Saturday, May 05, 2007

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE A GOOD CONSPIRACY THEORY?
Like this one, for instance.
On November 18, 1979, the whacked-out "Reverand" Jim Jones somehow "convinced" over 900 members of his "People's Temple" in Jonestown, Guyana to drink poisoned kool-aid and commit suicide. Right?
Jim Jones' father was a member of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. Jim Jones, however, preached "racial harmony" and a majority of his "People's Temple" were black. These members Jones promptly took to Guyana for a lethal kool-aid cocktail.
Jim Jones spent 1961 in Brazil doing who knows what. He returned with $10,000 (which enabled him to start his People's Temple). Local Brazilians viewed Jones as "an agent for the CIA).
Jim Jones had ties to the CIA-connected "John Birch Society" as well as "World Vision": an international evangelical order which did espionage jobs for the CIA in Southeast Asia, lurked around CIA camps on the border of Honduras which recruited anti-Nicaraguan mercenaries during the Reagan years, stationed representatives in Cuban refugee camps which featured Bay of Pigs mercenaries sponsored by the CIA, as well as other fun and games.
Inept Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr.'s father was an official in the World Vision organization. Hinckley Sr. was also a good friend of Vice President George H. W. Bush; the two actually had a dinner appointment the NIGHT OF THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT which was understandably (quickly and quietly) cancelled.
After the massacre at Jonestown, World Vision repopulated the place with CIA mercenaries from Laos who had been active in the Vietnam War. Seriously.
Jim Jones' created the heavily "socialist" People's Temple on communal lines. Jones also raised money for Republican (and renowned commie hater) Richard M. Nixon (!) Jones was a right-wing Republican who founded a "socialist" church(?!?) How does THAT make sense???
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were strong supporters of the People's Temple when Jones moved it to San Francisco. Both were assassinated in 1978 by a "lone nut" gunman.
News items and scandals piled up about the "sinister" side of the People's Temple so Jones moved the operation to Guyana in 1977 to avoid "attacks" on his church. Black members arrived at the airport only to be bound and gagged, pumped full of drugs, made to do slave labour and subjected to endless "suicide drills".
Relatives of Temple members raised so many complaints that Congressman Leo Ryan travelled to Jonestown to check things out; with him was Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission to Guyana Richard Dwyer and some reporters. Ryan and four reporters were shot dead at the airport as they were preparing to leave; Ryan becoming the first (and only) congressman to die in the line of duty. Witnesses at the scene described the gunmen as "glassy-eyed zombies" who showed no emotions and moved mechanically. Dwyer was found alive with a bullet in his butt, "methodically washing his hands" at the airport after the shootings. Dwyer's name appeared in a book called "Who's Who in the CIA" in 1959; when asked if he was a CIA Agent, Dwyer answered with a "No comment." Tape recordings made during the Jonestown massacre itself contain the voice of Jim Jones shouting: "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him."
After the murders, Jones called one of his "White Nights" and everyone ended up dead. Evidence seems to suggest, however, that most were probably murdered; forced to drink the poisoned kool-aid at gunpoint or forcibly injected. The first death toll was 408 but that numbered changed to 913. U.S. authorities explained this discrepancy by saying the Guyanans couldn't count (!). Then they said they "missed a pile" of bodies. Finally the story was that the miscount resulted from bodies being stacked; although photos of the scene show bodies lying individually on the ground and NONE were in piles. It's also kinda tough to hide 505 dead bodies under only 408 (especially when 82 of them were children). The real explanation is probably that the first reports of 400 dead and 700 fleeing into the jungle was more accurate; the fleeing members being caught and killed later (there were signs of "drag marks" near the rows of bodies indicating many died somewhere else). So who hunted them down and killed them? Well, CIA-trained U.S. green berets just "happened" to be in Guyana during this time. Also, every single account says there were at least 1100 people in Jonestown; 913 died and 167 survivors returned to the U.S. So who were the other 20 or so? The survivors mentioned an all-white elite group who were armed and free to come and go.
C. Leslie Mootoo, the first coroner on the scene, stated that all but three of the 913 had been murdered. He found gunshot wounds, needle punctures and signs of strangulation trauma on the bodies. Most of the needle marks were found between the shoulder blades (not easy to self-inflict). Of course, the U.S. Army ignored Dr. Mootoo's findings and said no autopsies would be necessary because the cause of death was not an issue. The bodies were then left to rot in the tropical jungle so no autopsies would be possible later.
Huge caches of weapons and psychotropic drugs were discovered at the scene; leading some to believe that Jonestown may have been a giant mind-control experiment using "religion" to collect mostly black and female "guinea pigs" in much the same way as the Nazis operated. These psychotropic drugs were identical to the type utilized by the CIA's "MK-ULTRA" mind-control experiments designed to produce "Manchurian Candidate"-type assassins.
Former People's Temple member Joyce Shaw stated that Jonestown was "some kind of horrible government experiment, some sort of sick, racist thing. . .to exterminate blacks."
On May 19, 1979 a Congressional aide stated: "There are 120 white, brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit." Former People's Temple supporters (San Francisco Mayor) George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk were subsequently assassinated by a "lone nut" gunman. Former Jim Jones aide Michael Prokes went to a public restroom and "committed suicide" after announcing that the FBI and CIA were withholding tape recordings of the massacre. Al and Jeanie Mills, who were planning on writing a book about Jonestown, were found shot dead in their home. At least one other Jonestown survivor was shot dead by "unknown assailants".
All possessions and money of People's Temple members were confiscated by Jim Jones as a price of membership. Estimate place the figure Jones amassed at between $26 million and $2 billion. Most of it "disappeared" after the massacre.
In 1980, columnist Jack Anderson published an article entitled: "CIA INVOLVED IN JONESTOWN MASSACRE".
Ain't paranoia a hoot?!?!? I love it! Next I'll tell ya how we didn't really land on the moon.

3 comments:

jennypower said...

Great, now my brain hurts and the only thing I know for sure is that I can no longer use my "drink the koolaid" jokes anymore.

Cerpts said...

Oh yes you can, dear heart. Fret not. Remember that EVERY conspiracy theory is valid and ACTUALLY happened. So that includes the kool-aid scenario we've all grown to love. Don't worry. We can have our kool-aid and drink it too!

Pax Romano said...

The guy who killed Moscone and Milk was named Dan White, he was a noted homophobe and conservative member of San Francisco's city council. He had quit his job due to low pay, but had a change of heart and pleaded for his job back. When Moscone (then mayor of SF) refused him his position, White went on his rampage killing both Moscone and Harvey Milk (the city's openly gay city supervisor).

Dan White was only charged with manslaughter as his defense claimed that he was depressed and had been addicted to sugary snack foods for years (the Twinkie Defense).

After he served his sentence (all of seven years), he tried to come back to SF, but the current mayor wrote him and asked him to stay away ... none the less he returned, to the city, to his wife and family and eventually killed himself by sitting in his car while it ran in the garage.

The guy was a nut-case.
***************************
If you ever read the third Tales of the City, (Further Tales of the City), Armestead Maupin introduces a mysterious character who turns out to be Jim Jones (in the book, Jones faked his own death and came back to SF to reclaim several children who "got away" from Jonestown). He is killed in the end by the maid of a wealthy woman who recognizes him as she used to attend his old church...a different sort of conspiracy theory is raised in this book, I'll have to dig it out and give it to you to read...