Don't Drink the Kool-Aid!

I remember a number of years ago when I worked for a major publishing company which was owned by an international media conglomerate. Every couple of months our structure or strategy would be jerked into a 90° change and it would come down from the Olympian heights of corporate leadership in New York City that this was finally the winning formula that would take us into a glorious future. Nevermind that 60 days earlier we had another winning formula for the future ("We've always been at war with Eastasia!")

"Drink the Kool Aid" has become a popular euphemism for believing or at least going along with the current corporate ideology when it is manifestly untrue or stupid.

Today, November 18, commemorates the 30th anniversary of that phrase entering the English language. What is not often discussed -- even at the time -- is the ideology that brought that us that phrase. Hint: it was NOT a dangerous brand of evangelical Christianity...

Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in that state in the 1950s. Jones and the Temple later moved to California, and both gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the mid-1970s.

In a tape discovered and transcribed by the FBI after the incident People's Temple founder Jim Jones summarized his life story and motivations for starting the organization. Here is a small excerpt (courtesy of the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University, here's the link to the tape and the transcript):

I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church. So I consciously made a decision to look into that pro— that prospect. Particularly was it inspired upon me — (struggles for words) I say infil— infiltrate the church. It really was brought to my attention by a very kindly (Pause) and I pause, because of again feeling that it can reflect on others — a man who had a great deal of conscience that seemed to be compatible to my views, who was a church administrator of a denomination, and he, he encouraged me to think about being a pastor. And so I did. (Laughs) Very quickly did. I’d had my religious heritage in Pentecostalism — deep-rooted emotions in the Christian tradition (Pause) and a deep love which I share to this day for the practical teachings of Jesus Christ. It had always been a sort of dual concept: a doubter, and yet a believer. Certainly I had great questions about anthropomorphic beings and a loving order to the universe, but Jesus Christ, to use a kid’s phrase, greatly turned me on.

Jim Jones started the People's Temple in Indiana but moved it to San Francisco, where it fit in nicely during the very weird 1970's. But the People's Temple quickly became too weird even for San Francisco, with the media and law enforcement starting to pay too much attention.

In 1974 he began building a compound in the jungle of Guyana, on the South American coast just to the east of Venezuela. He named it after himself, Jonestown, and his ideology was at face value to form another communist paradise like Cuba:

Jones had first started building Jonestown in 1974 as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny which had started in 1972. Regarding the former goal, Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, "I believe we’re the purest communists there are." In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.

And once you're in a communist paradise there's no reason to want to leave, right? As someone who has been to Cuba three times I can tell you that's not true.

In November 1978 the law was starting to close in: there were reports that US citizens had effectively become prisoners or slaves in Guyana, and there were reports of sexual slavery and abuse of children.

Jones prepared the people for immanent invasion by "capitalist pigs:"

Jones made frequent addresses to Temple members regarding Jonestown's safety, including statements that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were conspiring with "capitalist pigs" to destroy Jonestown and harm its members. After work, when purported emergencies arose, the Temple sometimes conducted what Jones referred to as "White Nights". During such events, Jones would sometimes give the Jonestown members four choices: (1) attempt to flee to the Soviet Union; (2) commit "revolutionary suicide"; (3) stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers or (4) flee into the jungle.

On at least two occasions during White Nights, after a "revolutionary suicide" vote was reached, a simulated mass suicide was rehearsed. Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton described the event in an affidavit:

"Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands."

The Temple had received monthly half-pound shipments of cyanide since 1976 after Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy the chemical to purportedly clean gold.

On November 14, 1978 U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan from California and a fact-finding delegation visited Jonestown. The visit went badly. Several Jonestown "residents" indicated that they wanted to defect. Ryan and his group headed to the local airstrip on November 18 with the defectors to board two private planes for the return to the U.S. As they were boarding the "Red Brigade" from Jonetown -- their self-named Communist Revolutionary security force -- attacked and in a blaze of gunfire killed the congressman and others.

Jones, knowing that law enforcement would now hit them fast and hard executed the pre-rehearsed "White Night Revolutionary Suicide" plan. 909 Jonestown residents died, all but two of them from "drinking the Kool Aid."

Comments

[Imaginary Maggie]

I remember that well, although I was only 13 at the time. I vividly remember being on vacation with my brother and parents a few weeks later, and to save money Mom made Kool Aid instead of buying us soda pop. We giggled every time we drank it, calling it "Guyana Juice!" Yes, mid-teens giggling whilst screaming "Guyana Juice" and falling over on the ground with our legs up in the air like a dead bird. Sadly, it was a game we played for months before it wore off.

Hm.