Jonestown, 30 years later: From Silver Lake To Suicide
The LA Weekly published an article by Barry Isaacson about the discovery earlier this year of a number of letters sent by a Jonestown resident to her parents, who lived in LA's Silver Lake neighborhood.
Phyllis and her family were dead for more than a decade by the time her elderly parents moved out of their house in Silver Lake in 1992. Architectural real estate agents had to bring the exquisite midcentury modern on Micheltorena Street back from the brink of decrepitude before selling it to my wife, Jenny, and me. Handing over the keys, they told us that, according to neighborhood folklore, the Alexanders might have left behind a concealed suitcase containing correspondence from their long-dead daughter and grandchildren. We looked but found nothing, and having been made aware of the circumstances of this family’s demise, we felt reluctant to intrude on an almost unimaginable grief.From Silver Lake to Suicide (LA Weekly). Here's a related slideshow in the LA Weekly.But this past February, 10 years after we started to raise a family of our own where the Alexanders had raised theirs, a handyman working on our house emerged from the basement carrying a dusty vinyl briefcase. Inside was an extensive collection of press clippings, evidence of an almost obsessive attempt by the Alexanders to make sense of their daughter’s fatal acts of bad judgment.
In a separate envelope were letters written by Phyllis from San Francisco and later from Jonestown, Guyana, where she and her husband had moved with their children in 1975. There were fond letters to their grandparents from Gail and David. The most moving document in the cache was a carbon copy of a painful valediction from Dr. Alexander to Phyllis, written on an old manual typewriter on September 21, 1977. Tenderly, but with eloquent firmness, he reprimands her, perplexed and offended by her embrace of Jim Jones, the deviant cuckoo who had flown into the Alexanders’ nest and whom Phyllis and her fellow Peoples Temple members called “Dad.”
See also this related section of the SDSU Jonestown document archives, "The Chaikin/Alexander Letters," with PDFs of the original documents.
Boing Boing posts on Jim Jones, Jonestown and People's Temple:
- Jonestown, 30 years Later: Inside People's Temple, the 1977 exposé.
- Jonestown, 30 years later: original audio recordings from People's Temple and Guyana.
- Jonestown, 30 years later: Life and Death of People's Temple (PBS video).
- Jonestown, 30 years later: interview with a survivor (video)
- Jonestown, 30 years later: From Silver Lake To Suicide
- Jonestown, 30 years later: "Father Cares," NPR documentary from 1981
- Raven: The Untold Story of The Reverend Jim Jones and His People
- Andrew Brandou on his Jonestown paintings
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Sad.
I truly hate lots about MSNBC, but they did recently air a two-hour documentary on Jonestown that was rather well-done in my opinion.
You might also want to check out the audio recording and transcripts documenting the last day at Jonestown. Warning: it's heavy shit. I first heard this recording on a (bootleg?) LP release from Psychic TV, back in the late '80s if I recall, and it's more recently made it to archive.org.
So weird! I came home late, flicked on the teev, and watched a documentary/re-enactment about Jonestown last night. My first real in depth knowledge of the event, previous all I had ever known was "mass suicide/murder by fanatics". I had no idea an American Congressman had died.
Xeni,
You wrote "...the Alexanders to make sense of their daughter’s fatal acts of bad judgment."
Jonestown is a big complicated issue, but I don't think it is obvious at what point 'good judgment' could have saved the people.
It would be nice, and reassuring for us, to treat the narrative is 'a bunch of people made bad choices and followed a nut.' That makes it easier for us to understand. 'We' are not the kind of people to make that kind of bad choices, so 'we' are able to distance ourselves from 'them,' those people who made the 'bad choices' that lead to their demise.
But Jim Jones brought hope and possibility to a group of people who had few options. It was not obvious until it was too late that he was a nut case.
He was not considered a freak, he was a main stream religious leader. Mayor Moscone appointed him Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. He had connections with and support from high political figures.
And then things went bad. Horribly bad. Terribly wretchedly awful and bad.
But they did not go bad because Jones' principles were bad. And they didn't go bad because the members of the People's Temple had excercised bad judgment.
I _think_ they went bad for the simple and sad reason of Jones' drug use.
blame the drugs? What drugs?
It went bad, because religion is bad.
That's a rather broad brush you're painting with there.
Antinous, have you read this post?
FoetusNail,
1) To use a complex technical term, you have a grudge. We all have them, but you should at least recognize that you're using your spleen as much as your brain in this discussion.
2) Compare 'religion related' violence in the last century with 'atheism' related violence and Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot still come out on top by a big, fat multiplier.
3) Assholes use religion to justify their assholism. Saints use religion to justify their saintliness. Religion is never about religion. It's just a screen onto which people project their own fundamental character.
Hitler was not an atheist, but anti-christian, more specifically he opposed only those dominations he could not control or with whom he could not come to agreement. Hitler was a realtivly devote catholic. Please read the Reichskonkordat, an agreement between the catholic church and the reich.
Hitler was selectively anti-christian, because he viewed them as a threat to his hold on the hearts and minds of germany's population, especially german youth. He also viewed modern christians as weak and incapable of understanding the destruction of the jew was in fact the work of the lord and must be completed. Hitler viewed his struggle as part of the larger struggle between good and evil, and it was his duty to god to destroy the jews who opposed god. Hitler did not believe in mysticism, himmler did, and hitler often ridiculed himmler for his silliness.
Destroying the jews and the godless bolsheviks was doing the lord's work, just as jesus used the whip to remove the jewish money-changers from the temple. The destruction of the jews was more important than the preservation of the reich. Hitler believed failure to do this work meant germany was not worthy of the lord's faith in germany. The war was prolonged at all cost and the death camp system was supplied with manpower, transportation, funding, and protection at the expense of the war effort in an effort to continue the destruction of the jews in hungary and elsewhere. This was hitler's only goal, it was his destiny, and it was inspired and fueled by his belief in god.
Please look past the christian propaganda, especially the recent attempt by a former hitler youth member to connect obama with national socialists, while also attempting to conflate the hitler youth's hatred of christianity with atheism. As you well know from reading the comments posted here, there are many anti-christians theists in this world.
Please, ask yourself why the aryan nation and in fact all other whitepower, neo-nazi hate groups are not atheist organizations. Ask yourself why do all of these organizations profess not only a fanatical belief in god, but are also engaged in the ultiamte battle between good and evil, with the jews representing everything that is evil.
Between 50 and 60 million people died because of hitler's religious beliefs, his belief in god, and his belief that by destroying the jews and blosheviks he was in fact doing the work of the lord.
http://www.bolchazy.com/pdf/SampleDomarus.pdf
Please read from the speech at the top of page twenty-one (page 81 of the original doc), hitler is refering Revelation 3:15-17. This portion of this sppeech exemplifies hitler's beliefs and eludes to a more than casual knowledge of the bible.
Rev. 3:15-17 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
SS Oath
Ich schwoere Dir Adolf Hitler, als Fuehrer und Kanzler des Reiches Treue und Tapferkeit. Ich gelobe Dir und den von Dir bestimmten Vorgesetzien gehorsam bis in den Tod, so wahr mir Gott helfe.
I swear to you Adolf Hitler, as leader and chancellor of the nation loyalty and bravery. I vow to you and to the representatives appointed
by you obedience unto death, so help me God.
BTW, if you have time do a search of the pdf link and the link below for god, faith, salvation, devil, evil, etc.
Mein Kampf is replete with references to god.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt
Great example of how Hitler viewed his struggle. Some will use this quote to claim hitler was a christian, I just believe it points to his belief in god.
"Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago.
And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord."
If this is just pandering to the masses, which I don't believe it is when taken in context with other speeches given to the very end, then it is no more than the same pandering of every Jerry Falwell and Jim Jones that preceded or followed Hitler.
P.S. Be very careful of trusting the so-called Table Talk translations.
http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2002/nov02/carrier.php
Hitler was not an Atheist
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=murphy_19_2
Finally, as to who was the most successful murderer, I ask one question. Who do you think would come out on top if in the preceding 15 centuries Christians had possessed the technology of 1940 Germany? Do you honestly believe there would be a single Jew or Muslim left anywhere on this planet? Also, since the christians have likewise been at each others throats for the same period of time, how many christians would remain? How many dominations would be left?
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathar
The crusader army came under the command, both spiritual and military, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.
The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His alleged reply, recalled by a fellow Cistercian, was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius." — "Kill them all, the Lord will recognize His own."[4] The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly, 7,000 people died there including many women and children. Elsewhere in the town many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice.[citation needed] What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud wrote to Pope Innocent III, "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex."[5] The permanent population of Béziers at that time was then probably no more than 5,000, but local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls could conceivably have increased the number to 20,000.
Now to your first statement that I have some grudge, you're probably right. But it is not a grudge born of hate, but of disgust and fear.
Since I was a child I have asked these questions. As an adult I have visited churches, temples, and mosques in search of answers. Spent hours drinking late into the night with a catholic priest engaged in the most open conversations I have ever had with a religious leader. Spent the afternoon sitting on the floor between prayers, with the leader of the Washington DC Islamic Mosque along with four other clergy and various others. This was all done as a young man who was searching for a place, searching in earnest for answers to these questions. They have none. Then I spent four years as a very devout practicing Buddhist. That was when I finally realized the religious lie that exists in the West. This is how I started to understand the nature of religious mind control and understood the nature of their god of which I speak of so much here.
I suppose I am boring people at this point. If you wish I will do my best to refrain from posting comments on religious posts. If you make that request, and I find I cannot resist the urge to comment, please unpublish my comments.