Jonestown mass suicide

billzhao

* d3 l+ @! E1 N0 `1 K
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HTtLHgU9tY
5 {: h- O2 R  x8 f4 L
. n$ @. R' {, @& p
CNN documentary

9 A7 b; G7 K# L' r7 m: I' R7 CNew documentary explores Jonestown mass suicide
) K  B; E# H4 w; E6 M$ C) L" ~6 g
Twenty-eight years later, what's left to say about Jonestown? Nine hundred members of a religious cult followed their fanatical leader to Guyana and willingly committed suicide by drinking a Kool-Aid-like mixture laced with cyanide.

What more could there be to the story? Plenty, it turns out.
+ J0 H+ F4 l( G% HI watched an advance copy of the new documentary, "Jonestown," by filmmaker Stanley Nelson on Sunday, and found myself drawn deeply into a macabre tale that I had little prior knowledge of.

' M) f' w" O: K7 G6 E7 H4 uNelson interviewed more than two dozen former members of Jim Jones' controversial Peoples Temple, including some who survived the Jonestown mass suicide -- which, by the way, looks more like mass murder now. And Nelson has unearthed dramatic video and sound recordings -- never seen or heard before that shed new light on the establishment, development and downfall of the Peoples Temple, right up until the moment Jim Jones passes out the cups.

/ J3 W: U) x  @2 HThe most chilling part of the film is the audio tape of Jones urging his followers to choose death over persecution. I heard, for the first time, the emotionally-pitched debate between Jones and parishioners who would rather live than die in the South American jungle. It was like a scene out of Apocalypse Now, only this time, the killing was real.
. i! G- q( _$ n
I also learned that Jim Jones didn't suddenly take a hard left onto the highway of darkness. He was deeply disturbed from childhood, and is even suspected of abusing animals, something many experts believe is a hallmark of an emerging psychopath.

What's most tragic though is that Jones' followers don't come off as a cult of religious deviants. They were -- for the most part -- earnest people, attracted to the Peoples Temple for the sense of community they couldn't find in their own lives. It gave them a feeling of belonging, though as the years wore on and Jones' insanity escalated, membership came at an ever-increasing, and in the end, ultimate price.