Monday, April 8, 2013

Accuracy In Media Report, Jones: Christian or Communist, by Reed Irvine,

December [1] 1978, AIM Report, Part A,  Jones: Christian or Communist, by Reed Irvine, Editor,

THIS ISSUE:
JONES: CHRISTIAN OR COMMUNIST?
Lenin Reincarnated
The Unmentionables
Jones is Jettisoned
The Phoney Preacher
Jones as a Fascist
Why the Carnage?
What You Can Do

Notes From The Editor's Cuff

People all over the world are horrified and puzzled by the Jonestown, Guyana atrocity. Questions are being asked: Who was the Rev. Jim Jones? What kind of religion did he teach? Why did he order the murder and suicide of over 900 of his followers? The answers provided by most of our media during the week following the news of the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan and four others in his group at the Kaituma airstrip have been confused, inaccurate and misleading. Our media have concealed, misrepresented, or downplayed the key element in the philosophy of Jim Jones. He was a long-time dedicated Marxist communist who admired totalitarian communist dictatorships such as the Soviet Union and Cuba so much that he built one of his own in Guyana. It was tiny, with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, but it had many striking resemblances to the dictatorships it was modeled after. The inhabitants were not free to leave Jonestown. Those who tried to escape were severely punished. Family members were kept in Jonestown as hostages to enable the dictator to exert control over those who were on the outside. The inhabitants were cut off from free communication with the outside world. The news they got was filtered through the dictator. They were subjected to the constant blare of exhortations and instructions by loudspeaker, one of the techniques of the Chinese communists. They were forced to attend lengthy meetings, listening to the political harangues of Jones, after having worked ten to twelve hours in the fields. This is another technique of the Chinese communists. They were trained in what to say to visitors and were as adept as the Chinese, and Soviets in pulling on a good show and concealing the harsh reality. They were not permitted to own any substantial personal property, making them totally dependent on the dictator for their subsistence and survival. They were in mortal fear of the dictator's armed guards and "hit squads," which they believed would track them down and murder them if they should leave. They were punished if they complained about food or living conditions, and they were afraid to express dissatisfaction even privately. There was no religious observance in the community, apart from the obeisance to the all-powerful dictator, Jones. The workers were poorly fed, poorly housed and overworked, while the dictator lived in luxury. The settlement could not deliver the standard of living promised to the inhabitants, and it relied heavily on external contributions.

Lenin Reincarnated

The evidence that Jim Jones was a Marxist communist does not derive solely from the fact that he established a communist settlement in the Marxist state of Guyana. Jones made no bones about the fact that he was a Marxist. His wife, Marceline, in an interview given to the New York Times in 1977, said that when Jones was 18 years old, his idol was Mao Tse-tung. She said his goal was social change through Marxism. The Chicago Tribune on November 22, quoted a former follower of Jones, Mrs. Wanda Johnson, as saying: "He told us on many occasions he was the reincarnation of Lenin. He told us this time he would be successful in installing a socialist state in America." She also said that on several occasions Jones spoke of killing then President Nixon or kidnapping the children of any public figure if he felt it would bring about a socialist form of government in the United States.

The Tribune was the only paper of several that we examined that made any mention of this important revelation by Mrs. Johnson. The Washington Post and The New York Times on the previous day did mention the reincarnation-of-Lenin claim, using a soft version, and giving it no prominence. Both of these papers ignored the charge that Jones was willing to kill the president and kidnap children of public figures to bring about socialism. However, The Times did say on November 21 that Mrs. Johnson had revealed that Jones' inner circle had signed statements saying that they were willing to kill their enemies, including government officials and all former members.

Both of these papers described the suicide drills that Jones put his followers through. The Post's account included this paragraph: "According to former cult member Tim Stoen, Jones frequently put his congregation through tests. 'He would pass around a brown liquid,' Stoen said in a West Coast television interview telecast yesterday (November 20) and tell everyone to drink it. After they drank it, he would tell them they would die in about an hour. Meanwhile, he would ask them to stand up one by one and tell the group why they were proud and honored to die for socialism'." (Washington Post, 11/21/78, p. A 15) The Times gave a different version of Stoen's statement, which was not as strong, but it was in the lead paragraph of a page-one story. It said: "He has mass suicide drills, where he tells all the people, hundreds of people, to drink a certain drink, and he says, 'That's fatal. You're all going to die in 45 minutes. I want to see how you feel about dying for socialism'." Jonestown was described as "an experiment in socialism where money, power, and elitism had been eliminated." In her 1977 interview with The New York Times, Mrs. Marceline Jones described her husband's aim as "a Marxist social group," and she said that was what he was building in Guyana. Despite all the evidence that Jones was a Marxist and admirer of the Soviet Union and Castro's Cuba, reporters not only avoided calling him a communist, but also went out of their way to qualify his socialism with adjectives such as "utopian," "quasi-religious," and "agrarian." We could find not a single article in the mass media that probed into Jones' Marxist beliefs and connections. All the remarks we have cited above were only passing references in articles devoted to other subjects. Articles were written about his religious background and activities, which, as we shall see, were phoney and were simply a means to his political ends. The tragedy spawned articles on unrelated cults, on the psychology of mass suicide, on Jones' sex life, on political figures who were connected with Jones or had written letters commending him. But there were no articles on the ideology which was his main inspiration, communism.

The Unmentionables

It is not clear why editors should conceal the fact that Jones' newspaper, The People's Forum, was full of praise for communist regimes. Why should it have been a "no-no" to mention that in 1977, the Rev. Jones went to Cuba specifically to meet with Huey Newton, the leader of the far left Black Panthers? The People's Forum of March 1977, reported that Jones was ecstatic about conditions in Cuba. He reported that the standard of living was "fantastic." Jones told his followers that the Cuban people were enthusiastic about the way Castro was running things. The people had total freedom, he said. The Washington Post had these quotes. It never reported them. The media quoted Jones' personal physician and strong supporter, Dr. Carlton Goodlett, without mentioning his long record of involvement in communist causes, including membership on the presidium of the World Peace Council, a Kremlin front. Some, but by no means all, papers did identify Jones' two lawyers, Charles Garry and Mark Lane as left-wing radicals. The New York Times reported on November 21 that Garry once took the Fifth Amendment and refused to say if he was ever a member of the Communist Party. It said that Garry had described himself as a radical and that he had had among his clients the leaders of the Black Panthers. The Times noted that Lane was also a radical and that he is a leading proponent of the theory that there was a right-wing conspiracy behind President Kennedy's assassination. Having been told nothing about Jones' fondness for the Soviet Union and Cuba, many people were probably puzzled by a UPI dispatch that was published in some papers on November 25. It told of a discussion that preceded the suicides at Jonestown. According to one of the survivors, one woman spoke up saying that suicide was not the only option, that they could go to the Soviet Union or Cuba. She was shouted down. This was followed by an even greater surprise the following day. Three survivors said that Jones' mistress had ordered them to deliver a suitcase containing $500,000 and a letter to the Soviet embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, after the suicides. They said they turned it over to Guyarian authorities. It was also revealed that Jones himself had talked of emigrating to the Soviet Union, telling his followers that it was the promised land. He had discussed with a Soviet diplomat the possibility of moving his followers en masse to the U.S.S.R.

Jones is Jettisoned

Before he was exposed before all the world as a thief, sadist, satyr, dictator and mass murderer, Jim Jones was one of the darlings of the left. Guyana released a list of 38 prominent Americans who had allegedly written endorsements for Jim Jones. This list included first lady Rosalynn Carter, Vice President Mondale, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano, Mervyn Dymally, lieutenant governor of California, five members of the U.S. Senate, eleven members of the House of Representatives, the mayor of San Francisco and one former mayor of that city, and the mayor of Gary, Indiana. Some on the list say they can't remember writing the endorsements, and the letters have not been produced except for a handwritten "Dear Jim" note to Jones from Mrs. Carter. It is possible that some of the endorsements were forged by Jones himself. But there can be no denying that Jones was very well connected politically, with his friends ranging from Communist Party leader Angela Davis to Rosalynn Carter, who met Jones during the 1976 presidential campaign. A benefit for Jonestown featuring black comedian Dick Gregory, California state assemblyman Willie Brown, Mark Lane and Charles Garry was to have been held in San Francisco on December 2. The theme was "A Struggle Against Oppression." Needless to say, the dinner was cancelled. The politicians and the ideologues of the left quickly went to work to disassociate themselves from Jones. In the case of Stalin, there is no way to obscure the fact that the mass murderer was a communist. But most people had never heard of Rev. Jim Jones, and, with the cooperation of the media, it was possible for attention to be diverted away from his dedication to communism.

The Phony Preacher

This was made easier by the fact that Jones himself had for years been masquerading as a Christian and a man of God. He was an ordained minister of the Disciples of Christ denomination, which has around 1.3 million members. But he had been exposed as a religious faker by Rev. Lester Kinsolving in eight articles written for the San Francisco Examiner in 1972. (The Examiner ran only four of them, capitulating to pressure from Jones and his followers.) Kinsolving exposed the fact that Jones claimed to have literally resurrected more than 40 people, that his service featured the beating of children and forced public confessions of non-existent sins, fake faith healings, and the regular use of a Marxist song book. Mrs. Jim Jones told The New York Times in 1977 that her husband had decided when he was 21 years old that the way to achieve his Marxist goals was to mobilize people through religion. "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," she said, adding that he had once slammed a Bible on the table and said, "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" (New York Times, 11/26/78, p. 20.) The Times informs us that Jones "was openly contemptuous of religion among his associates." (New York Times, 11/21/78, p. A 16). But he used religion to entice new recruits and to deceive naive outsiders. After the victims were hooked, he used sex, blackmail, intimidation and psychological dependence to manipulate them. At Jonestown, where there were no outsiders to be deceived, there were no religious services or discussions of religion. (Washington Post, 11/25/78, p. A 3.) Jones had so corrupted people who were once good Christians that they would commit adulterous or homosexual acts with him or others on his command. They would even commit murder at his command, even the murder of their own children, as we now know. Religion was nothing but a cover for Jones' communist ideology, but most reporters, like a pack of greyhounds, went chasing after the fake rabbit. CBS News takes the prize for this most asinine performance on November 22:

Walter Cronkite: At the end, cult leader Jim Jones was described as a drug-crazed, paranoid, power-hungry fascist, but what of this man whose ultimate command led his flock to mass suicide. Betsy Aaron reports. Betsy Aaron: It was called the People's Temple, but it was really Rev. Jim Jones' temple. Jim Jones was the reason people came, looking for love and for God. Jim Jones: Now as we reedirate. God is love. Love is a healing remedy. Let us believe, let us believe. Aaron: A kind of intense warmth emanated from this man. His message was traditional and positive. It was the gospel of Jesus. Jones: I love you. The people love you, and most importantly, Christ loves you. Aaron: He gave hope to the poor. He gave help to the infirm. There were doubters who questioned his cures, but to his congregation the power of God was present in Jim Jones. The program went on to show one of Jones' fake faith healings, the curing of a supposedly lame woman. No question was raised about the authenticity of the cure, although it is known that these cures were staged by Jones and his cohorts. This irresponsible reporting gave rise to reactions such as the one expressed in a letter in The Washington Post on November 26, which said: "In Guyana, organized religion once again has dropped its mask of benignity and revealed its ugliness." It also led columnist Max Lerner to write in The New York Post of November 26: "But Jones' followers were simple people, eager for a belief that would link them to a purer, more primitive Christian faith... They were a community of the faithful, a republic of the innocent." A note from one of these "innocents" found on Jones' body said: "I fear that without you the world may not make it to communism." The ideology of Jonestown was communism, not Christianity, but the media have obscured rather than explained that fact.

Jones as a Fascist

While the media scrupulously avoided calling Jones a communist, which he was, there was a rush to label him a fascist, which he was not. Walter Cronkite mentioned that he had been described as "a power-hungry fascist." Mort Sahl, an erstwhile nightclub comedian who presides over a radio talk show in Washington, D.C., came out with this beauty on November 24: "The exercise in Guyana was a fascist exercise, no matter what the label on the can. Socialists don't do that." We have not as yet been able to ascertain whether Mr. Sahl applies the fascist label to such states as the Soviet Union, Cuba, Red China, Vietnam and Cambodia, or whether he is simply unaware of the close resemblance of Jonestown to those societies. Charles Krause, the Washington Post reporter who accompanied the Ryan party to Jonestown, seems to share Sahl's view that "socialists don't do that." In an article published on November 22, he tells of Jones' son, Steven, being asked (presumably by Krause) "if Jonestown had not been an experiment in fascism--with its armed guard and other means of preventing people from leaving--rather than an experiment in socialism." Steven Jones reflected the same point of view, replying, "My father was the fascist. Jonestown was and still could be beautiful." On November 22, NBC News aired a half-hour special television report on Jonestown. It never once mentioned socialism, Marxism or communism, even though the title was, "Jonestown, November 1978: How Could It Happen?" At the very beginning, narrator Edwin Newman said: "James Warren Jones, better
known as the Rev. Jim Jones, to some, he was a powerful spiritual leader, a good man. At various times he said he was the reincarnation of Christ and Lenin." That was as close as NBC got to suggesting that Jones may have been a man of the left. Without identifying Carlton Goodlett as a supporter of many communist causes and a member of the presidium of the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council, NBC put him on the program to tell of how Jones helped the poor and downtrodden. He said that he told the members of the black religious community that there was a message to be learned "from the type of Christianity this man is speaking." Having neglected to tell its viewers that Jones' group was a communist group in action, NBC put on a Dr. Frederick Hacker, who said, "I believe these sects and cults are really mini-fascist organizations in action. They use terroristic means of intimidation in order to force their members to adopt a certain philosophy, a certain way of life, and a certain thinking." Some writers were a little more subtle in their efforts to work the transfer of the negative association to something other than communism. Max Lerner, in addition to falsely portraying Jones' followers as simple Christians, evoked the Hitler image: "Jim Jones mastered the art of conditioning his followers to obedience. He did it with a devilish ingenuity, as Hilter did it with millions, as Manson did it with his own little cult." Robert Geline of the Time-Life News Service, in an article in The Washington Star of November 26, said this: "Paul (a member of the Jonestown commune) remembers that Jones used to preach on the evils of Nazi Germany and show films of the concentration camps on the settlement's sophisticated closed-circuit TV system. Incredibly, while this 'teaching was going on, the communers would salute Jones at the beginning of each mass meeting with an upraised right arm ex- tended, fist clenched. They did everything but shout, 'Sieg Heil'." Mr. Geline surely knows that the upraised clenched fist is the communist salute, not the Nazi. This clumsy effort at transfer fails, at least with those readers who know what the clenched fist salute signifies. But as with the transfer of the negative reaction to religion or other religious groups, the transfer from communism to fascism met with some success. The Washington Post on November 26 ran two letters to the editor drawing parallels between Jones' followers and the Nazis. No letters were published which even mentioned that the group was Socialist, Marxist or communist.

Why the Carnage?

On November 24, CBS News aired a half-hour special, "The Horror of Jonestown," in which the question "why" was repeatedly asked with no satisfactory answer being supplied. It was similar to the NBC production in that it never brought up Jones' Marxism. Nor did it challenge the sincerity of his religious professions. Like NBC, CBS News looked to psychologists to provide answers, rather than to experts in totalitarian societies. Not having asked the right questions, it is not surprising that the networks and the rest of the media have not come up with any satisfactory answers. An important question that no one has asked is whether or not the Jonestown commune was succeeding. All the propaganda out of Jonestown said that everything was going great, but the evidence of the survivors does not support that. The people worked 10 to 12 hours a day on a meager subsistence diet. Some have said that the dogs ate better than the people. Meat was served only when outside visitors came. Housing was deplorable, with 14 people, including married couples, crowded into a room 12 x 20 feet. They had zero privacy. Jones deliberately tried to destablize families, encouraging husbands and wives to live separately and promoting adulterous relationships. This was no Eden. Without coercion it would crumble. Jonestown was a failure and no one knew it better than Jones. He had too big an ego to accept defeat, and the mass suicide offered a way out. If everyone died, Jonestown would be forever shrouded in mystery, with people asking why it happened and never being quite satisfied with the answer. Its darkest secrets would remain hidden. Why did the followers go along? Some thought as Jones did. Those who differed obviously saw no hope of saving themselves by resisting. With the guards training their guns on them, they were no doubt right.

AIM REPORT is published semi-monthly by Accuracy in Media, Inc., 177 14th St.. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005. Second class postage paid at Washington. D.C. Subscriptions: $3 a year to members of AIM (included in dues). $15 to others. AIM dues are $15 a year and are tax-deductible except for por- tion covering AIM Report subscription.

What You Can Do

Far too few people know that this was a Marxist communist operation, and far too many have been taken in by the efforts to transfer the negative associations elsewhere. We strongly suggest that you utilize the information in this AIM Report to write letters to editors, beginning with your local papers, to set the record straight.

SUPPLEMEMT AIM REPORT December 1, 1978

NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF December 1978

This issue of the AIM Report is devoted entirely to a story that is still on the front pages as we go to press--the Jonestown tragedy. Our analysis is based on the coverage of the story that we have seen through Monday, November 27. It is likely that new revelations will alter the picture somewhat by the time this issue of the AIM Report is printed and put in the mail to you. On the evening of November 27, for example, NBC and ABC told on their evening news programs of the note that was found on the body of Jim Jones, written by one of his followers, that said: "I fear that without you the world may not make it to communism." That was the first mention of the word "communism" that we had seen in the national media in connection with Jim Jones and his group. We changed the copy that was already set in type to fit it in. But as more information is revealed about documents found at Jonestown and about the stories of the survivors, it is quite possible that the media will have to drop the pretense that Jones and his followers were dedicated Christians with a tinge of "utopian socialism." If they don't I hope you will help us prod them into facing reality.

WE MENTION IN THIS ISSUE A SERIES OF EIGHT ARTICLES THAT LES KINSOLVING WROTE back in 1972 for the San Francisco Examiner exposing the Rev. Jim Jones as a faker and a charlatan. That preceded the expose in New West magazine by five years. Les Kinsolving is editor of Washington Weekly, the very lively supplement to the Fairfax (Va.) Globe and the Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Silver Spring (Md.) Advertiser. I know that many of you, especially those who live in the Washington area, are familiar with Washington Weekly. The next issue of it will contain a lot of Les Kinsolving's material on Jim Jones and on the way the news media on the West Coast knuckled under to him. The San Francisco Examiner, a Hearst paper, ran only four of the eight articles Les wrote about Jones. They killed the series and ran a laudatory article about the faker after being threatened with lawsuits and after 150 pickets from the People's Temple began parading around their building. The San Francisco Chronicle was even more weak-kneed. They ran only stuff that Jones liked, and they accepted a cash award from him for their defense of "freedom of the press." Their defense of freedom of the press did not include condemning Jones for having caused the Examiner to kill the Kinsolving series that exposed Jones.

The San Francisco Chronicle passed the cash that it got from Jones on to Sigma Delta Chi, the journalism fraternity. When Kinsolving told officials of Sigma Delta Chi that the money was tainted they responded, in effect, that they would not look a gift horse in the mouth. The man who gave that response was Ralph Otwell, editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and one of the judges of journalistic ethics on the National News Council.

HOW DO YOU STAND ON YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS FOR 1978? Many people don't keep good records of these gifts, and when tax-paying time rolls around they have to go through their cancelled checks or a pile of receipts to see what deductions they can claim. One thing that they may find is that they haven't allocated their contributions very rationally, responding to appeals rather than budgeting their gifts. My solution to this is a little contribution record book, which helps me both budget my contributions and also keep track of them month by month. Would you like one? WE WILL SEND YOU ONE FREE. To get your copy, mark the proper box and return the attached coupon. A REMINDER: Gifts to AIM are tax-deductible and very rational.

I HAD INTENDED TO INCLUDE IN THIS ISSUE OF THE AIM REPORT A REVIEW OF A NEW book that is due to be published in the first week of December by Maurice Stans entitled The Terrors of Justice. That got squeezed out by the demands of the story on Jim Jones, but we will see that it gets into the next issue. But I want to tell you a little about this book now, because I think that many of you will want to read it, and we want to offer it to you as a premium to go with gift subscriptions to the AIM Report.

The AIM Report makes an excellent gift for the relative or friend who has everything--and also for those younger relatives who know everything. To encourage this kind of gift-giving, we are going to send you FREE a hardback copy of The Terrors of Justice by Maurice Stans, a book that will retail for $10.95, with every gift subscription or renewal of the AIM Report at the standard rate of $15.00 per year.

Now let me tell you just a little about the book and about Maurice Stans, the author. Mr. Stans was Secretary of Commerce under President Nixon. He had served as Director of the Bureau of the Budget under Eisenhower, and he was chairman of the campaign fund raising committees in the Nixon campaigns of 1968 and 1972. Prior to entering public service, he had a highly successful career in the field of accounting.

Stans was an able and honorable public servant, and as a campaign fund raiser he had no peer. I have to confess that before I read his book about all I could recall was that his distinguished career had been clouded by charges that came under the general heading of "Watergate." Those charges related to alleged illegalities in both the raising of campaign contributions and the use made of them.

Experienced as I am in media hatchet Jobs, I was shocked when I read The Terrors of Justice to see how unfair and even cruel the media had been in building up that cloud that for so long hovered over Maurice Stans and his family. I was equally shocked to learn how the machinery of justice was misused and abused by those who were determined to try to pin something on Stans. In the end they failed and the media and the prosecutors ended up with egg on their faces. To avoid threatened continued harrassment, Stans did plead guilty in March 1975 to five technical campaign financing misdemeanors, non-willful violations of the law. In a different climate, they would not have been pressed--as, indeed, similar violations were not pressed against other campaign fundraisers.

The book documents a serious case of unjust persecution by the media, and it cleared up the murkiness in my mind about an aspect of Watergate that is not very well known. It is a record that ought to be set straight, and I am glad that Maurice Stans has taken the time and trouble to do it in this fine book.

I hope you will take advantage of this generous offer and give the AIM Report and The Terrors of Justice to those deserving relatives and friends for Christmas. We can't promise delivery of the book by Christmas but we will notify recipients of your gift. And being full of the Christmas spirit, we will throw in a free copy of Kae Lucas' new fruitcake cookbook, FESTIVE FRUITCAKES (a $3.95 value) for every two gift subscriptions you send in. Use the coupon below. Attach an additional sheet for the names and addresses that you want the gifts sent to.

To: AIM, 777 14th St., N. W., Washington, D.C. 20005 Send ( ) FREE Tax-deductible Contribution Record Book ( ) AIM Report for one year ( )The Terrors of Justice by Maurice Stans (both for only $15) to the persons listed on the attached sheet OR ( ) to me Send me________copies of FESTIVE FRUITCAKES free.

Like What You Read?

Back To AIM Report Section

AIM Main Page
______________________________________________________________________________

n.d., ChinaMemo.org, Faith is a Christian or a socialist?

Two survivors, Clancy and Silver, stated that for Jones 'the Church was the means, not the end'.. Asked if Jones gave primacy to Marxism or Christianity Silver answered 'Jim was a socialist first and an atheist second'. Silver also stated (and, I believe, without cynicism) that the holocaust had made him aware of 'how tenuous life is for most people who don't have an organisation to depend on. The Temple proved it could take care of people from the cradle to the grave'. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1978.)

In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 900 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after an investigation into the church for tax evasion had begun. Jones named the closed settlement Jonestown after himself. His intention was to create an agricultural utopia in the jungle, free from racism and based on socialist principles.

Jim Jones, a Marxist

According to the book, a week after their first visit, the delegates of People's Temple including Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, visited the Soviet Embassy again. She handed over to the Consul a typewritten text of her husband's short biography, according to which Jim Jones was an atheist and a Marxist. But fearing a McCarthy style witch-hunt, he was in search for another vehicle to politicize working people, which ultimately resulted in the formation of People's Temple. In support of the claim that Jim Jones was a Marxist, the book reproduces a photocopy of a New York Times (undated) report with the headline: "Wife depicts Jones as Marxist". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jonestown_Carnage)

自我批评和惩罚

Within a short while of reaching Jonestown Rosemary discovered 'the place was a living hell'. People worked from 12 hours or more a day - after which they had a right to 'self-criticism' sessions. Whoever expressed doubts as to the success of the enterprise - or whoever had failed to fulfil norms - was punished. He (or she) either had the head shaved, or had to wear a yellow hat or a special badge to signal 'dishonour'. 'Culprits' would not be spoken to for several days.

Jean Brown, one of the survivors, had once worked with Jones as an aide at the San Francisco Housing Authority, when Jones was its Chairman. She had been 'politicised as a graduate student at Berkeley in the late 1960's'.. Asked about reports of harsh internal discipline, Ms Brown, a former schoolteacher, said 'the Temple used criticism/self-criticism, a technique advocated by Mao Tse-tung and others to raise questions about the way a group is functioning. People need discipline if an organisation is to function effectively'. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1978.)

毛式的高音喇叭

They were subjected to the constant blare of exhortations and instructions by loudspeaker, one of the techniques of the Chinese communists.

The surrender of individual judgment is one of the hallmarks of a ‘well integrated’ sect member.

There was never any hot water, even for washing purposes. The enclosure was 'guarded' by armed men. The loudspeakers were on for hours on end, exhorting the faithful to greater efforts, talking of the 'fascist threat from America', of the numerous enemies of the Temple, keen on destroying 'this socialist experiment' and of the terrible fate that awaited anyone who sought to return to America. 'Every defection', he stressed, 'would only be used by the enemies of the commune'.

JJ's speeches over the loudspeakers were daily becoming longer - and more strident. He would denounce the 'traitors' who were abandoning the Temple. Threats were now openly being made: 'there is only one punishment for treason: death'. 'Enemies of the Temple' were being rooted out everywhere. Equivocations would not be tolerated. 'Whoever is not with us is against us'. Paranoia and delusions intertwined. He (JJ) 'was the reincarnation of Lenin and of Jesus Christ'. He had 'friends and contacts' throughout the world, including 'the leaders of the USSR and Idi Amin'. Several times he broached the theme of 'a collective suicide to bring socialism into the world'. Meanwhile, armed guards (30 by day and 15 by night) would constantly surround the camp.

同古巴的关系

A memo dated March 7, 1978 was found among the dead bodies. This said that 'at the request of the Peoples Temple the Cuban Embassy (in Georgetown) has asked Prime Minister Forbes Burnham to reinstate fired Foreign Minister Frederick H. Wills, who was a cult confidant'. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 3, 1978.)

为社会主义而死

Jones was nothing if not logical. Once a week there was a dress rehearsal for the mass suicide. These were on the so-called 'white nights'. 'The situation is hopeless', he would proclaim. 'Our only choice is a collective suicide for the glory of socialism'. The congregation would then line up and each be given a glass full of a red fluid. 'In forty minutes', Jones would intone, 'you will all be dead'. 'Now empty your glasses'.. Everybody did.

攻击政府调查人员失败，集体自杀

Over nine hundred people died from cyanide poisoning or gunshot wounds in the aftermath of Jones ordering his men to kill visiting Congressman Leo Ryan and numerous members of his entourage.

The rest of the story is fairly well known: the arrival of Ryan's party at the commune, the 'show' put on for them, the messages slipped surreptitiously into the hands of the visitors, Jones' fury when 14 of his congregation asked to return to the USA, the unsuccessful knife attack on Ryan by cult member Don Sly, the journey back to Kaituma with an impostor planted among the 'defectors', the hastily conceived and partly botched up attack on Ryan's party at the airstrip (Ryan and four others were killed, but one of the two aircraft got away), and Jones' final decision on the 'mass suicide' when news reached him that the attack had failed and that a major crisis now really confronted him.

马克思主义 

Marxism arose as a theory that would liberate a proletariat that had ‘nothing to lose but its chains’, and has ended up imposing chains on the proletariat. The followers of the Peoples Temple (mainly poor blacks and alienated young whites) have made history by inaugurating the ‘mass revolutionary suicide’. Cults can clearly mature into mainstream institutions. Or disintegrate into jungle horror stories.

邪教如何存在

Most cults offer three benefits: ultimate meaning, a strong sense of community and rewards either in this world or the next. When those prescriptions are linked to the authoritarian style of a charismatic leader you have an extremely powerful antidote to the cultural malaise of what sociologists call anomie (rootlessness, aimlessness). (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 1978.)

封闭，与外界政治隔离

Many sects live in political isolation. This is a further mechanism for ensuring the control of the leaders. The members are not only ‘rescued’ from their past, they are ‘protected’ from their own present. Such sects refrain from anything that would bring their members into too close a proximity with the outside world. Recruitment is encouraged, but closely monitored. Members are urged to give up their hobbies and their previous friends. Such external relationship are constantly scrutinised, questioned, frowned upon, deemed suspect. United action with other groups - of a kind that may involve discussion or argument - is avoided, or only allowed to ‘trustworthy’ leaders. The simplest course is to move, lock, stock and barrel, to the jungles of Guyana. In such an environment, after surrendering their passports and all their wordly possessions, the members would be totally dependent on the leaders for their news, their day-to-day needs, for the very content of their thoughts.

热衷共产主义

The People's Forum of March 1977, reported that Jones was ecstatic about conditions in Cuba. He reported that the standard of living was "fantastic." Jones told his followers that the Cuban people were enthusiastic about the way Castro was running things. The people had total freedom, he said. The Washington Post had these quotes.

Mrs. Jim Jones told The New York Times in 1977 that her husband had decided when he was 21 years old that the way to achieve his Marxist goals was to mobilize people through religion. "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," she said, adding that he had once slammed a Bible on the table and said, "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" (New York Times, 11/26/78, p. 20.) The Times informs us that Jones "was openly contemptuous of religion among his associates." (New York Times, 11/21/78, p. A 16). But he used religion to entice new recruits and to deceive naive outsiders.

宗教是手段，不是目的

Religion was nothing but a cover for Jones' communist ideology, but most reporters, like a pack of greyhounds, went chasing after the fake rabbit.

________________________________________________________________________________






Eugenics supporters hold signs on Wall Street.jpg




Source:
_________________________________________________________________________________


The Jonestown Carnage

Image:Jones carnage.jpeg
Cover page of the book Jonestown Carnage: A CIA Crime
The Jonestown Carnage: a CIA Crime is a book published by Progress Publishers, USSR. S.F.Alinin, B.G.Antonov and A.N.Itskov jointly authored the book in Russian. It was later translated into English by Nadeshda Burova and Sergei Chulaki. Published in 1987, the book presents an alternate version of the Jonestown cult deaths, differing from reporting by the U.S. government and in the media.
The book claims that "the official version about 'the suicide of the religious fanatics' in Jonestown, which was skillfully circulated in the mass media, was contrived by the US administration as a cover-up for a monstrous act of predetermined murder of several hundred American dissidents by the US special services." (Page 5-6).

目录

 [隐藏]

The San Francisco Bay Guardian on Peoples Temple

According to the authors of the book, on March 31, 1977 The San Francisco Bay Guardian carried an article on Peoples Temple. Written by its journalist Bob Levering, the article describes the life in Peoples Temple in San Francisco before most of its members shifted their base to Guyana.
The book, Jonestown Carnage, quotes extensively from the newspaper article. Extracts from the article as quoted by the book (The sub-headings do not form part of the article):

On Peoples Temple

The biggest religion story these days is the phenomenon of Peoples Temple…that has been in San Francisco less than five years but has already become the largest single Protestant congregation in the state (more than 20000 members)…publishing… the monthly Peoples Forum (they distribute between 600,000 and 1,000,000 copies to every neighborhood in San Francisco)…The church…has a free meals program…It conducts a massive human service program including…its own medical and legal clinics, a home for mentally disabled children and four nursing homes…
...The leader of this rather unusual church is the Rev. Jim Jones, who was recently appointed to the SF Housing Commission by Mayor Moscone…

On Peoples Forum, Temple's Journal

A quick look at a recent issue of People Forum indicates the wide variety of concerns his church addresses: there’s a lead story on Laura Allende: Woman of Courage, about a recent visit to the church by the slain Chilean president’s sister; an Open Letter to Local Nazis, condemning these abominable racists; a long editorial about the link between unemployment and crime, saying people must face up to some of the vicious inequities and injustice in our social order…

On Peoples Temple's Church Service

A church service at Peoples Temple…is hard to forget…the mood in the church when [Jim] arrived (he prefers to be called Jim rather than Rev. Mr. Jones or Pastor Jones)…reminded me of a United Farm Workers rally…The congregation was perhaps 75% black…all ages and races were well represented in the crowd of some 3,000 people.

On various programs of Peoples Temple

These are some of the …Peoples Temple programs:
A clinic in the San Francisco …
A physical therapy facility…for senior and handicapped persons…
A drug rehabilitation program…that claims to have rehabilitated 300 former drug addicts…
A legal aid program…
Four nursing homes for seniors…
Contribution for…the Telegraph Hill Medical Clinic, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)…the United Farm Workers…
Peoples Temple resembles a social movement more than a normal church. And the church service I saw, likewise, resembled a Civil Rights rally with Martin Luther King in the South during the early Sixties…

On Jim Jones' sermon

Soon after Jones arrived the congregation sang the old movement standards O, Freedom and We Shall Overcome.
Jones’ message is that people should subordinate their personal desires in the service of their fellow human beings for the greater good of humanity.
…He saw apathy as one of the major reasons why the CIA got away with giving money to support the despotic regimes in Iran and Chile and why the American criminal justice system punishes poor defendants severely and let off the rich ones.
He then personalized how he thinks people should fight against these injustices. I am in this battle and I may be shot or put in jail, he said. Then he pointed out that many of this country’s working poor are proceeding with materialistic illusions…"I have guilt to know that my taxes have gone to the Shah of Iran or to Chile."
…He has made his share of enemies for the political stands he has taken and has received more than his share of threats from local Nazis and other right-wingers.

Temple's plan to sue the US government

Citing October 4, 1978 issue of San Francisco Examiner, the book says that shortly before the massacre, the People's Temple leaders in Guyana threw down a challenge to the US administration and that they were going to file a multi-million dollar suit against the US government within 90 days. The book says, "the People's Temple charged that federal agencies, among them the CIA, the FBI and the Postal Service, at the Federal Government's instigation, conspired to destroy the Jonestown community, which even the American press called a unique experiment in socialist lifestyle."(Page 6)
The people from the Temple were frequently in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Georgetown, capital of Guyana. In their first visit on a December day in 1977 to the Soviet Embassy, the members of Peoples Temple briefed the Soviet Consul, Fyodor M. Timofeyev. They told him then that "the members of the Jonestown community were all US citizens who had fled their home country for political reasons and that they were now engaged in settling up a socialist agricultural and medical cooperative in Guyana." (Page 8)

Jim Jones, a Marxist

According to the book, a week after their first visit, the delegates of People's Temple including Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, visited the Soviet Embassy again. She handed over to the Consul a typewritten text of her husband's short biography, according to which Jim Jones was an atheist and a Marxist. But fearing a McCarthy style witch-hunt, he was in search for another vehicle to politicize working people, which ultimately resulted in the formation of People's Temple. In support of the claim that Jim Jones was a Marxist, the book reproduces a photocopy of a New York Times (undated) report with the headline: "Wife depicts Jones as Marxist".

Temple's plan to migrate to Soviet Union

The authors quote extensively from letters written by Richard Tropp, General Secretary of Peoples Temple, to the Soviet Ambassador to Guyana shortly before the massacre . In a letter dated 17 March 1978, Leonnora M. Perkins, a member of the Peoples Temple leadership group, said that Jim Jones was an admirer of Soviet Union, that he was schooled in Marxist Leninist thought and then expressed the community's desire to migrate to the Soviet Union to set up a community. The temple wanted to transfer their "endangered assets to a bank within the Soviet Union, where we can at least be assured that, should efforts to destroy our community succeed in one way or another, our hard-earned and carefully-husbanded resources would not be confiscated or otherwise expropriated by the enemies of the people, and used against their interests, but would be salvaged and bequeathed to that cause ... ... ... ... THE CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE, INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM."
Citing the book The Strongest Poison written by Mark Lane and published by Hawthorn Books, New York in 1980, the book says that the US State Department was perfectly aware of the Temple's plans to resettle in the Soviet Union. The temple's office in Georgetown received several phone calls from the US Embassy about the reason for the visit of temple authorities to Soviet embassy.

Mass murder

The authors' version of what happened in Jonestown on 18 November 1978, after the congressman and journalists had left the commune: "Genuine information to this effect was supplied by those few people who survived the massacre and escaped through jungles....
"At 19.30 Johnny Jones, Jim Jones' adopted son, who had shortly before gone to Port Kaituma to see off Ryan and the journalists, returned to Jonestown. The boy was all excited as he rushed into his father's house where all the leading members of the Temple were present. The news of the assassinations on the airstrip of Port Kaituma came as a shock....
"A special force broke through to Jim Jones' house and killed him. After that mass extermination of people began. When the last shots were fired, there were still about 400 left alive, mostly women, children and old folk. They were assembled near the central pavilion and then were divided up into groups of 30 and taken under armed escort to different parts of the settlement. Each group was told to line up so as to receive a "sedative", which was a mixture oftranquillisers and potassium cyanide. The makers of this poisonous brew did not realize, however, that the tranquilizers did not delay the instantaneous lethal action of the cyanide. The "cocktail" took effect almost instantly. Those who took it fell to the ground, their bodies contorted by convulsions, and died. Now everybody understood the nature of the brew offered by the murderers. Some people began to resist taking the poison. They were shot at point blank range. Others had poison poured into their mouths by force. Women were grabbed by the throat, their mouths opened with daggers. It was easier with the children. The murderers took them in their arms, pinched their noses and poured the poison down their throats. They also used ampule injectors. People were forced to lie on the ground with their faces down, and were then injected right through their clothes. Those who attempted to run away were killed on the spot with firearms."

Assassination of Leo Ryan

The book alleges that the murder of the Congressman Leo Ryan was the result of a conspiracy hatched by various US agencies. The book claims that during his visit to the Temple, Leo Ryan formed an opinion favorable to the Peoples Temple and this went against the stand taken by US agencies, and that the alleged "mass suicide" was in fact a massacre, which the US agencies successfully covered up with the help of the media.

Covering Up Traces

Citing various sources (including Lab World, "a respected journal read by directors of laboratories and forensic pathologists throughout the US") the books says that immediately after the massacre, efforts were made by US agencies to cover up the real facts. Thus, according to the book, no proper autopsy was conducted or toxicological samples collected which would have helped determine the cause of death. Summarizing the medical work done by the American military, the Lab World (issue dated March 1979) says: The contradictions, inconsistencies, and questionable truths related through these interviews leave many unanswered questions. In fact, the entire episode suggests government mismanagement or a cover-up of the true facts. The statements given by various government officials lend fuel to accusations made by people like Mark Lane, who served as legal counsel for Jones’ Peoples Temple. Lane proclaimed that a U.S. conspiracy existed to destroy the cult and its leader. The totally unprofessional and questionable handling of the bodies and the failure to establish cause and manner of death do not dispute Lane’s charges. Unfortunately, his claims are strengthened because there are so few facts about what actually happened. It is regrettable that professional medical personnel failed to do what the newest member fresh from college of a clinical medical laboratory would have known to do.

References

  1. Jonestown Carnage: A CIA Crime - S.F.Alinin, B.G.Antonov, A.N.Itskov: Progress Publishers, Moscow

See also


External links

____________________________________________________________________________________________

"People's Temple" is "socialist brilliant" collective suicide

The leader of the "People's Temple" is a Marxist
"People's Temple" Jim is Jim Jones (Jim Jones), he does not conceal that he is a Marxist. His wife Ma Selin (Marceline Jones) in 1977 to accept the "New York Times" interview, said Jones, 18 years of age idol Mao Zedong, Jones goal is to transform society through Marxism. November 22 that year, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Jones's former followers Wanda Johnson (Wanda Johnson), a former follower said, "On many occasions, Jones said he is Lenin reincarnated this time he said he would United States to establish a socialist state ".
"Los Angeles Times" (1978.12.10) reported that a reporter's question, "Which is more priority." Between Marxism and Christianity Jones, one of the survivors of suicide tragedy Sri Witch (Silver), "Jones First socialists, and then an atheist "(Jim was a socialist first and an atheist second).
Jones then set up a "People's Forum", the forum, Jones claimed his Cuba ecstatic that the standard of living there is the gorgeous (fantastic). Often reveal his longing for the kingdom of the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Jones the Marxist tendency to make his strong opposition to the "oppressive regime" of the United States, determined to build a nation of justice. His views attracted some blacks living at the bottom and a small number of inexperienced deep withdrawn white women, their dissatisfaction with the social reality, was gloomy about the future, the abnormal fear of nuclear war. In 1977, Jones led nearly a thousand members moved to Guyana in South America, where he promised to the members to achieve their socialist ideals. Thus, they built a jungle in Guyana the socialist agriculture the commune (withagriculture commune), take Ming Qiongsi town.
The communist tyranny management, Maoist tweeter brainwashing
Jonestown commune members passport and property were confiscated dozens of guards patrol day and night around the commune, it has lost contact with the outside world. Jones also particularly using a Mao-style communism of the most commonly used tweeter technology every day to commune members of brainwashing. Commune outside world depicted very terrible (much like the Chinese Communist Party was declared Taiwan and Western capitalism, the people living in dire straits), said that fascism and various hostile forces from the United States is keen to destroy a The socialist test (this socialist experiment), so that people feel that simply can not leave the commune. Jones is also speaker threat "way out of betrayal is only one, is death" (there is only one punishment for by treason: death).
"Los Angeles Times" (1978.12.10) also mentioned a name Brown (Jean Brown) survivors, "Temple of criticism and self-criticism, a Mao advocated to strengthen discipline" . The day commune members to work 12 hours, necessary to carry out "self-criticism" is over, those who did not complete the task, or expressed doubts about the success of the commune will be punished. Or to be shaved, wearing a yellow hat, not allowed to speak or even days. Assault, abuse and killed.These acts with the the CCP tyranny same shaved yin and yang, head of the Cultural Revolution, flatter parading wheel war, war fatigue to dissidents brainwashing, not to mention the Chinese Communist Party's deadliest various misdemeanors.
"Suicide drills" test of loyalty, and the Yan'an Rectification similar
Jones in Guyana also organized several mass suicide drills. Jones told his members to engage in suicide drills to test the loyalty of the commune members. "Washington Post" reported (1978.11.21, A15 version), a former Temple members called ladder bucket door • Sri Lanka ex (Tim Stoen) to the west coast of the United States of a television interview, Jones let people drink ( false) poison after them one by one stood up to answer the "Why die for socialism is proud and honored" (why they were [proud that and honored to die for socialism). A former member of the survey submitted testimony to the U.S. Government, said Jones told them "suicide drills collective suicide is the only way to socialism brilliant (mass suicide for the glory of socialism).
Jones "suicide drills" with CCP political movement, "fake shot" turns out to be similar. Nanjing University Professor Gao Hua book "How the Red Sun rise: Yan'an Rectification Movement, the ins and outs of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2000), in recent years, a comprehensive study of the historical writings of the Yan'an Rectification Movement. The author believes that the cruelty of the CCP has for decades been the political struggle can be found in the Yan'an Rectification origin. "False shot" is one of the the Rectification most terrible ordeal. Select "false shot" time is generally a dark and stormy night, the suspects molecular tied up then transferred to a remote place, and whizzing gunshots bullets flying from ear, caused a great deal of psychological and physical harm to torture, Many people even prolonged mental disorders. "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party", a book mentioned who participated in the Yan'an Rectification put the memories of the entire veteran, veteran cadres then pulled to extract confessions, under extremely high pressure, had to sell their conscience and fabricated lies . Subjected to this kind of thing for the first time, thought I'm sorry to be implicated comrades, wait for them to commit suicide. A gun just lying on the table, get up towards your head, clasp the trigger. No bullets! Responsible for reviewing who he cadres Then, "done something wrong, admit it, the party's policy is lenient." In this way, the party know that you reached the limit to pass the test, but also know that you are "loyal" party , then cross the border.
"Collective suicide" direct contact because of the shootings came to investigate members of Congress
November 14, 1978, California Congressman Ryan (Leo Ryan) led by relatives of some of the news reporters and part of the commune members to Jonestown, intend to make an informal investigation, because they previously received "the people of St. complaints of the temple to teach members of the accused Jim Jones imposed on them all the mandatory and forced them to give up the property, and forced them to participate in bizarre sexual rituals. Four days later, Ryan and his party and ten apostate ready from Jonestown in Jonestown airstrip (8 miles) flight back to the United States, Jones sent a staff car rushed runway opened fire, killing Ryan and three reporter as well as an apostate, the remaining ten people were injured, including a U.S. ambassador to Guyana embassy officials.
When Jones learned that Ryan and other people were killed, but there are still many people escaped, and may report to the authorities, so, Jones began to carry out his suicide plan. November 18, Jones call to all members, said to them: "We must all die." "If you like I love you to love me, like, we all must die together, otherwise, the people outside to exterminate us. '
"Los Angeles Times" (1978.11.26) mentioned in an article written by lawyer Charles • Jiarui (Charles Garry, "People's Temple"), the people in front of the death of his mouth muttering, "Let the revolution died this racist and fascist social exposure with our dead. died in the great revolutionary suicide is a wonderful ah!" (It's good to die in this great revolutionary suicide.)
__________________________________________________________________________________________


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)