Jonestown

[mithluin]

So, I'm currently job-hunting, which means I'm of course up for distractions. For some reason, I've chosen to take the time to look into the tragedy at Jonestown. I know, I could be watching anime, but I guess it's a case of driving home the point, "It can *always* be worse

Comments

[whereismysam]

I'm actually glad you put down such a concise recounting of the event. I've tried to look up info on the topic too, but everything I found was always so wordy, that I would give up before I got very far into it.

[mithluin]

Well, happy to help, I guess? I mean, by summarizing it so concisely, I left out a lot of details, of course. *How* he created a culture of fear, and how some of those concerns were actually legitimate...and then how he mixed that in with his fabricated lies until people honestly thought that what he was saying was going to happen was the truth. There was one person who was not even there that day - she was in Guyana's capital of Georgetown, manning the ham radio and 'listening in' to the meeting - and his narrative was convincing enough that she took a knife, killed her 3 children, and then committed suicide. All Peoples Temple members had been sworn that, if the movement failed, they would kill themselves...but the others lived after Nov. 18th. It wasn't (really) brainwashing, though it was a skewed view of reality. Also, they'd been groomed for a mass suicide, even practicing drinking poison and pretending to die. It's possible some people didn't realize it wasn't a drill until the children actually fell over dead