Jonestown Tragedy: Thoughts, Feelings,Explanations?

[nature's star]

This story has triggered my interest again for some reason maybe due to the docudrama on tv a few nights ago and I'm back to doing more reading.

What do people think? Was there really government involvement in the Temple and deaths? Jones a sicko or just evil? What about the people? What in the world were they thinking? Did the Congressman know that he was dealing with a wacko?

[2L8 4A D8]

Have you Googled for any information re: Jonestown? It's a start. This was such a tragedy and didn't have to happen. IMO, someone, somewhere dropped the ball big time! Powers Booth was just reveting when he played Jim Jones!

:seeya:

[nature's star]

Have you Googled for any information re: Jonestown? It's a start. This was such a tragedy and didn't have to happen. IMO, someone, somewhere dropped the ball big time! Powers Booth was just reveting when he played Jim Jones!

:seeya:

Yes. I've read much on it. I also remember it. I remember when Jones was getting good press and how often the papers profiled him. He had some of my family members snowed except my mother. She immediately said when they announced the move to Guyana that, Jones fell out of favor with her at that point. She strongly questioned why was he moving his church to the jungle. When the tragedy happened, she kept telling everyone how she knew something was amiss when they moved there.

What has been eating at me is the death of the Congressman. Did Ryan see through Jones and was just pretending to ensure his getting out of Jonestown? Or was he actually snowed like everyone else because like I said, Jones got good press for a while in those days and a lot of big shots, some still alive today, had dealings with Jones they want to forget.

They dropped the ball because Jones could deliver votes because his church voted as a bloc, whatever he said so many looked the other way and I assume with lawyers like Garry( also the Black Panther lawyer) they probably believed in Jones's goal of social activism and racial equality; the end justified the means until Jones became a mass murderer.

[2L8 4A D8]

Unfortunately, I haven't read anything about this. I've only watched the t.v. movie with Powers Booth. If there was any truth to the t.v. movie, it seems to me that the Congressman was snowed by JJ and certainly wasn't expecting to be assisinated at the airport!

Was there an autopsy done on JJ's body? I'm thinking that he had a massive brain tumor or had massive amounts of drugs in his system. After he left San Francisco for Guyana, he seemed to go downhill fast! Nobody in their right mind could have done what he did. I also have a hard time believing that his congregation just followed him like lambs to the slaughter! So sad!

Didn't this happen in the 1970's? 1970 was not a good year for me and I was saddled with my own multitude of problems. No excuse I know for not paying attention to this saga!

You've come to the right place though if you want to start any discussions on the Jim Jones/Jonestown Tragedy. It seems that you have first-hand knowledge because of your Mother, which should make for an interesting read!

:rose: For everyone affected by the Jonestown Tragedy! :rose:

[Auntie Venom]

I'm not sure whether or not Ryan saw through Jones, but I think that Jones though he did. Jones knew that things were falling apart and he decided to go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak.
The fact of the matter is, brain tumor, drugs, or what have you, a great number of these cult leaders end up as murders either on a small or large scale. Look at the Moonies, the Hari Krishna murders, Hale-Bopp (I cannot remember the name of that group at the moment, senility is creeping in) and many others. The people who start these groups lust for power and I think that eventually it begins to affect them psychologically.
Jonestown was a nightmare, I cannot imagine what those people who died went through, or what the survivors have lived with. I get physically ill at the sight of those children being forcefed poison....

[diamond d]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_jones.htm
http://www.mass-murderers.com/tragic_events/jonestown_tragedy.htm

The 2 site provided background, summary and some insight into the tragedy. It's done in a concise clean manner.

Jones town was one of those events in our lifetime that we look back upon and all we can do is shake our heads and ask, how did we ever let this happen...?

[apskad]

I remember this story, too. It was November of 1978. Unbelievable how so many could willingly kill themselves at their leader's command. But it turns out that maybe they weren't so willing. Some were injected between the shoulderblades with cyanide, the children were given the drink first to encourage their parents' cooperation (1/3 of those who died were children--who didn't have the capacity to "commit suicide" IMO).

The entire mass sucide/homicide was audiotaped and has been transcribed and can be found in various places on the net. What's interesting to me is Jim Jones saying "get Dwyer out of here, get him out of here before something happens to him." Dwyer had already left with Congressman Ryan and was wounded at the airstrip. (Dwyer was there as an official of the American consulate, and was also a CIA operative). Maybe Jones was hallucinating--he was in a full-blown psychotic break at the time. I've read speculation that the CIA was conducting mind control experiments on Jonestown residents ala MK Ultra. Sounds like conspiracy kookiness but MK Ultra did happen...

[diamond d]

I remember this story, too. It was November of 1978. Unbelievable how so many could willingly kill themselves at their leader's command. But it turns out that maybe they weren't so willing. Some were injected between the shoulderblades with cyanide, the children were given the drink first to encourage their parents' cooperation (1/3 of those who died were children--who didn't have the capacity to "commit suicide" IMO).

The entire mass sucide/homicide was audiotaped and has been transcribed and can be found in various places on the net. What's interesting to me is Jim Jones saying "get Dwyer out of here, get him out of here before something happens to him." Dwyer had already left with Congressman Ryan and was wounded at the airstrip. (Dwyer was there as an official of the American consulate, and was also a CIA operative). Maybe Jones was hallucinating--he was in a full-blown psychotic break at the time. I've read speculation that the CIA was conducting mind control experiments on Jonestown residents ala MK Ultra. Sounds like conspiracy kookiness but MK Ultra did happen...

Yea in this case I'm not buying any of that CIA mind control stuff in this case, when CIA conducts experiments, things are way more controlled, this was sloppy, uncontrolled, and way too public for CIA to be involved.

[apskad]

Yea in this case I'm not buying any of that CIA mind control stuff in this case, when CIA conducts experiments, things are way more controlled, this was sloppy, uncontrolled, and way too public for CIA to be involved.

Oh, I agree. I don't buy into a Jonestown/CIA conspiracy theory, either. At least, not that Jonestown was a CIA mind control experiment. But there are some striking facts about Jim Jones' reliance on known, verified CIA operatives (you can read specifics at the Crime Library's own dossier on Jones), and the way in which the CIA protected Jonestown (up until the atrocity). Just interesting connections. A congressional committee investigating this very issue found no relation between Jones and the CIA. And we always believe congress.;)