Jonesing for Utopia

Holy Watermelon

The cult of Jim Jones, known as the Peoples Temple, is only one of many dangerous groups to deliberately shuffle off their mortal coils in large concerted efforts, but theirs was the most impactful. They are famous for "Drinking the Kool-Aid," an unfortunate and insensitive misnomer...

After leading his church to Guyana, in 1978 they became the victims of the single greatest loss of American life in a non-military action until the 9/11 WTC attacks. Jones got a lot of his ideas from Father Divine, from the Peace Mission, which he eventually tried to take over...

Jimmy was deeply religious in his youth, though his belief in God faded as he grew up. He was a Methodist preacher for a while, and later a Pentecostal preacher. He loved telling people how to live their lives, but he was one of those people who only did what was right under the threat of punishment for misbehavior.

Jim Jones was a serious communist, interested in building a racially diverse "rainbow family", but he was also a doomsday prepper, spouting some serious incel philosophy, which is on-brand for how things ended. While not all negligent parents raise mass murderers, but all mass murderers have negligent parents.

While Jimmy claimed to be the only heterosexual person on the planet, he has been known to rape men and masturbate for a all-male audience.

It's all great until it isn't. If your community asks you to be willing to kill yourself at a moment's notice, you are in a dangerous cult. Some of Jones' followers weren't present for the massacre, but received orders by radio to commit revolutionary suicide. Some of these faithful followers took the opportunity to murder others before taking their own lives.

Family of victims and survivors of the massacre find the phrase "Drink the Kool-Aid" offensive, and rightly so. Making light of such a tragedy is a poke at a deep wound. It's also an odd case of brand confusion: the real juice that was mixed with cyanide was Flavor-Aid.

Jones claimed that a nuclear attack was coming, and he was able to convince people to move away from their home, eventually to Guyana. When people got concerned, they took their problem to congress. Unfortunately, having the government come to take some children away is a great catalyst for the worst action any cult could take.

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