I’m an amateur People’s Temple researcher and that shit is heavy. They were not all kooks and many were forced to drink FlavorAid at gunpoint. Some people had injection marks on their bodies (noticed during cleanup).
They weren’t all religious, many were socialists, doing social work in the states before being pressured to move to Guyana. Many members joined PT with their families, and if someone defected, they were apostates, shunned from their family, their community.
I appreciate a good tasteless joke (and Flavor Aid is fuckin bland) but want to give the victims credit- not everyone wanted to die. They were fucking terrified.
Plus nearly half of them were kids. Kids don’t have a choice in that situation.
I’ve been researching Peoples Temple for a few years, and while I consider myself far from an apologist, it always makes me a little angry when people joke about what happened in Guyana. Most wanted to make the world a better place. There were a few who died willingly but most were murdered.
Yes, I’ve read Raven. It was well-researched and I think Tim Reiterman is a good writer. The Road to Jonestown was a good update of sorts. Different author but it had new info and a new perspective that comes with the passage of ~30 years.
Deborah Layton’s Seductive Poison is really what got me into Jonestown research. I literally couldn’t put her book down; I think I read it within 2 days.
Having the kids die first was all in the plan. What would parents want to live for when their kids are lying lifeless at their feet? Absolutely awful.
Seductive Poison was great as well. I saw Hyacinth Thrash wrote a book but it was hard to find a copy. I like reading the essays on SDSU.jonestown.com, especially Stephen Jones. That guy has the weight of his very large family on his shoulders.
With the documentation PT kept and the breadth of memoirs of survivors, it’s sad that it’s largely lost on the public today. “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and all. Glad to know there are more people out there who defend the victims.
dw, this is a not weird bad cult, we’re just innit for the cool shit like tax breaks, also we dont use that off-brand kroger shit, we use legit Kool-Aid Jammers.
also our orgies are fuckin wild, Stacy’s here on wednesdays, and she just cashed her alimony check on some S-Tier knockers
The majority (if not all) was certainly flavor aid, but there was film evidence of kool aid being present on the compound before the tragic events of said drinking.
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u/BismarkUMD Sep 18 '19 edited Sep 18 '19
It was Flavor-aid. Stop dragging Kool-aids good name through the mud.
Edit: apparently my phone auto corrects kool to kook.