with the non racist, utopian society party line. Some of his followers were assholes, you sound like Becky Moore, who won't admit that her sisters were two of the biggest assholes there.

Oh and Jones had amassed I think about 2 million dollars from his followers and had inner circle members, including Debbie Layton, going to other countries and opening bank accounts and only having a few people with access to them. These creeps seemed to think it was great fun, this espionage game, while others were beaten and starved in the fucking jungle.

[quote]I would prefer to tour the set of whereever Guyana Tragedy with Powers Boothe was filmed.

The Guyana scenes were filmed in Puerto Rico.

[quote]I think the saddest thing is that all of these people are remembered and made fun of for "drinking the Kool-aid," when instead it sounds like most of them were actually forcibly murdered (especially the children).

I recall reading in a book or article that Guyanese and American officials who toured the scene saw some adult bodies with multiple needles sticking out like the numbers were forced in by others. One of the survivors who escaped to the jungle said people were forced at gunpoint to take the mixed cyanide drinks.

I kind of wonder if Michael Shannon in a dark hair wig could take on the role of Jim Jones in a new movie or mini-series

I could picture Michael Shannon giving this monologue.

Diana Scarwid, Brenda V. and Veronica Cartwright are all really excellent in that mini-series.

r220 Yes they were forced to and they were also told that because of the murder of congressman Ryan, the Guyanese army would be arriving momentarily to kill them, separate them from their children, etc.

the mini-series is on youtube

if you don't want to watch the whole thing the end is pretty griping and shows what is believed to have happened very disturbingly.

But you should watch the whole thing, it shows his beginnings and his monkey salesmanship and the ideals his believers followed him to Ukiah for.

I should correct my post at r225. I wrote "what is believed to have happened." It is actually what happened. There were survivors who told what was going on.

An interesting footnote : Congressman Leo Ryan's daughter actually hooked up with the Rajsheesh cult that took over a town in Oregon for a few years and tried to take over the county by sheer numbers much like People's Temple before the feds busted them for attempted murder, arson, immigration fraud, and the largest bioterrorist attack in USA by poisoning people by tainting salad bars and produce sections of stores. The insurance money from his death is what she used to buy her way into the cult.

And there are bitter people in the survivor's group who say it is NOT what happened and were happy when Powers died r227. r228 yeah that is weird. A Jtown survivor joined another cult after all the shit in Guyana, she wasn't there but she's in all the shows, Laura Johnston Kohl. Some people are just fucking gullible.

It has to be true. Brenda Vaccaro would never lie. Her integrity is pure.

Love this thread. Best on DL.

[quote]I think the saddest thing is that all of these people are remembered and made fun of for "drinking the Kool-aid," when instead it sounds like most of them were actually forcibly murdered (especially the children).

[quote]I recall reading in a book or article that Guyanese and American officials who toured the scene saw some adult bodies with multiple needles sticking out like the numbers were forced in by others. One of the survivors who escaped to the jungle said people were forced at gunpoint to take the mixed cyanide drinks.

If you listen to the audio (warning: nightmare fuel), apparently there were a lot of people crying as they awaited their turn to drink. You hear JJ say something along the lines of: "I don't know what you all are crying about. You cry when you come into the world, not when you go out of it."

I'm betting most of the people actually didn't want to die, but felt they had no choice (they probably knew it would be difficult to escape into the jungle and if they tried, they'd be hunted down and killed anyway).

What fucking monsters JJ and his ilk were.

Uh R200, some people say that Jim Jones' voice is on that November 19, 1978 tape. Does that mean he was possibly still alive the day after everybody else was dead?

Hmm I never even thought of that r233, but he very well could have been, they would have wanted to wait and make sure everyone else died before he and his bitches offed themselves. The important part is that they died too.

The scene from the miniseries where Jones had off-camera homosex with a cult member (Brad Dourif) in front of his wife (Diana Scarwid) was pretty titillating for the time. They only showed them going in for a kiss, but it was still shocking for network TV in 1980.

The food in Jonestown sounded disgusting. Of course, Jones himself and members of his inner circle seemed to dine much better:

[quote] 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.

[quote] 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...."

Around the same time that the miniseries came out, a cheesy low-budget exploitation version of the story was released: [italic]Guyana: Cult of the Damned,[/italic] (a.k.a. [italic]Guyana: Crime of the Century[/italic]). To avoid litigation, the producers changed the names ever so slightly, with Stuart Whitman starring as "Rev. James Johnson" and Gene Barry co-starring as "Congressman Lee O'Brien."

Somebody upthread asked what the Guyanese thought about Jonestown, which is a surprisingly difficult question to answer because the government and so few people involved in the cleanup seemed particularly eager to discuss the massacre. But there does seem to be a lingering resentment that their country is associated with this awful crime which they, themselves, had little to do with. As one Guyanese citizen put it:

[quote] Great site keep up the good works we need to bombard cyberspace with all of the good things that Guyana has to offer. I am tired of the false persona that Jim Jones has ascribed to my country. Whenever I say to some one that I am from Guyana I am always asked. “Is that the place where Jim Jones killed all of those people?” or “Where in Africa is that?”

Another Guyanese citizen:

[quote] I live in Guyana and not only have People's Temple members been the butt of Kool-Aid jokes, so has my country.

Why did the People's Temple choose Guyana anyway? I can't think of a more inhospitable environment to raise a community from scratch than the deep, humid jungle.

Around 135 years prior to the Jonestown massacre, there was a mass suicide that occurred nearby in Guyana by members of a tribe that were lead to Believe they would be reincarnated as white men. This was not a coincidence. Jim Jones chose Guyana for this reason for sure.

Jump to 5:30 to hear Jim Jones enraged, yelling and berating an elderly man who dares to admit that he wants to go back home to the States and visit relatives for Christmas.

Jump to 8:30 if you want to hear Jones' demonic cackle.

Jim Jones prodding and laughing along to the violent things his followers' say should be done to their non-believing relatives.

Jim Jones giving a propaganda tour of Jonestown.

Did Flavor Aid go out of business soon after? Or did they just discontinue the grape flavor series?

R196, no doubt they were boinking. I mean, sharing a bedroom? And look at their body language.

This is a good thread, especially detailing how many of the most prominent survivors were complicit in the abuse of cult members. What I find strange is how Jones’ black son and some of the more prominent white members were not present at Jonestown. Was there a major split or conflict between temple members before the move to Guyana?

I would love to take this tour...if it wasn't in Guyana.

[quote]What I find strange is how Jones’ black son and some of the more prominent white members were not present at Jonestown. Was there a major split or conflict between temple members before the move to Guyana?

Jones' black son Jim Jr and his son Stephen were on a basketball team that competed in areas around Guyana. They went to a game in Georgetown. Jim Jr did a series of interviews years back about how basketball saved his life. There were conflicts before the move to Guyana because details about Jones mistreating members, sleeping with men, and taking financial advantage of members were becoming more well known around the Bay Area. Also, Jones' daughter Suzanne cut ties with the family and People's Temple.

[quote]Did Flavor Aid go out of business soon after? Or did they just discontinue the grape flavor series?

Flavor Aid is still sold online today. But, I don't think it's been stores in years. I remember seeing it sold in some grocery stores up until the early 90s.

R210 I just read the entire site which was started by the woman who is a [professor at SDSU, and I don't recall anything about a Peoples Temple in L.A. They listed the northern Cal as well as the San Fran temples, but not LA. Where did you read that?

[quote]I would love to take this tour...if it wasn't in Guyana.

Maybe they'll re-create it for you at Legoland or EPCOT.

R243, Jones' laughter is a thing of horror movies.

I used to see Flavor-Aid at Aldi when I was a kid.

Teenage Jim. Hot or not?

He looked like Wayne Newton when he was young...

In his monkey salesman days.

Creepy young, creepy old.

And who the fuck sells monkeys for a living?

Marceline Jones

The Jones family. His daughter Suzanne became estranged from the family. Jim Jr. and Stephen were his only surviving children.

Was Suzanne the Korean adoptee?

They had two Korean daughters. Stephanie was killed in a car accident when she was a child.

Sounds like Suzanne was the smart one of the family. She spoke to Marceline about a month before the massacre, essentially to notify her that she was severing her relationship with Jones' family and People's Temple:

[quote] Suzanne: I just stick to myself, period. That’s it. I have never seen anybody that’s come back from down there that’s supposed to be so called on the other side. I wouldn’t even know who they are if I saw them. Okay? ‘Cause I don’t know who’s back and forth and who is and who is not. I don’t keep track of that. I live my own life. And I don’t want any more part of it.

Reading between the lines it sounds as if Jim molested Suzanne and Marceline knew about it.

Here's the actual audio of that conversation between Marceline and Suzanne.

Yes, R264, I was getting the same feeling. Marceline was rather emotionally manipulative. Good for Suzanne thinking independently for herself and getting herself away from all of that.

Jim Jones was a monster who routinely tortured his followers:

[quote] Both men and women were routinely beaten, coerced into having sex with Jones in private and with other people in public. Husbands and wives were forbidden to have sex with each other, but were forced to join other members in watching their spouses being sexually humiliated and abused. In order to prove that he wasn't a racist, a white man was coerced into having oral sex in front of a gathering of members with a black woman who was having her period. Another man was made to remove all his clothes, bend over and spread his legs before the congregation while being examined for signs of venereal disease. A woman had to strip in front of the group so that Jones could poke fun at her overweight body before telling her to submerge herself in a pool of ice-cold water. Another woman was made to squat in front of 100 members and defecate into a fruit can. Children were tortured with electric shocks, viciously beaten, punished by being kept in the bottom of a jungle well, forced to have hot peppers stuffed up their rectums, and made to eat their own vomit.

r266 and aside from the box in the jungle, he did a lot of this stuff right here in the states! Including his "white nights" drills where he told them all they had just drank poison. That's why some were okay with it at the end, how long can people put up with that shit? Again, though, his followers went to Guyana DESPITE this, except for the few unlucky who had just joined the church right before the exodus.

[quote]I just read the entire site which was started by the woman who is a [professor at SDSU, and I don't recall anything about a Peoples Temple in L.A. They listed the northern Cal as well as the San Fran temples, but not LA. Where did you read that?

The SDSU site has an article about the LA People's Temple

Video of People's Temple LA

Wow, I had no idea that the murder of Milk/Moscone was only 9 days after the Jonestown Massacre. What a dark week for the bay area!

[quote]Another woman was made to squat in front of 100 members and defecate into a fruit can.

The Smoothy machine was broken.

R238, I visited Guyana some years back and it is a beautiful country if you want to visit for scenery, breathtaking waterfalls, jungle ecotourism, birdwatching. Anyhow, I did make the mistake of mentioning Jonestown to an older waitress in Georgetown, who seemed very troubled at the mention of the cult and changed subjects. It was my impression that Guyanese who were old enough to remember Jonestown don't want to talk about it. I think they are superstitious that the event is bad luck and an ugly chapter in the country's history. When I asked a local tour operator about Jonestown and locals' reactions, he basically confirmed this. I was happy to know, however, that I was far from the only morbid tourist who expressed interest in travel there!

Anyhow, I think Guyana would rather be known for scenery like this than Jonestown!

Ominous sign in Jonestown.

"The food in Jonestown sounded disgusting."

What food? The followers who lived there got little to eat. Jones had told them that they would be living in a self-sufficient utopia, growing their own crops and maintaining their own livestock. But it was hard to get anything to grow Jonestown (the jungle soil was not meant for crops) and it was hard keeping the pigs and chickens alive. This is from "The Road to Jonestown":

Food proved most worrisome of all. Feeding a few dozen pioneers was relatively inexpensive. Providing nine hundred settlers with three nourishing meals a day was prohibitive. Everyone wanted meat: Jones calculated that serving chicken or pork at a single Jonestown dinner cost $2000. The old communal fallbacks of peanut butter sandwiches and oatmeal that worked back in the States weren't sufficient in the jungle, where so many adults and teens performed hard physical labor all day long. They needed lots of calories, protein in particular. Faced with crushing food costs, rice (which also had to be purchased rather than grown but was at least inexpensive) became the primary Jonestown staple. Soaked in watery gravy, dotted sparingly with specks of meat, it was included with most meals. Cassava flour, raised in the fields and ground in Jonestown's own mill, was prepared in various ways. There were chicken coops and a piggery, but it was hard to keep the chickens alive long enough to produce eggs. Beverages were limited, too, usually water or a sweet, powdered drink called Flavor Aid, which was cheaper than the better known Kool-Aid. Desserts were virtually unknown during weekday meals. Once each weekend Jones made a point of rewarding each follower with a single cookie, dramatically handed out to him as settlers filed past.

Not even the poor dog was spared.

The animals at Jonestown were killed, too. They were shot. They had a pet chimp they called Mr. Muggs. Mr. Muggs died along with everybody else.

A Jonestown photo I had never seen before.

That's the cabin where Maria Katsaris,John Stoen,Kimo Prokes, and the Moore sisters died. Annie Moore's body was found blocking the doorway and the recovery team dragged it inside. I think that's her in the white pants. She had shot herself but the others drank cyanide.

R274, I think I would have preferred the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over the watery rice soup or whatever it was that they were fed.

They should have left Jim Jones' body to rot in the jungle.

People were frequently punished for stealing food. I listened to a tape where an elderly woman was yelled at for wasting half a plate of rice and in another someone was accused of stealing oranges.

Thanks for identifying, R277. Even in death, Jim Jones' inner circle was set apart from the rest. So much for all of them being communist "equals."

Jim's body was cremated and scattered at sea.

[quote]They should have left Jim Jones' body to rot in the jungle.

I agree. Some of the pigs in Jonestown were sparred and they could have eaten Jones' body.

The Jonestown settler were both malnourished and sleep deprived. Jones would have them stay up to listen to him rave in meetings that would last for hours or keep them awake by ranting over a loudspeaker. Sometimes it would go on way after midnight and the followers would have to up at six the next morning. I think a lot of them drank the poison because they had no resistance left in them; they were drained. I think a lot of them simply gave up.

Annie's last letter

Jim Jones certainly was fat compared to the rest of his followers. He must have fed himself quite well, because there was not a single malnourished thing about him. This image has been posted before, but just to drive home the point that he was quite "well fed," here is his dead, fat body.

IIRC Tim and Grace Stoen didn't claim John's body. He was put into a mass grave with the other victims.

Jim had followers in SF send him care packages of candy bars and snacks.

Why wouldn't she claim her dead son's body, R288?

For the same reason she left him there, r290, she's an asshole. A lot of those people in the inner circle were clearly psychos too.

This is a good article on Jonestown doctor Larry Schacht

On a less macabre note, here is a photo of bored Jonestown teenagers in class. They look so bored, with nothing to do except listen to more Jim Jones propaganda. I think at least 2 of the boys in this photo tried to escape at one time or another. For whatever reason, I imagine teenagers being the most bored and cynical of the entire Jonestown bunch.

The Stoen were assholes not to claim poor John's body. But, some other Jonestown victims' bodies were never claimed by their families out of embarrassment and in some cases family members couldn't afford to the costs of transporting bodies.

The custody battle over John.

[quote] The Stoen were assholes not to claim poor John's body

And strange, too. Weren't they supposedly fighting so hard to have John repatriated back to the states?

Do people see a resemblance with that kid at R295 and Jim Jones?

This is Kimo Prokes,the son Jones had with Carolyn Moore.

A box of Flavor Aid with a bunch of strewn bottlecaps (?) right next to it.

R298, and Jones' wife was OK with him having mistresses and having children with those mistresses?

Marceline tolerated his affairs with men and women. They lived apart in Jonestown.

I heard Jones say on one of the tapes that he offered Marceline the same freedom to find herself other lovers. Marceline says that she never took him up on the offer.

They even had a religious Lp

Jonestown demographics of the dead: 70% black, 25% white, 5% mix of others (biracial, Hispanic, Asian).

[quote]Do people see a resemblance with that kid at [R295] and Jim Jones?

Many in the Temple saw the resemblance and believed that Jim was John's father.

Grace and Tim at John's christening. Tim is on the left.

R306 Wow John pretty much always looked like Jones.

Carolyn Moore. She encouraged her sister Annie to start sleeping with Jim.

Maria Katsaris

Maria Katsaris is rather unfortunate looking.

Apparently, some Guyanese officials contemplated memorializing Jonestown immediately after the massacre, but nobody wanted to step foot there afterwards, so that put the kibosh on that whole idea.

And it's only now, after a good 40 years after the incident that some are trying to make the place a tourist destination. I guess the younger generations are detached enough from the incident that they don't have the same visceral reaction.

I would take this tour because of my morbid curiosity. Great thread. Thanks for everyone’s comments.

Is it just me or based on the aerial photos does it not look quite like 900 bodies?

I'm curious if the People's Temple house in Georgetown is still standing. Sharon Amos killed her kids and then herself in that house. I wonder if the Guyanese officials might have torn it down because of the tragedy that occurred in it combined with the connection to the Jonestown massacre.

I would take a Jonestown tour, but is there anything even left there to see? I would not want to pay money and go through that effort if I'm just walking around a patch of jungle with a few ruins here and there.

R314 I recall there were reports of bodies being underneath bodies and many of the children were discovered underneath their parents' bodies.

Initial news reports (some are on YouTube) stated that there were only 400 or so bodies, leading people to speculate that there were 500 others wandering around in the jungle. Later they had to correct themselves with the grim truth.

[quote]I would take a Jonestown tour, but is there anything even left there to see? I would not want to pay money and go through that effort if I'm just walking around a patch of jungle with a few ruins here and there.

The buildings were destroyed in a fire in the 80s and there's not much to see except a few ruins. If the most of the buildings were still up, I would maybe take a tour.

Any reports of it being haunted?

A SF news station report on Jonestown from November 20, 1978 features footage of the SF Temple and members there waiting for news from Guyana and some comments from a guy who had left PT a few years before the massacre.

[quote] Any reports of it being haunted?

Who knows? The Guyanese don't go there. But if the government is really hard up for cash, they would create a campground or ecolodge at the Jonestown site where people could stay overnight and find out if it's haunted or not.

Is there a gift shop and cafe?

The whole place had returned to jungle when read a newspaper right up on one of the anniversaries years ago. A reporter went to Guyana and had a guide take him out to the site of the original settlement. It was completely overgrown and was indistinguishable from the surrounding countryside.

I want to vigorously apologize for my comment re: there being no Peoples Temple in La. How I could have read that entire SDSU site and missed that bit of information is a mystery to me. I plead stupid and slow, and I will double check my facts before challenging anyone in the future.

CNN did a show in 2008 with Soledad O'Brien where they went to Guyana and they showed that nothing was left. It's all jungle now.

I don't agree with the Jonestown biographer who called Jones' followers "noble idealists." I think they were mostly gullible, easily scammed nincompoops, even the well educated ones, although there weren't that many of those. Middle aged and elderly black women were especially taken in by Jones; he would lavish attention on them and hug them and kiss them and address them with sweet terms of endearment like "honey" and "darling." Yes, I believe the people who followed Jim Jones were a lot more dumb than noble.

Towards the end Jones himself could barely hide his contempt for his followers.

By the time Eugene Chaikin realized his family was in danger it was too late. Jones called Eugene "a good man but very,very stupid."

I've never heard of this, thanks op.

Audio of the Christine Miller/Jones conflict

LOL at the guy who volunteered to leave if it would help. Jim shut that right down. "You ain't going nowhere."

Don Sly was the guy who volunteered to leave. Earlier that day he had grabbed Leo Ryan and held a fishing knife to his throat. Ryan's lawyers,Charles Garry and Mark Lane,along with several of Jones' followers tackled Sly and took the knife away.

[quote] I don't agree with the Jonestown biographer who called Jones' followers "noble idealists." I think they were mostly gullible, easily scammed nincompoops, even the well educated ones, although there weren't that many of those.

Well, Jones seemed to attract a lot of people on the fringes of society (homeless, former drug and alcohol addicts, orphans, people down on their luck) and he offered them shelter,food, clothes, hope, somewhere to fit in. So I don't know if I would necessarily call them nincompoops, so much as marginalized in society. And not to mention that 1/3 of Jonestown were children under the age of 18, so they had no real choice to be there or not. And by all accounts, most of these children were forcibly poisoned.

Do you think he started with good intentions but got corrupted by power later on?

There were no locks on the communal showers or toilets in Jonestown which allowed Jim to stroll in whenever he liked.

"So I don't know if I would necessarily call them nincompoops, so much as marginalized in society. And not to mention that 1/3 of Jonestown were children under the age of 18, so they had no real choice to be there or not. And by all accounts, most of these children were forcibly poisoned."

I wasn't referring to the poor children. I was referring to the stupid adults who brought them to Jonestown where a terrible fate awaited them.

I think the majority of the adults were pretty damn stupid to follow the likes of Jim Jones. Oh he gave them a lot of talk about equality and providing for them all, but his providing for them left a lot of be desired. To join his church you had to give up ALL your worldly possessions to it; your house, your car, your furniture, your jewelry, everything. In return, you were "taken care of" by being housed in crowded communes and given crap to eat and being told what to do. In Jonestown it was even worse, although the seniors seemed to think it was better than living in lower income housing. And there was medical personnel there are the time so they didn't have to wait for doctor's appointments. But to give away everything of value that you had blindly follow a weirdo demagogue like Jones? That is not too bright.

Some of the followers were as mentally ill as Jones. I think mental illness might have been a factor in some cases. Larry Schacht, the Jonestown doctor was REALLY fucked up, a former meth addict. And Maria Katsaris was quite screwed up even before she met Jones. And there was a follower who didn't die at Jonestown but stabbed her children to death before cutting her own throat. Cults attract crazies and the People's Temple certainly had its share.

"Do you think he started with good intentions but got corrupted by power later on?"

No. He was always weird as hell, controlling and selfish, obsessed with power. He didn't turn bad; he always WAS bad.

R335 It's hard to tell. There were accounts of Jones killing animals as a child so he could perform funerals for them. There was always a dark side with him. A few years back I came across an article with about sociopaths and psychopaths who become religious leaders and once they get enough power things get ugly.

Jones' work with poor people and minorities led to him gaining a lot of political power which slowly fell apart when people in SF started reporting the ugly things that were going on and things just kept getting worse when they were in Guyana and the concerned relatives got involved.

Jones was a wretched, evil man. I hope he passed away in extreme agony.

"Jones was a wretched, evil man. I hope he passed away in extreme agony."

I doubt he did. I think he died quickly of a gunshot wound. His followers were the ones who died in agony. In one of the biographies it said:

There is nothing humane about death by cyanide. As a means of suicide, its only advantage is absolute lethality if taken in sufficient dosage. Cyanide robs the body's cells of the ability to absorb oxygen in the blood. Suffocation is sure...and slow. In "The Poisoner's Handbook" Deborah Blum writes, "The last minutes of a cyanide death are brutal, marked by convulsions, a desperate gasping for air, a rising bloody froth of vomit and saliva, and finally a blessed release into unconsciousness." As the nurses used syringes to squirt poison into the mouths of the first few infants, many parents herding their children forward hesitated, particularly when the babies began foaming at the mouth and convulsing.

Yeah r341 and Tim Carter witnessed his wife and child taking the cyanide and then ran off into the jungle with a briefcase of money that he claims he buried and talks about it on tv. If I had been there and watched my family die and then slunk off into the jungle to escape, I would never speak of it. He really rubs me the wrong way.

Were the bodies bloated from the cyanide or just from decay under the tropical humidity?

Does Irene Cara keep her shirt on in the mini-series. I'm afraid to watch. I'm still traumatized from seeing Fame as a child. (I didn't know they could be that small.)

I swear I'm no conspiracy theory loony, but weren't there all sorts of stories about Jonestown being some type of CIA mind control experiment? Any shred of truth to that at all?

R343 Bodies bloat up like that regardless of the climate or the cause of death. Eventually they will explode. Ugh.

For those interested, people generally have good things to say about this documentary.

Those poor people were really worked to death under grueling conditions:

[quote] 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.

Rare photo of the dead.

During happier times. Jonestown members with some down time.

Poor Miggs the Chimp, also a victim.

More handling of the bodies.

Jim Jones' body in a coffin, #13B

Jones' dead body before bloating, discoloration, and being sutured up.

[quote]I would love to take this tour...if it wasn't in Guyana.

[quote]Maybe they'll re-create it for you at Legoland or EPCOT.

I don’t hate that idea...

Tim Carter claims that Jones approached him and said "Son, would you like me to fuck you up the ass?". Carter says he turned him down but who knows if he's telling the truth. He certainly was devoted right up until the end.

[quote]"The last minutes of a cyanide death are brutal, marked by convulsions, a desperate gasping for air, a rising bloody froth of vomit and saliva, and finally a blessed release into unconsciousness."

This is similar to the reaction I had while watching Allison Williams in "Peter Pan."

[quote]Does anyone else think Jackie Speier was fucking Leo Ryan? Their body language in much of the footage I have seen just gives me this vibe, they seem too close. He was an attractive older man and she was his hot young assistant, I would understand it. I guess no one wants to bring up a possible affair considering how he died?

I got the vibe too. I wonder if there were ever rumors.

Leo Ryan was a true political hero who went above and beyond to serve his constituents. He was the real deal, unlike these shitty congressmen we have now who serve only for special interests:

[quote] After the riots in Watts in 1965, Ryan, then a California state legislator, traveled to that community under a false identity and became a substitute teacher to investigate conditions in the black community. Five years later, he again went undercover and had himself strip-searched and locked up in Folsom State Prison to discover what life in such a facility was really like. In 1978, he made plans to spend that Christmas season incognito once again, this time as a Postal Service employee to investigate complaints of bad working conditions.

I love the song “Jonestown” by Concrete Blonde!

Will there be water rides? Roller coasters?

I love the intro to Jonestown by Concrete Blonde with the Rev talking.

Apparently, Jim Jones had a men's feet fetish:

[quote] Odell was down and out, ashamed even to see his family. Once he was in jail on traffic violations, sick, wondering where he was going to get bail, knowing there were no drugs for him that night. Dozing, he felt someone "messing with my foot." It turned out to be a white businessman. The man explained that he had this thing for feet. If Odell would just let him sort of... fool around ... the guy would pay his bail the next day. So Odell lay there in the dark, weak and sick, while some guy drooled over his feet.

"Does anyone else think Jackie Speier was fucking Leo Ryan?"

If that was the case I"m sure it would have been found out and reported on by now. I think she just looked up to him and admired him. He was quite a guy, one of those rare politicians who actually seem to care about making a difference. He did some amazing things. In 1970, using a pseudonym, Ryan had himself arrested, detained, and strip searched to investigate conditions in the California prison system. He stayed as an inmate for ten days in the Folsom Prison, while presiding as chairman on the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform. He got down in the trenches to investigate wrongdoing, which led him to Jonestown and his assassination. What he did took great courage. What other politician would have done such a thing? I think Leo Ryan was one of a kind.

Yeah, R364, can you ever imagine Paul Ryan or Bitch McConnell flying out to the jungles of a 3rd world country to help save American citizens? Or that cowardly piece of shit Trump? Ha!

R263,did that happen after Jones was arrested for soliciting an undercover cop?

Ebonics

R365 I agree, those kind of politicians wouldn't do what Leo Ryan did. If another Jonestown related movie or limited series gets made there should be more focus on Leo Ryan and the concerned relatives. The 1980 mini-series was good, but the focus was too much on the fictionalized versions of the Stoens.

[quote]If that was the case I"m sure it would have been found out and reported on by now [Leo Ryan and Jackie].

No, r364, I don't think so. It was at the end of the era when the mainstream press still kept the secrets of Hollywood and DC if the people involved were otherwise respected. Any contemporary reporters who knew probably kept quiet and it's too long ago now for anyone to confirm or even care.

Jackie's husband, a doctor, then died in a car accident in 94 when she was pregnant with their second kid. She's had a pretty crazy/sad life! And she was born the day after Jim Jones, on May 14th.

If Jackie had an affair with Congressman Ryan, it's highly unlikely she will ever divulge after his tragic death.

I have to wonder if Ryan ever contemplated a run for the presidency? He certainly had the resume and qualities for a politician who should have been president.

Apparently, any Jonestown followers who proved unruly (meaning, they disagreed with Jim Jones) would end up in what they called an Extended Care Unit. Here, they were drugged up with a drug called Thorazine, which was a major tranquilizer most commonly used to treat schizophrenia. The drug had gruesome side effects, notably turning patients into zombies due to its powerful sedation, and was likened to a "chemical lobotomy."

What was up with Jones always wearing sunglasses, even indoors?

Interview with one of only 4 people to survive the massacre as it was happening. Stanley Clayton describes his escape. He was the last person to leave Jonestown alive.

As to the mystery of why so many were face down, he explains:

"After their bodies were injected or they sipped the cup, there would be two people who would lead them shoulder by shoulder to a clear opening in the field and then lay them face down and let them lay there and die."

Video of Jonestown bodies being unloaded from helicopter.

Stanley Clayton said he saw one woman who fought back. I wonder if that was Christine Miller?

That may very well have been her, R376. Christine certainly did not agree with having anybody die that day.

Breaking news CBS special report as it happened. This report seems to focus on the discrepancy between what they originally reported as the number of dead (400 or so) and then a later recount which is reported here at 700+. Strangely, the miscount is explained away as bodied being stacked on top of other bodies. People originally thought around 400 Jonestown members had survived and fled into the jungle.

At 7:33, the other Jonestown escapee, Odell Rhodes, speaks.

Someone who knew Harvey Milk quite well stated that Jim Jones pimped out a couple of younger cult members to Harvey. The idea was to get dirt on him if it was ever needed.

Interesting, R379. Wonder which ones.

This all reminds me of the Heaven's Gate cult. Remember them?

I remember when Heaven's Gate happened there was renewed interest in Jonestown. There was a podcast on Heaven's Gate last fall. It was pretty good to listen to and featured brief interviews with people connected to Marshall Applewhite and his group.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any movies or mini-series completely on Heaven's Gate. I know AHS: Cult briefly touched on it in one of their episodes. There is a supernatural horror movie called The Veil which is about a cult that based on a combination of Heaven's Gate and Jonestown. The horror movie The Sacrament is another based off of Jonestown.

Do you think Jones watched while Harvey fucked those twinks? He was pretty kinky.

R381:Marshall Applewhite was an extremely messed up closet case. He was apparently out as a homosexual in Texas the late ‘60s. However, his family were extremely religious, and the pressure from them and living in the Bible Belt during that period forced him back in.

"I don't think so. It was at the end of the era when the mainstream press still kept the secrets of Hollywood and DC if the people involved were otherwise respected. Any contemporary reporters who knew probably kept quiet and it's too long ago now for anyone to confirm or even care."

Jackie Speier ran for Congress. If there was even a hint of any hanky panky that went on between her and Ryan I'm sure her political opponents would have readily brought it up.

The thing I remember most about Heaven's Gate were their Nike shoes. I looked up the event on Wikipedia as a sort of refresher, and was shocked to learn that 39 people died. I didn't remember the count being that high.

Jim says he can't eat chicken because he hates to watch them die.

I think Jones wore the dark glasses in order to look mysterious and omnipotent. And to hide drugged, pupil dilated eyes.

In one of the videos someone posted, Jones kept licking his lips like a lizard. He was possibly a coke or meth addict.

He claimed he could fuck for eight hours at a time.

Who could stand to fuck him for 8 seconds, let alone 8 hours?

I don't think his followers had much of a choice.

R392, you're correct. In fact, the followers who rejected or fought against his sexual advances often found themselves in the Extra Care Unit, where they were pumped full of lobotomizing Thorazine.

So where was everybody when the news broke in 1978? Shocking I would imagine. But then at a certain point people started in on the koolaid jokes.

I was all of 2 years old when this happened, so I didn't know about this until some years later.

I was born 7 months after it happened. Several years ago I became interested in cults which is when I read the book "Raven".

I was born in 1981. I first found out about the Jonestown massacre when I was 13 or 14. Some cable network aired that mini-series from 1980. I later saw a documentary on A&E or History Channel on it. In college, I learned more about it in a psychology course and since then I've read Raven and A Thousand Lives.

[quote]In fact, the followers who rejected or fought against his sexual advances often found themselves in the Extra Care Unit, where they were pumped full of lobotomizing Thorazine.

I think that would be preferable to having sex with Jim Jones.

I was 12 and remember the bodies on the Time cover. Horrifying, but not out of character for that decade. My dad always had the NBC news on during dinner with all the Viet Nam news until the end of the war, so I was already aware of the senseless violence in the world. I'd already seen stuff like the Helter Skelter TV movie. It must have been even weirder to be a kid in the SF area then.

I was in high school in Wisconsin when it happened, and the Kool-Aid jokes started coming in pretty soon after the whole thing broke. In fact, high schools across the country are probably where the "don't drink the Kool-Aid" jokes got their start.

Sorry, I know Vietnam is one word.

I don't find "don't drink the Kool-Aid" references offensive. To me they're a warning: don't believe crackpots and crazies and don't blindly follow anybody and don't fall for manipulative liars. I think it's good advice.

Would a Jonestown-themed Halloween party be distasteful?

Certainly not tactful, R403.

r402 well they're very hurtful to the quacks who still talk about this shit all the time, like Becky Moore. Those jokes wound!

Can you believe that you included Jim Jones' name on the memorial plaque?

I wonder if the 9/11 Ground Zero site had anywhere near the smell of death that they say Jonestown did.

Jones didn't do it all by himself. The names of those in his inner circle shouldn't be memorialized either.

Agree r408, in fact, had they not been there or had they called for help, this wouldn't have happened. I hate them almost more, he was so fucked up at that point on drugs that he couldn't have done anything without them.

I agree, R408. But Jim Jones' hateful voice is the one that is memorialized on all of those awful tapes where he manipulates and browbeats his followers, so naturally, he is considered the worst one.

I do have to say, though, that hearing Marceline trying to manipulate the daughter who wanted away from her family.. she sounds just as bad. I guess they sort of played off each other like good cop, bad cop.

So who was the second worst after Jones?

R411 Hard to say. It seemed that in Jonestown, the Moore sisters had more power than Marceline. Larry Schahct was in the inner circle. Maria K. was another cunt, but she might not had as much power as the Moore sisters.

If another movie or limited series is made they need to show how fucked up Jones' inner circle was. The mini-series did touch a bit on Jones' relationship with Schact and his mistresses and some of the abuses inflicted on members in Jonestown. If mini-series is made for cable they have more freedom to touch on some of the darker shit that went on.

I realize that this is a somewhat odd comment which is only indirectly related to Jonestown, but does anybody think there are two more frequently used clichéd expressions, even today, than "he/she/they are drinking the Kool Aid" and "blank-Gate" when referring to a scandal.

Both of those refer to a very traumatic occurrence in the 70s.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid" only gets used when they are scandals involving cults. I don't think it's overused.

Sex with Jim Jones sounds disgusting. He was a fat tub of shit.

Here is the "doctor of death" Larry Schacht. Supposedly, Jim Jones mounted him.

And he looks young for a "doctor."

"Jones helped Schacht get clean and offered to pay for medical school. Then, according to an affidavit purportedly written by Schacht, Jones had sex with him. This was one of Jones's customs, a way to exercise complete control over his followers. Jones described these coerced encounters as a personal sacrifice on his part, as if the sex was purely for the benefit of the ­follower.

As in the cases of other church members who signed affidavits, the one bearing Schacht's name was likely heavily coached if not plain ghostwritten and is of dubious validity. Still, Schacht was willing to sign it, as it was intended to support Jones in his child-custody battle with two former church members.

It reads: "Jim Jones has always shown great love and concern for me. He permitted me to accept my bisexual nature by having sexual relations with me at my request before I went to medical school. He penetrated me in the anus." This in turn gave Schacht the confidence he needed to become a doctor and "fulfill my goal to be of service to suffering humanity in the medical profession."

"Drinking the Kool-Aid" only gets used when they are scandals involving cults.'

It's also used in reference to politicians and others who lead their constituents or followers down the road to hell. I've heard people said they "drank the Kool-Aid" by supporting John Edwards, who always made a big deal of his desire to help the poor and the downtrodden, when in reality he was a slimy, money grubbing scumbag who used campaign contributions (he claimed the money was simply "gifted" to him) to keep his flaky cokehead mistress, who eventually had their love child. He was screwing the crazy mistress while his wife was dying of breast cancer. Yeah, his supporters must have drunk gallons of Kool-Aid.

R414 Are you kidding? Drinking the Kool Aid is used all the damn time. When my company was about to file Chapter 11, people were said to be "drinking the Kool Aid" if they bought the CEO's story. When a sports team drafts a player who is a bust, fans who still hold out hope are said to be "drinking the Kool Aid" promulgated by the coach and owner. I could go on and on but that would be tiresome for you guys.

Frankly I have never heard it used in relation to another cult.

I've only heard or used the Kool Aid joke in reference to people blindly following an idiot. Like Trump voters. They're drinking his Kool Aid.

If you go on sites like FreeJinger that discuss Christian fundamentalism and the shady groups involved they used the Kool-Aid term quite a bit.

Y'all need to get out more. It is used frequently in areas which have nothing to do with cults or religion.

Here is the Nurse of Death, Annie Moore, who forcefed and injected the toxic Kool Aid to children.

I think Jones chose unattractive women because they're easier to manipulate.

Out of Jones' favorite women-Debbie Layton was the pretty one.

Did Jones have any favorite twinks?

Debbie Layton

Any twink, R427. Poor guys.

Debbie had crazy eyes.

Debbie convinced her mother to join and leave her dad and her mother did. Her brother was also a member and a shooter at the airstrip. Her mom ended up getting cancer and when she got to Guyana all her meds were taken from her and she died there, in pain no doubt. Her mother also gave JJ some expensive statue or piece of art and Deb wants it back, goddamn it!

Debbie sounds like a piece of work herself.

She is r432, she was tirelessly championing to get her bro out since he only killed one person or didn't kill anyone, I forget, but he killed everyone who died by the plane being disabled. She did hate Sharon Amos though so had bitchy things to say about her and one of Jones' other high up chicks, oh and Maria, she hated Maria! yeah she's like Becky Moore kind of in downplaying any guilt but at least she doesn't talk about it constantly like Becky, she wrote the book and that was it.

Interesting, R433. Maria seemed like a particularly unlikable one.

She was! Even though her dad told her story and tried to personalize her in Raven, I wasn't buying the shit he was selling. She was unattractive and unhappy and reveled in being the chosen one who could be a bitch to and boss around all the pretty girls and the guys who would never be interested in her.

For those interested in what Jonestown looks like today, or at least as of the date of this video in 2012, here's a glimpse. I imagine this is what a "tour" of the site would look like today.

This video, from 1998, shows the surviving sons of Jim Jones visiting the Jonestown site. By that point, there was not much left, but one of the sons finds the vat that held the grape Kool Aid buried in the ground.

I thought the FBI or investigators would have taken the vat as evidence.

R438 I don't think anyone really thought it was a compelling mystery that 900 dumb hippy cult members went and killed themselves, I'm sure it wasn't anything they wanted to spend any time or money investigating, pretty much cut and dried.

The FBI seized all of the Jonestown audiotape cassettes for study. They actually did some fairly exhaustive research into Jim Jones, the cult, and their motives.

And a lot of the audio to those tapes is available for the public to hear at that Jonestown website.

In addition to not drinking the Kool-Aid, we also had the "Twinkie Defense," used by the murderer of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, Dan White.

I can't believe Dan White got away with that "defense." Absolutely ridiculous!

Dear Lord in Heaven!

R443 I can't either. That was one of the biggest injustices in SF.

The "Wish You Were Here in 78!" postcards should sell like hot cakes.

" I imagine this is what a "tour" of the site would look like today."

Here's a description of what's left of Jonestown, from "The Road To Jonestown":

It's hard to recognize the old Jonestown site now. Once again, it bristles with thick, barbed brush. Within months of the tragedy, Amerindians had carried off almost every useful scrap of material for their own dwellings. In the decades since, the jungle has reasserted itself. All that's left are some bits of the cassava mill; a mounted, rudimentary map of what the settlement looked like; a small white monument honoring the Jonestown dead; and several metal skeletons of trucks and tractors, all of them impaled by the trunks of towering trees that have split apart the vehicles' rusted metal ribs. The road into Jonestown has become overgrown, too, and vehicles can't complete the six mile trip from Port Kaituma. Those determined to reach the site have to cut the last part of their way in with machetes.

Just as demagogues lead their well intentioned followers into tragedy, so the jungle inevitably reclaims its own.

FBI agents going through records at Jonestown. They took back all the records and members' passports to the US. I recall it being mentioned somewhere that the Guyanese government took some of the beds and other furnishings and donated them to charities and people from nearby Port Kaituma looted the cottages for goods.

Annie Moore's last letter

Damn R449, crazy Annie was delusional up until the very end!

And she really had it in for these ladies, throwing them under the bus for "wanting sex from Jim Jones:"

[quote] Teresa Buford, Debbie Blakey — they both wanted sex from him which he was too ill to give. Why should he have to give them sex? — And Tim and Grace Stoen also — include them too. I should know.

Is she also implying Tim Stoen demanded sex from Jim Jones?

I've seen references to Jim Jones being "ill" towards the end. What was he ill from or what was his condition?

Guyana should just embrace this dark chapter in their country's history and restore the entire site back to the way it was. Then you know tourists would start showing up.

Stephan reflects on his father

....

Am I the only one who thinks its weird how Stephen Jones and Jim Jones Jr. still look upon their father with fondness?

And in that video of the brothers revisiting Jonestown... Jim Jr. seems so very nonchalant about trying to search for the vat of cyanide koolaid...

I think JJ "illness" at the end was drug addiction.

[quote]Am I the only one who thinks its weird how Stephen Jones and Jim Jones Jr. still look upon their father with fondness?

Stephen seems to go back and forth regarding his views on his father. In the Jonestown:Paradise Lost documentary, he said that he has never grieved his father and that his mother's death was hard for him.

Jim Jr. was said to be the favorite child of the family and I remember him even saying somewhere that he was indeed treated the best out of the other adopted kids and biological son Stephen.

Jim Jr. tends to more hate from anti-apologist crowd than Stephen does.

When Jones was alive no one hated him more than Stephan. I read a story about a gf of Stephan's who was breaking up with him. Her parting shot as she walked out the door was "Ask your father for advice. There's a man who knows how to fuck."

R458, it sounds like Jones' adopted Korean daughter, Suzanne, may have had him beat. She renounced Jim, walked away from the entire family, the People's Temple, everything.. all before Guyana and November 18, 1978. Pretty brave of her really.

I can see why gays and minorities were drawn to the People's Temple. For many it gave them a family they had never had. It sounds good, a community without racism or sexism,where everyone is treated equally. But I'm smart enough to know that's a pipe dream.

I think the most surprising thing is that the remaining People's Temple followers thought they would continue on after 900 of their own died..

The Legend of Billie Jean

[quote]I think the most surprising thing is that the remaining People's Temple followers thought they would continue on after 900 of their own died..

I think some of the remaining followers figured they carried on with Jones' teachings and some said they were more about being socialists rather than Christians. IIRC, there were attempts to keep the San Francisco and Los Angeles locations running, but the government shut down their attempt and all of the items and buses were auctioned off to the public months later.

The recovery of the bodies sounded gruesome:

[quote] According to TSgt Thomas C. Wilson, “the reason for the washout of the helicopters after they would deliver bodies to Georgetown was because the bodies would be stacked on the aircraft like cordwood. They were just in body bags and the bags leaked.” Wilson, an Air Force C-141 Load Master (LM) stationed at Georgetown during the recovery operation, was tasked with verifying the loads to and from Guyana. The smell, unfortunately, was only the tip of the iceberg. The airport personnel were subjected to high humidity and heat, unsanitary conditions that were described as “inadequate/marginal” and water that either unavailable or of “questionable” purity. In addition, one report stated, “many personnel were not equipped to live under field conditions.” The unhygienic conditions lasted until the last body was retrieved and loaded for the United States. The clothing worn by all members of the Task Force who had come in contact with the bodies, burned their clothing at the end of the runway. Fed with clothing, the insulation stripped from the aircraft, and the cargo netting used to secure the human remains in transfer cases, the fire lasted for hours. Put simply, if it smelled, it was burned. Even that was not enough. After the mission, the stench of death was so thick the aircraft were deemed medically unsafe.

[quote] For the personnel at the airport, the heat, long hours, tedious working conditions and the constant stench of death took its toll. There were two cases of heat exhaustion during the operation, and a “contused foot.” In addition, the poor accommodations included tents and, if one were lucky, a room in a local airport facility, although these latter accommodations housed 10 persons to a room and were without air-conditioning. Some personnel, like the Air Force CCTs, slept outside in cots next to their communication gear. It is fair to say that during the recovery operation, “field preparedness” was lacking.

[quote] Water also became an issue of concern and a precious resource. What little water there was at first was made available by the GDF, but it had to be heavily chlorinated by Army medics. The first provisions of potable water were so questionable that the supply was deemed suitable for washing only. The GDF later provided a second “Water Buffalo,” and this time the water was potable when used with purification tablets supplied by the Army. The Air Force, however, had most of its water brought in country via Igloos aboard their MAC aircraft. As for basic hygienic concerns, Lt Col Wells’ field report stated, “No bathing or shower facilities were available. The fire station pump broke down, and during two 24-hour periods, no water was available to flush the toilets. Feces and paper piled up within them and flies were numerous.” Between November 20 and 27, the lack of sanitation became the norm for those on the ground at Timehri. Even the facilities at the fire station, whose mission is to use water to extinguish fires, were dependent upon a working pump of questionable reliability. The pump was also needed to recharge the tanks used for sanitation.

[quote] Like Jonestown, Timehri International Airport in Georgetown where the bodies had been ferried became a magnet for flies and gnats. If there was one redeeming feature of Guyana for the personnel working on the ground, it was the lack of mosquitoes. To minimize the flies, white sheets were used to cover the dark, olive drab body bags. The sheets help to mask some of the smell, but more importantly, countered the effects of the body bags’ dark coloring that sped the process of decay.

[quote] The problem of decay was present from the start of the operation. The process of putrefaction was accelerated in the heat and moisture of the jungles surrounding Jonestown. The members of Peoples Temple had been left in the jungle heat and rain for two days prior to their discovery, and even though the recovery operation revved up quickly, it would be up to six days before all the victims were collected and shipped to the capital. It was during this time that the condition of the deceased deteriorated considerably. As the putrefaction process begins, the body breaks down resulting loosening of the skin. [bold] The extremities become yellowish, and the skin becomes pliable and falls off the body.[/bold]

[quote] The second effect of putrefaction is that identification through simple observation becomes difficult, if not impossible. Many victims were not identified until they were examined in Dover. [bold]By that time, race, sex and age of many victims became impossible to be determined as the skin has lost its coloring, the bodies bloated, and once distinct features disappeared. [/bold] With some assistance of some surviving Peoples Temple members, the Army Graves Registration Units (GREGG) on the ground did what they could helping to identify many of the victims, but the main function of the GREGG units was a quick resolution to the mission and this meant loading the victims in body bags. This was made abundantly clear on 240430ZNOV 78 (November 24 at 430Zulu time) as a Situation Report (SITREP) confirms, “No additional attempts are being made to identify bodies in Guyana.” Although left unstated in the SITREP, it is clear that putrefaction is the reason for the termination of the identification efforts.

Mr. Muggs, the chimp, was also airlifted out of Jonestown:

[quote] One of the strangest stories to come out of the GREGG units in Jonestown was documented by Jeff Brailey, the Army medic in Jonestown, in his book, The Ghosts of November. Brailey wrote that Mr. Muggs, Jim Jones’ chimpanzee was also airlifted out of Guyana. Unfortunately, this is not confirmed in the official record but it is possible that the GREGG units also collected Mr. Muggs for hygienic reasons, thereby “cleaning the site” as directed.

[quote] The transfer cases used during the Joint Task Force mission were designed to have a low platform and a raised upper section. The low section allowed for easy removal of the body when the case is open. The downside is the case would be difficult to properly load and seal in this position. Therefore, the upper section was placed on the ground upside down. This allowed for easier loading of the body bags since this position created a deep cavity in which to place the body bag. However, lifting the bags created its own gruesome issue. [bold] As the bags were lifted, body fluids leaked from the decomposing bodies contained within the bags, covering those who were tasked with placing them in the transfer cases. When the cases are secured, they are rotated over, but like the body bags, the cases also leaked. [/bold] Under normal use, bodies are not left outside long enough to require an airtight body bag. The operation in Jonestown was different.

Source:

It's interesting when people die.

Will the new tourist attraction recreate the smell?

Jim Jones was arrested in a public restroom, cruising for sex:

[quote] Not long after the formation of the L.A. church, Jim ran into a serious legal problem. He was arrested in the restroom of a late night movie theater where a lot of gay men hung out. Apparently, he approached an undercover agent with an erect penis in a provocative way. This incident threatened to bring down Peoples Temple, and those who knew about it teamed up to prepare for the possible backlash. While the lawyers worked to get the arrest sealed, Jim became more and more threatened and paranoid, convinced that he would still be exposed. To reduce the fallout, we were told to invite people from a local “homosexual church”, but members of the church did not return after their first visit. Jim still needed some homosexuals. He was determined to make Peoples Temple a more openly homosexual church to stop insiders and outsiders from turning against him in case his own homosexual arrest became public.

Well, not all of his hairbrained schemes were bad: (j/k)

[quote] After the arrest, Jim told Karen Layton, “No more sex with strangers.” He was forced to find outlets for his sexuality within the church to avoid being destroyed from without. He used the preposterous notion that he had to “relate” to other men’s homosexuality, to reach them on their level, or he would propose to introduce men to their inner homosexuality. Although Jim was the one who was actually guilty, [bold]the arrest led him to spread a new ideology: that all men were latently homosexual except for him.[/bold]

I'm sure there are a few DLers who wouldn't mind introducing certain men to their "inner homosexuality."

Cults are rad.

[quote]Will the new tourist attraction recreate the smell?

Yes, for an additional charge.

[quote]Well, not all of his hairbrained schemes

The word you were trying for is "harebrained."

[quote]Jim Jones was arrested in a public restroom, cruising for sex:

Is that so wrong?

Jone's church was kaput soon after the mass murder/suicide. This is from "The Road To Jonestown""

Through Charles Gary (who had made his way back safely along with Mark Lane) a few members declared for a short time that Peoples Temple would go on, that its mission to feed the hungry and clothe the naked remained, despite what happened in Guyana. But common sense prevailed over hubris. On December 3, only thirty people attended the Temple's Sunday services, and three days later papers were filed requesting that the organization known as Peoples Temple be formally dissolved.

Jim Jones was gone, and so was his church.

Ridiculous to have transported the bodies in that condition. They should have been incinerated there.

There might have been quite an outcry from the families of the victims, R481. Especially the ones who were vocal about getting Senator Ryan to help them in the first place.

Ryan was not a senator.

[quote]There might have been quite an outcry from the families of the victims, [R481]. Especially the ones who were vocal about getting Senator Ryan to help them in the first place.

I agree, some families would have been pissed if the bodies weren't brought back to the US. Becky Moore on the SDSU site states that 408 bodies were buried in the mass grave in Oakland. I suspect that number wasn't accurate as it was later discovered that some cremated remains of nine Jonestown victims were discovered in an abandoned Delaware funeral home.

R483, you're right, of course. Stupid me. Congressman Ryan.

Speaking of, has any other congressman, before or since, ever traveled abroad to help negotiate the release of American citiziens?

The families may well have been pissed of their relatives had been buried in Guyana. But it was not the taxpayers of the US who were responsible for them choosing to go to Guyana.

They should not have been brought back in that horrid condition. Too bad if some in the US did not like it.

Well, it turned out that a lot of family members must have been ashamed or angry about their dead Jonestown relative's involvement in the cult that they didn't even bother to claim the body.

The entrance sign sure makes it look like you're about to enter a utopia.

Blankets covering some of the bodies.

Just to give an idea of how deep in the jungle Jonestown actually was, and how difficult an escape would have been, this was the surrounding jungle.

In the foreground, you can see some of the several crossbows that armed guards had at their disposal.

Jonestown workers often had to work 16 hour shifts under the grueling jungle heat.

The US paid for the return of the bodies? God forbid it should have helped the people when they were alive and disenfranchised.

Some of the close range photos show drag marks that show that the bodies were carefully arranged to die in a certain position.

Jonestown baby "nursery."

Working in the fields

Jones trying to plead for a member to stay and not to betray the People's Temple and leave back to the states.

Young male Jonestown members at work.

All of these kids were brought to Jonestown through no fault of their own and all ended up dead.

Jim Jones trying to show off how peaceful he is.

Jim Jones' wife Marceline and son Stephan in Jonestown.

Jones' adopted Korean son Lew and his baby, who both died in Jonestown.

Departing to Jonestown.

Jonestown men at work.

Closeups of the bottles of cyanide that would end up killing over 900 people.

Magazine covers after the massacre.

Loading the leaking body bags into the crates for transport into helicopters.

All of the ingredients of the Flavor Aid elixier to the right.

It was originally thought that only 400 had died.

A rare view indoors.

Jonestown meeting.

Bullet hole in the plane that should have escaped Jonestown.

Poor, frightened monkeys.

Enough, OP. Stop bumping this fucking thread with useless artifacts and pictures because you are desperate for your thread to reach 600 posts. A 600-post thread DOES NOT COUNT if half the posts are yours, you pathetic shut in.

R515:

Many of the bodies being unidentifiable might be why some families did not claim them, R488.

It was said that many of the small children couldn't be identified.

My high school Life Science teacher was a member of People's Temple before things got twisted.

Jones always stressed equality and racial unity but most of the settlers at Jonestown were reduced to the level of field hands. And he was their Massa.

In one of the tapes where Jones is preparing his followers for Congressman Ryan's visit he gets upset because a black woman brings him a plate of food. He stresses that he does not want Ryan to see him being served by black people. Also no one is allowed to call Jones dad during the visit.

R521, then Jones should have gotten up off his fat ass and served the congressman himself.

What was playing on Jonestown's 8 track?

R522 I think R521 meant that Jones didn't want black people serving him in front of Ryan not that a black person should serve Ryan.

R524, you're right.

So it seems that while Jones was putting all of his followers through slave labor and a terrible diet, he himself never lifted a finger?

Jones didn't even eat the same food as his followers. The recovery team found meat,eggs, and salad in his private refrigerator. He received cases of Hershey bars from Temple members in the states.

He also had a private stock of booze,as he said on tape to his followers "I bet you all are glad I'm drunk tonight."

Mort Sahl said Jonestown was the next level in mind control after the civil service.

So is the theme park built yet?

Jim Jones would be 87 on May 13th. Such a typical fucking Taurus!

A very depressing case.

[quote]I wonder if the 9/11 Ground Zero site had anywhere near the smell of death that they say Jonestown did.

It was probably worse than the Jonestown smell.

"Do they serve koolaid? "

Corporate decided on juice boxes.

I don't think Ground Zero smelled worse than Jonestown. Imagine it: hundreds of bodies stacked on top of each other, exposed to the elements for days before being disposed of. The bodies swelled up; some of them burst open. I don't think Ground Zero would have been comparable to that.

I agree r534, ground zero was covered in rubble too. The PT bodies were literally cooking in the sun, so foul.

Survivor recalls hiding in the jungle as the massacre happened.

I read this entire thread and no talk about Hyancith Thrash, who was the last living person at Jonestown.

One link:

Another link:

I wish you guys could see the mental gymnastics in the Survivor group,, that Becky Moore is the queen and anyone who implies her sisters were assholes is gone. They all concede to her, even though some of them were there and she wasn't, she just makes a living off of this fucking cult edu, thing, but don't call it a cult! you'll get booted.

R539, what would she rather Jonestown be called?

r540 Who knows? An Intentional Community of Idealized Dreamers, something like that.

....

Gruesome.

I love this thread!

So who paid for 900 disenfranchised people to leave the US and go to Guyana? Where did the money come from?

Seriously r545? Jones was worth about 2 million when he died. Unlike that fucking hack Manson, he had lots of followers who worked, willed him their houses, ran businesses and he invested money overseas. He got everyone to sign over their SSI checks to him and spent about 30% of what they got on feeding and housing everyone. He was no fucking dummy.

November 18th will be the fortieth anniversary.

r514, Oh my heck, is that Rex Reed?

If a bunch of Depllrables started killing themselves, would any of us mind?

The Maid is so desperate to have this thread reach 600 replies, even if she must write nine-tenths of them xerself.

What happened to the series that was going to be made? I think it was supposed to be for HBO.

I used to be fascinated by Jonestown and other stories like it when I was younger. Watched docs, and that made-for-tv movie with Powers Booth is quite excellent.

But, as I get older, I find I've really lost interest in such things. I think when I was younger I was simply unable to grasp the scope of the tragedy. Now, thinking about it, and seeing all those pictures just sickens me.

Morbidly fascinating

A new podcast is out on Jonestown called Oversight:Jonestown. So far it's pretty good and has featured some interviews with Jackie Speier, Debbie Layton, and Grace Stoen.

Jonestown was literally swathed out of rain forest. It was so hard to even get to. It's not like The Cliff House in San Francisco. It's gonna take the better part of a day just to reach the site. And what are they gonna do once they're there?

The tragedy of Jonestown is that it besmirched the country of Guyana.