"You've Been Drinking the Kool-Aid": A note to Trolls

Hey, dummies: They drank Flavor Aid (grape) at Jonestown. But, you wouldn't know this, because you don't know much. I bet most of you have no-idea what Jonestown was anyway (we don't actually understand what really happened). And how dare you disrespect the 913 human-beings that died at Jonestown. Most of them never had a chance, they were almost all poor-Blacks. That also makes your argument a racist one. Considering the People's Temple were under constant-surveillance by the FBI and the CIA (several government agencies were monitoring them, including the FCC), as well as municipal police in the states, it's safe-to-say that Jonestown was allowed to happen. Also, they weren't a cult in any classic-sense, but were a Socialist-collective that didn't accept most of orthodox Judeo-Christian tradition.

The story is very-complicated, and none of this is a defense of Jim Jones or the practices of the temple--he was a monster, we all know this. But he was allowed to fester. There is a strong-possibility that American authorities saw a great opportunity to rid-themselves a number of radicalized, desperate Black Americans. Without the context of the social movements of the 1960s-70s (and their collapse by the late-70s), you cannot understand Jonestown at all. Without the context of the Cold War, you cannot understand anything about Jonestown.You must also look at it as an event within the sphere-of-influence of the United States government of that time, an extension between the Monroe (the Western Hemisphere is America's domain) and Truman doctrines (expanding into the international realm).

On January 31st, 1950, President Truman began the creation of the NSA with a directive known as NSC-68, which called-for any means to uproot communist and socialist groups and movements throughout the world, and within the Western Hemisphere, law-be-damned. It should be noted that members of the People's Temple considered the option of fleeing to the former Soviet Union. Truman didn't ratify NSC-68 until 1953, just months after the founding of the NSA. Around this time, Jim Jones was just beginning his soup-kitchen in the slums of Indianapolis. Did two worlds collide? We don't know, but there is smoke.