The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

freely commit suicide as if it was no big deal

In our culture this may be true.

Jonestown wasn’t mainstream American culture anymore than the Jews that committed mass suicide at Masada rather than surrender, or the Japanese civilians who leaped to their deaths off the cliffs on Saipan rather than surrender to the Americans.

The key element of a mass suicide seems to be that the victims are convinced that a capitulation to whatever is stressing their existence will be worse than death.

What I got from it was that people were prescreened in a way to be likely to be unresistant to whatever methods employed upon them. The whole being tied and bound as soon as they got off the plane really got to me. The thing is, nothing is true about the story as was originally reported at the time and evidently as time progressed the story only got more twisted and distorted with half-truths & lies. The truth is there was no suicide here at all, just orchestrated subjugation and premeditated murder of innocent people.

This is a joke right. You are trying to out do The Onion. At the end of your post I was waiting for the last sentence to be. Never mind. You can not be serious. How could anybody keep something like that secret? Please, Please start using some Critical Thinking!

If this is true then how do you explain what I would consider not to stable people that committed suicide back on March 22, 1997 in Southern California?

I believe the group was call the “Heaven’s Gate”. About 30-40 people committed suicide, they all wear wearing black and tennis shoes and so forth. I believe that most if not all the followers were “Caucasian”.

I am giving you this link but I admit that I have not read the article nor I am interested to read this or other articles about people willing/wanting to die for a so call modern “leader”.

You can Google more information about this cult and the suicide… right here in Southern California. When I first read about that a while back the first thing in my head was…”… Are these people stu….?”

http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Heaven-s-Gate.html

I can see dying and fighting to protect your country, to save a child or a love one but… for a complete estranger? I think that there is something wrong in your heart, mind a body if you get to that level.

Yes, yes, I am a Christian, a Catholic (South American Catholic… which it is more like a culture no a religion…most people do not own or read the bible because the church controls what you learn about God).
The same story about what happened in Guyana intrigued me because it was the first time I came to the USA to visit and got to see the imagines of the people.

I disagree about some of the people’s conclusion about the “mind” control study with the USA and the General Public or civilians. It sounds without offending anyone including the founder of this great site that we have too much time in our hand or watching too many conspiracy movies.

I can see it happened within any military community organizations (any military from any country in the world).

I just moved to an area of Orange County California where the residents are very, very religious. There is a church/ congregation/ temples etc literally every 4 blocks. I joke that there are more religious entities than people. I believe in God and I am very conservative. Our kids are being raised very conservative and believers of God and so forth. We do not seem to be able to find a Church where my husband and agreed to. But from talking to one of my ladies neighbors the other day every other word that she said was God… which is fine with me and I welcome that. But her conversation kept gearing toward comments that…” the world is going to end because of what we are doing…” That the recent earthquakes are a signal from God and are going to make the world to end on and on. I hear of couples not wanting to have children because something is going to happen and the world is going to end and so forth…

In short, what I m trying to say is that some people maybe because something is lacking in their lives and because something lacked growing up … can sometimes get involve with not so stable people and end up doing something completely unreasonable like the thing that the Americans did in Guyana, like the Heaven’s Gate people and the Waco followers.

Yes, I know the government was responsible for some of the deaths on the Waco compound but what we failed to remember is what was happening with the people inside the cult prior to the military actions on the compound. I am not approving or condoning the Waco incident, I am just saying that people that follow any so cult leaders they themselves have a loose screw. My only pain is not for the adults but for the children involve.

In conclusion. Guyana incident I strongly disagreed that is was a USA government related incident. Just people in hope/search for answers from a screw loose individual.

wow u opened my eyes!!! you should read Behold a pale Horse by william cooper, wikipedia it

Masada, David Koresh compound, Hevens gate with Bo & Peep. History is littered with mass suicides. Usually at the behest of a personality cult gone mad.
In the case of Masada it was death or slavery by the Romans.
The lesson to take awy from this is that flase religion will twist minds, unless one has a grounding in true free will worship. People are not just bags of chemicals with no purpose. Deep down we know it & seek what our lot in life is. Evil folks take advantage of that to rend & destroy lives. True Godlyness mends them.
The world is now full of false prophits in politics or religion.
JMO

I wonder how it is that these exposers of the secrets stay alive… hmmm. Obviously it must mean that they’re doing what their secret overlords want. So the question is, are they unwitting dupes or willing accomplices?

I remember Jonestown quite vividly, when the estimates rose every day of how many people were dead down there, and hearing what it was like to go retrieve the bodies. And I’ve read a good deal about it. What makes the suicides quite believable is how the people were treated by Jones. They were on starvation rations, which doesn’t do anyone’s mind any good. The place was run by Jones and a team of goons and anyone suspected of disloyalty to Jones for any reason was subject to severe punishment. In short, the normal folk in the camp were “brainwashed”, forced to believe everything Jones said on pain of death. Between threats and starvation, after a while, it’s just safer to turn off your mind and believe whatever “Dad” tells you. And if that includes “we all have to commit suicide because the government is coming to get us,” well, that’s what people are going to do.

Jones was at the root of this, no one else.

Carol:
Is it truly much much safer, or is that just false logic influenced by coercion AND mind-altering drugs?
Don’t forget the drugs, now…

You have to be careful about everything you read. Yes, there were powerful ppl in Jonestown. Yes, there were ppl related to those w/ high ranking government & military positions. Yes, Mitrione was a friend of Jones, but you’re forgetting one thing: Jones himself. He was very distrustful of the gvmnt. it is more than likely that jones just used his influence/connections to get the things he needed. Mitrione obviously found a kindred spirit in the dominating jones. I have no doubt that Mitrione helped Jones secure the Jonestown compound in Guyana. Jones, however, would not have taken kindly to any observation/ surveillance by the CIA ( which Mitrione was obviously a part of). Shortly after the massacre, there were ppl coming out of the woodwork, claiming that J-town was part of a “CIA experiment.” THe clincher here, is that is was Temple Members who believed that “Jones couldn’t POSSIBLY have been involved in the murder-suicides” and that “it must be a setup.” THen, in 1979, the “death tapes” were made public. Jones was clearly heard “foretelling” the death of the congressman (ryan)” and urging his followers to take the cyanide. “Please take the Medication” he said. Some drank, some were forcefully INJECTED. You can hear ppl struggling on the tapes. There are also minutes, sometimes seconds, of silence here of there, where it soundsd like the tape was just cut off (to minimize the fact that many didn’t go along WILLINGLY w/ the suicides, perhaps)? Then there’s the matter of “music” on the death tape. Some of the conspiracy theorists have claimed that “THe Jonestown band played gospel music while ppl stood in line to recieve the poison.” THey equated it too “a band playing on, while a ship was going down.” THe thruth is less glamorous, less stoic, and less exciting. Any of us who had old cassette tapes remember that they were notorious for “bleed over” (getting residual sounds from things recorded on the other side of the tape. Also, residuals from things previously recorded and erased).

If you visit the site called “alternative considerations of Jonestown” (maintained by family members of deceased Temple members), you will find that MUCH research has been done, to get to the truth of what happened on Nov. 18, 1978.

A series of articles, in particular, covers the “dirge” like organ sounds heard on the death tape. 3 different ppl began tackling that situation & discovered there were “shadow” sentences of speech on the tapes as well (after much time spent).

One man, Kyle Ray, began using software that would help bring out shadow fragments of bleed over; at different speeds, Jones sentences ( produced when he had a conversation over Ham radio) are clear. The other sounds (the “organ music”.. is best explained by Klye Ray himself:

“After reading Dieckman’s article, I revisited the tape and found that the “shadow” music at the end of the Q42 tape offers a coincidence more eerie than a simple violin melody. By playing the last 1:50 of the Q42 forward and speeding it up about 100%, you can hear the 1968 Delfonics song “I’m Sorry.” ”

Jonestown site address:
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/