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Black Lives Matter and Jonestown — 55 Comments

  1. The stain of Jim Jones is still all over California. A generation of California Democrat leaders either allied with Jones or were mentored by Jones’ political allies like Willie Brown. That includes both Senator Kamala Harris and Governor Newsom.
    –Daniel Greenfield

    The Bay Area has worked hard to forget the horror of Jonestown. It took over thirty years for an official memorial to be erected in Oakland.

    https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jonestown-memorial-unveiled-after-32-years-2369376.php

    The entire Democratic apparatus in the Bay Area was hooked up with Jim Jones because Jones would bus his people around for Dem candidates and basically do ACORN work at the time.

    Nobody knew nothing after Jonestown.

  2. There exists an old (but truly excellent) book on Jonestown entitled Journey to Nowhere by Shiva Naipaul, brother of the famous novelist, a Trinidadian of Indian ancestry. On the topic of the “revolutionary comrade” Angela Davis, she is one of the many race-hustling beneficiaries of the grievance industry making tens of thousands of dollars speaking at colleges and universities around the country; her fees may not be quite as lofty as those demanded by Ta-Nehesi Coates, but she still earns considerable income from hectoring impressionable young students with Afrocentric and Marxist nonsense.

  3. And he was such a good guy, even when “supposedly” dead, according to Tales of the City by A. Maupin

  4. Who’s the charismatic leader like Jim Jones this time? I don’t see one, which is a good thing.

    Paolo, a good link, thanks. This whole thing infantilizes black people. It takes away their agency and makes them helpless victims.

  5. There’s a lot to learn about Dem dependence on the cult. And their willingness to gloss over pretty much anything.

    But, to be fair, any politician tends not to look under the covers at the potentially unsavory character of his supporters. He’s just happy to have the help.

  6. At Paolo: THANK YOU!! for that link……Bevelyn Beatty is the Bomb!! Fabulous.

  7. In 2001, Ghana passed their “right of abode” law, which gives any African-American the right to return to Ghana, and to stay indefinitely. (https://www.mint.gov.gh/services/right-of-abode/)

    On YouTube, a Ghana government minister is shown courting the return of African-Americans, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent BLM (Black Lives Matter) riots. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aiIIQ6cOvI&feature=youtu.be&t=696)

    Like many of you, I’ve been inspired by both the Black Live Matter movement, and the memory of Jonestown, which was much like the current Seattle BLM summer camp, until it was twisted and defamed by a vast right-wing conspiracy. In the spirit of these great movements, I’d like to make a modest proposal: “The African-American Flight to Freedom.”

    We all know that high rates of African-American violent crime are the result of white oppression. The very worst of these crimes is black-on-black murder. This represents an exponential increase of white oppression. When blacks murder whites, they are at least killing their oppressors. When blacks murder blacks, the legacy of racism is horribly exacerbated. But we shouldn’t stop with murder. All violent black-on-black crime should be rewarded with “The African-American Flight to Freedom” (AAFF).

    Who would be eligible for AAFF? All current and future prisoners convicted of violent black-on-black crime. Each of the freedom flyers would be given the dollar-equivalent of their incarceration cost. In return, the freedom flyers would formally renounce their US citizenship, and embrace their right to return to Ghana. Africa would celebrate their return. That’s my modest proposal, and I’ll now take a knee. Incentives matter.

  8. Neo
    Thank you for this post, well said.
    Neo what you think with this new trend with ” Welcome to the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

    Is that will last?
    Will people & officials agrees on this new type of Autonomy?

  9. JimNorCal on June 23, 2020 at 9:03 pm said: “That … was probably racist”

    __________________________________________

    Jim:

    I’m white, so I’m–by definition–racist. I wear that shame with great pride. All those who do not do so are clearly deplorable. BLM forever!

  10. I have strong hope that when this chaos and election year confusion all come together in November that all of those who have been loyal Democrats, like I was years ago, will step up and ‘No, I won’t drink the Kool-Aid this time, I have had enough and they will vote for a flawed but not as bat-shit crazy ticket. I suspect this go-aound will once more be a huge surprise to the left and the media. In the mean time more and more of the street theatre participants are arming themselves and we don’t need another Kent State where guns go off and people get injured and killed.

    All of this racist stuff and backing people into the BLM corner defies logic, I know racism and have lived in the past with overt racist and 99% of the white people have worked hard and supported government programs to give preference to minority groups and individuals for the past 50 years. The only way I know to move forward at this time is the ballot box, vote those “no justice no peace” officials out of office and start mending out nation.

  11. “I’d rather drink the tea than the Kool Aid” takes on another layer of meaning.

  12. In Venezuela, a country next door to Guyana, the brainwashed followers of Hugo Chavez are referred as the Koolaid Drinkers.

  13. Thank you for this Neo. Hopefully well-meaning non-Leftist Democrats will put 2 and 2 together and wake up to reality.

  14. I lived in San Francisco when this happened. Jones as the benevolent leader was hailed in left weeklies and politicians at the time. I was curious so followed the group press. Sorry I never went to a service. The temple was only 5 blocks away.

    This was time of EST, another cult like group taking over the Bay area. It also stripped people of their dignity making them confess to all kinds of things, including wrongful thinking. Luckily, I always seemed to prefer the advice of Marx, as in Groucho. He said ‘I dont care to belong to any club that would have me as a member.’ Also at the time of Harvey Milk killing. Tough times in the city by the bay. Great essay.

  15. This may not be the right place to bring up Bret Weinstein, but on the subject of what’s happening in the country now, it’s time to be paying attention to him. Neo, I know you covered his experience at Evergreen College in Washington, and that of his wife, so you know that, although a progressive, he is a reasonable man.

    He and his wife Heather Heying lost their tenured positions at Evergreen for being brave enough to stand against the then politically correct mob of students, and he has predicted that what has been happening in academia over the last several years would break into the rest of society. Obviously, now it has.

    He and his wife, both biologists, do the DarkHorse Podcast, and I recommend you start with #19, Our Descent Into Madness and What to do About It.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nUC62gQ7U0&list=UUi5N_uAqApEUIlg32QzkPlg&index=21

    Their podcasts are lengthy, at least an hour, but they are an intelligent and articulate couple, and though progressive, are as troubled by the events in America as much as are most of us here. Weinstein has a proposal for an independent ticket, which he calls the “Dark Horse Duo”, that is worth attention. I’d like to know what Neo thinks about it, along with any of you who view it.

    I certainly agree with his assessment that the country is in real peril, and his ideas are at least worth some discussion.

  16. I would like to add that shortly after his own podcast presenting his proposal for the 2020 election, Weinstein appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast #1494, a more highly visible platform. The Rogan-Weinstein interview has had about 4 1/2 million views in the past 4 days, so there has been a lot of interest. Hard to say whether that’s enough to be the start of a movement, but it’s worth a listen, nonetheless.

  17. This was time of EST, another cult like group taking over the Bay area. It also stripped people of their dignity making them confess to all kinds of things, including wrongful thinking.

    Debbie Deem: I was in est at the time, though in Boston. It was cult-like and under fire as a cult, so the Jonestown Massacre was a big deal in that world. The head of the Boston est Center came out to give a talk before the seminar I was attending began. She was shaken, but assured us We Were Not a Cult.

    That’s a long conversation, but it was true we were in no danger of being pressured to relocate to a jungle compound, then drink cyanide if things didn’t work out.

    However, “stripped of our dignity” is a little harsh. My experience of Catholic school was worse.

    The main thing about est was the Trainer or Seminar Leader on stage was a fast-talking smoothie with indomitable confidence and unlimited stamina who could certainly out-talk and out-last any participant in the room. They were very, very well-trained. After a while one just gave up. Pay the ticket, take the ride.

    After several years of est adventures I got to see how it was set up. You were always going to lose to the guy or gal up front — just like Catholic school — and the answer was always going to be more indoctrination — just like Catholic school.

    I did get good stuff from est. There was a rock-hard teaching to accept the world as it is, not as one would wish it, and accept one’s responsibility in that world, not make excuses. That’s a well-used tool in my toolbox. est wasn’t the only place to get that, but it was where I did.

  18. Most people remember the horrific suicides – which in my post I explain were less suicides and more like a massacre…

    neo: It might amuse you to learn there was a San Francisco band which called themselves “The Brian Jonestown Massacre” after Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones) and Jonestown.

    BJM offers what is called “shoegaze music” — dreamy, post-sixties psychedelic music, not unlike the smoother Pink Floyd. Kinda wild.

    –Brian Jonestown Massacre, “You Look Great When I’m F***ed Up”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmhPUFQ8vWo

  19. However, “stripped of our dignity” is a little harsh. My experience of Catholic school was worse.

    Pity for your teachers you were a problem child.

  20. A colleague of mine who had been in both the Army and in EST compared EST to basic training.

    It makes sense that any system that seeks to achieve conformity would use the same basic techniques. Clearly, it’s not always bad. Basic training creates a common bond among fit, healthy soldiers that can now be trained. EST, I’m told by those who appreciated it, created a sense among attendees that they had untapped strengths that they could take advantage of by learning personal discipline. (Correct me, huxley, if your experience was different.) Catholic schools reportedly create disciplined students who often learn much more than the undisciplined students in most public schools.

    Some would say it’s always wrong to use such techniques. Others would say it’s never wrong, that discipline is of fundamental importance. Maybe it depends on how you use it, and what you build on it.

    I don’t have any experience with Catholic schools. The data suggests they do a very good job. But a friend of mine who went to Catholic school absolutely considers the church a cult — she was told at a young age that she should submit to torture rather than renounce her faith (which she didn’t even have yet, so all that did was frighten her).

    The big difference between those examples and our current situation is that most of us did not choose to become part of BLM or any of the other cult-like groups in the news these days. And yet we find ourselves subject to the brainwashing, and many of us are jumping right in and becoming active participants. It resembles a cult, but it also resembles mass hysteria.

    I have a hard time understanding how that is possible, except to note the obvious, that the drumbeat of ideological conformity has been growing for decades.

    I would be very interested in hearing further thoughts on this from neo.

  21. What a lot of the world thinks are faults with the United States like the 1st amendment and the 2nd amendment and the whole bill of rights are the features which have made us a truly unique nation. The rest of history with few exception have been top down control with royalty kings, queens, various nobility, religious leaders, warlords and cast systems controlling the destiny of the people and of course indigenous stone age tribal people engaged in perpetual warfare with their neighbors like the folks in the Western Hemisphere when the Europeans crossed the Atlantic which the protestors seem to think should never have been allowed (allowed by whom?) to happen.

    We do know that slavery was world wide at the time the Spanish and Portuguese were bringing ten times the number of black Africans over to the new world where the indigenous tribes all practiced slavery, among the American Indians well after the Civil War where the Cherokee, slave owners, one of the Civilized tribes were some of the last Confederate troops to surrender. These protestors and I suspect a lot of the college professors have no idea about the progression of history that went through the freeing of slaves, segregation and then the well intention efforts to bring diverse people into the mainstream prosperous living standards of the majority of US citizens.

    At no time in history have so many people lived such comfortable safe lives with adequate shelter including running water and sewage, affordable food, decent health care (we did have a safety net for the poor before it was torn apart by the Democrats 11 years ago) yep wealthy people had more stuff and because the politicians on both parties decided to stop protecting our jobs in the US and allowed a small number of companies to destroy main street America by tearing apart the Fair Trade Act and allowing large monopolies to form, the work good old ‘Trust Buster’ Teddy Roosevelt did taking down Standard Oil and others has been forgotten because Teddy saw the world at the turn of the last century through the eyes of all of the people at that time.

    All of my rambling above was to set the stage for the point of my posting this morning and that is, many young people under 40 years old don’t have an inkling about how this nation came to be the richest, most dynamic nation in all of history, a nation that reached out during the last century to help keep democracy going during several wars and because we tried to fight kind wars after WWII we were not successful. My thinking is we should never have put boots on the ground in Asia or the Middle East and our State Department was undermined all the way by the dumb assed thinking that all nations were at heart like us and wanted democracy. The desire to live free and own your own destiny was a unique idea that worked in the USA because we had some founding fathers who built a system of check and balances based upon the idea that power started at the bottom with people. The French wanted liberty and kept messing their government up and of course they wanted to grantee equality from the beginning instead of equal opportunity which are two different paths. We are in for a very rough ride and this next election might help stabilize some things if the conservatives win but I am thinking that will only fuel the discord and if the left wins and tries to continue to tear apart our basic rights that will end in discord.

    Non of the Democrats past and present are trying to slow down the destruction and calm down this storm, instead there is a lot of organization and money keeping this fired up and it will not go away. Younger people who have been programed for two generations to despise their own country will probably never know what we know and during the past five months I have finally seen what decades of undermining education has now brought us. We all see the world from our own perspective and mine is a conservative Texan who has lived most of his life in conservative states assuming most of the people think kind of like I do and recently I woke up and discovered I was wrong, they don’t want to see fair elections with a secret, sacred ballot and they don’t want to uphold our bill of rights because they want social justice at any price. They have picked a different hill to die on and I think a lot of them are in it to the end without having any idea about the devastation that might occur reaching that end instead they live in a dream world of equality at any price. Damn I hope I am wrong with my pessimism this morning.

  22. Why would anybody think that BLM or ANTIFA, any leftist / socialist group (which includes, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) or Nazi Party) or groups like the KKK does not have all the characteristics of a deeply held religious belief?
    The only difference betwixt a religion and extremist groups is that the extremists really believe they ARE God; infallible.
    And all that is needed is for everybody else – the unwashed masses – to conform, willingly or otherwise- to to the diktats of the prophets (e.g., Lenin, Marx, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Chavez, Pol Pot, et. al. )
    The “true believers” are so arrogant, and stupid (so much so they do not even entertain the possibility they can be wrong) that facts and data are meaningless. They have an “answer” to any and all objections one could bring to their attention.

    This is why talking to a liberal progressive or a leftist gets you nowhere; you can have a more meaningful discussion with a pebble.

    In “The True Believer, The Nature of Mass Movements,” by Eric Hoffer he points out the common personality characteristics of all those who join radical groups. These personality characteristics transcend the religious or political ideology one pursues and are common (e.g., the need to belong to something, the need to have a cause, the need to fill a void within one’s life, etc), to those who join radical movements.
    This is why it was noticed in 1930s Germany , that the most zealous Nazi’s were former communists.

    Given the latest round of rioting, etc – all taking place whilst demokrats refuse to condemn them of course (why should they? they SUPPORT the rioters !!) will have zero affect on demokrat voters.
    They will all cast their votes for Obama II (Biden is merely the front man; he is senile and everybody knows it. His “advisors” – Obama, et. al. – will be running the show).

    The only down side to the rioting in Seattle is that the rioters did not burn down the homes of the Seattle Mayor and of the Governor of the State, among others’.

    If this had happened, then man-oh-man, then the demokrat party leaders would have really come down super hard on Trump !!

  23. Why would anybody think that BLM or ANTIFA, any leftist / socialist group (which includes, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) or Nazi Party) or groups like the KKK does not have all the characteristics of a deeply held religious belief?

    Because they’re not the least bit interested in anything transcendant. They’re just brigands and political fanatics.

  24. I see that Bret Weinstein has already been mentioned, but his brother Eric had a great thread on the Founding Fathers v Jim Jones: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1274019314060808198.html
    He focuses on Hyacinth Thrash, a Jim Jones follower who came to recognize the madness of his movement, and Eric sees the current crop of progressives are blind to their movement’s inevitable outcome.
    “You see there is a choice between the the backward slaver George Washington & Civil Rights progressive Rev Jim Jones. The choice is obvious: one left a terribly flawed blueprint for future equality called the United States. And one left a flawless blueprint for death: Jonestown.”

  25. Accentuate the positive Neo.

    The US Appeals Court has ordered Ol’ Emmett to dismiss the case vs Flynn !

  26. huxley:
    your anti-Catholic school attitude troubles me. Perhaps that was in the past and is no longer so. If you still believe Catholic schooling was awful, you are not blessed by wisdom but burdened by unresolved resentment.
    Anyone who did EST is suspect for a loose hinge, IMO. Based on the people I know who did it.
    The searches for a false god abound by people who really wish to be their own god, a god of whom they approve, who meets all their criteria for god-ness. My brother is one such, often wrong, very intolerant of disagreement, but never in doubt. No Deity, no Creator for him.

  27. I never attended Catholic schools, but my best friend did until high school. She told me she was sick to her stomach every morning before school and cried all the way during her half mile walk to school. This was in the 50’s and 60’s. The nuns behavior terrified her.

  28. Pity for your teachers you were a problem child.

    Art Deco: Well, if you’re going to get personal…

    Nope. I was a quiet, straight-A student, who didn’t get into trouble, but was horrified by what I saw.

    I must say you seem a lot like the people who ignored the routine corporal punishment and vicious humiliation of children at the Catholic schools I attended. Later on I discovered my friends were being hit upon by priests.

    But apparently that would be OK with you and you would blame the children, as you just blamed me without knowing me.

    It fits your commenting style: “I am the Authority. I don’t have to address anyone by name nor provide any cites for what I say. I am above all that because I am the Authority. Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”

    When all the Catholic scandals started coming out, I was never surprised for a moment.

  29. huxley, your anti-Catholic school attitude troubles me. Perhaps that was in the past and is no longer so. If you still believe Catholic schooling was awful, you are not blessed by wisdom but burdened by unresolved resentment.

    Cicero: Spare me the lecture. I know what I saw and experienced.

    I know today’s Catholic schools are different, at least the ones I went to. They are largely secularized, more expensive and more like prep schools to get into good colleges. (Nothing wrong with that.)

    From that I can tell nuns, priests and brothers don’t teach K-12 much anymore. I’m not sure if that’s because the American ones have aged out because so few Americans are taking Holy Orders these days or whether the Church, understandably, is limiting their legal exposure because of the scandals.

  30. She told me she was sick to her stomach every morning before school…

    Meemsie: That was me for the morning and much of the schoolday at Catholic school. I’m sure it was all my fault.

  31. “I did get good stuff from est. There was a rock-hard teaching to accept the world as it is, not as one would wish it, and accept one’s responsibility in that world, not make excuses. That’s a well-used tool in my toolbox. est wasn’t the only place to get that, but it was where I did.” huxley

    Are you certain it was est and not your exposure to Catholicism? I went to public school in the 60’s-70’s but was raised a Catholic, at least until age 12. My husband was raised Catholic also (attended church til age 18…a requirement.) When we met, 1976, neither one of us attended any church and we lived together, had our 1st child before we were married, but in 1982 we were married in the Catholic church but didn’t attend until we went back to it (1996) following 10 years in the evangelical church. We homeschooled our kids but our sons attended an all-boys Catholic high school. I only bring this up to say we all (our entire family) operate with that well-used toolbox you cite (which you will find in the Catechism) and have nothing like est in our life but most certainly share the exposure to Catholicism.

  32. However, life is usually more complicated than can fit into a screenful of text. I did get a good education at Catholic school, for which I am grateful, and I did meet some lovely Catholics then and now. Here’s a poem I wrote in appreciation for one of my teachers:
    __________________________________
    For Sister Miriam Joseph

    We called you MJ behind your back. You were different—a young woman with a quick laugh and a New York accent. You replaced Mrs. Mertz after she retired from teaching Latin. You talked about your life in Japan, that you had parachuted, and that you loved James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” insisting that it was not dirty and we must read it.

    And anytime we wanted a break from “The Gallic Wars,” we could slide in a question about God or faith or religion, and you would smile, knowing full well that we were playing for time, and you would answer because that’s what you really had to teach.

    You were too good for us and our school was no “Dead Poets Society”. We were not galvanized to spirit or thought or action. We laughed about you and ignored you, caught up in pep rallies and hormones and who was popular and who was not.

    It took me ten years to finish “Ulysses.”

    It took me thirty years to hear you talk about God.

  33. Nope. I was a quiet, straight-A student, who didn’t get into trouble, but was horrified by what I saw.

    No one knows you’re a pig on the internet.

  34. And once again Art Deco proves huxley’s point:

    The line from the cartoon is “no on knows you are a ‘dog’ on the internet” but to make it more of an insult to huxley, Art Deco chooses to use “pig.”

    One must not question the authority.

  35. Pig:
    Intelligent.
    Perceptive.
    Intuitive.
    Sociable.
    Friendly (Or can be; no, we’re not talking about boars.)
    Diverse.
    Clean (Yes, pigs who are true to themselves are clean. It’s just that they find themselves in these situations that, well, you know…)
    Love truffles. (Good taste! Of course they eat a lot of junk food and offal stuff….)
    Love acorns.
    Adventurous (Have been known to fly on occasion.)

    Quite an amazing creature, actually.
    Doesn’t get as much credit as it really ought to.

    It just might be time to reread “Charlotte’s Web”. (Well, maybe after “1984”.)

  36. “…Flynn…”

    The news about Michael Flynn is stupendous. And yet, and yet, it’s still not over….

    Still, I was almost certain that the decision would go the other way, at least until the next scheduled act of the farce on July 16(?)

    Nonetheless, I don’t believe that Sullivan will let go so easily.
    For example:
    https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1275843598588747777
    Hope I’m very much wrong about this as well.

    Wrap up from Conservative Treehouse:
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/24/flynn-case-update-appeals-court-orders-judge-sullivan-to-dismiss-flynn-case/#more-195222

    And Technofog:
    https://twitter.com/techno_fog?lang=he

  37. One must not question the authority.

    In case you hadn’t noticed, huxley is attempting to support a proposition based on personal biography that no one can verify. That’s the argument from authority.

    You might try being more selective in your stalking.

  38. huxley,
    I live in one of the most Catholic cities in the USA, and here our parochial schools are not run by secular pseudo-Catholics, nor are students taught by them.

    Parochial schools are usually significantly less costly than secular private schools, nationwide.

    In another city, Durham NC, in another time, we sent our elementary-grade kids to a Catholic school, where they were very well-treated and well-educated, in order to avoid busing across town, which Federal judges had decreed in their infinite, caring wisdom, destroying neighborhood schools (to which my young kids had safely walked). I was not Catholic then but was surely glad Immaculata existed. It is still there, despite the surrounding sea of Duke’s secular progressivism and black Protestantism.

    BTW, Duke Univ was founded by a Methodist, who erected a neo-cathedral called Duke Chapel for Christian worship. Muslims worship in it today. Christians are few in number. I couldn’t live there now, any more than I could live in Boston.

  39. In case you didn’t notice, the Authority has no clothes (that would be you). Stalking means whatever you say it means (the ever useful Art Deco dictionary). Got any stats to cite? 🙂

  40. Art Deco:

    Quit playing games, please, and the pettiness.

    “Pig” is clearly meant as an insult.

  41. “One must not question the authority.”

    om, now I mostly just scroll through the ass burgers.

  42. “There was a rock-hard teaching to accept the world as it is, not as one would wish it, and accept one’s responsibility in that world, not make excuses. That’s a well-used tool in my toolbox. est wasn’t the only place to get that, but it was where I did.” – huxley

    I read this not too long ago, and it was a very good exposition of those particular tools. The author selects from the writings of major Stoics, ancient Greek and more recent well-known followers of the discipline, and explains what they were saying and why their philosophy still has practical value. I highly recommend it.

    The Practicing Stoic : by David R Godine (2018)

  43. That’s a nice poem, huxley, thanks for sharing it. A friend of mine who went to Catholic school had a favorite teacher who was different from the other nuns in her support of the students. It made a big difference in his life.

    Thanks also for sharing your experience. It’s so helpful to have such stories, I find that I learn a lot more from specifics than from generalizations.

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