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Jonestown (Guyana Punch Line)
James "Jim" Warren Jones, apostlistic leader of The People's Temple, led hundreds of his followers to Guyana in 1977, settling into an agricultural commune dubbed "Jonestown." Beneath a banner blown by a combination of evangelism and Marxism, his Temple's foreign sanctuary purportedly offered an alternative life to an unjust and unequal United States. The dream of a socialist paradise quickly collapsed however, as Jonestown was not self sustainable. Numerous members defected and a martial law was imposed. Jim Jones long and somehow widely overlooked descent into madness culminated over the next year. Once articulate sermons became convoluted, paranoid, and megalomaniacal rants, slurred due to the effects of rampante amphetamine use. After rumors of torturous punishments inflicted on colonists for insubordination, the settlement's inability to provide for its inhabitants, and the discovery of the mutilated body of a Temple member who had discussed leaving, Congressman Leo Ryan paid a visit to Jonestown in November of 1978 with the vocal intention of investigating the alleged human rights violations taking place there.
While initially met with warmth and enthusiasm, Ryan's visit would be an unfortunate catalyst setting into motion the mass suicide/murder of over nine-hundred people. Despite rehearsals for the congressman's visit, the unrest at Jonestown as apparent. Over a short number of days the extradition of a small handful of temple members who had expressed a desire to leave had been arranged. Initially it seemed their wish would be granted, however upon their arrival at the Port Kaituma airstrip outside of Jonestown they were met by armed Temple militia who opened fire. Five members of the leaving party were killed, including Leo Ryan who was shot over twenty times. It was following this event that Jim Jones decided to implement his final course of action, another ceremoniously rehearsed act. Delivering a final sermon in the compound's central pavilion, Jonestown residents were convinced to imbibe en masse in a cocktail consisting of Flavor Aid, Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide, and Phenergan. Jones, who later joined his procession with a self inflicted bullet to the head, cited this final undertaking as a protest and "revolutionary suicide," though it is more widely regarded as the largest mass murder of American lives until the World Trade Center attacks of September 11th, 2001. More than three-hundred of the deaths were of children.
"Drinking the Kool Aid" remains a figure of speech pertaining to blind, sustained belief systems. Jokes in reference to it persist in popular culture to this date.
"What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
-James Warren Jones
The Branch Davidian Massacre
The Branch Davidian schism began in 1955 as an offshoot of the Protestant Christian, Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Church. Their views were decidedly apocalyptic, believing themselves to be living in the end times nearing the resurrection of Christ. Barring a few public outcries declaring armageddon's encroachment, the group remained largely unnoticed, secluding themselves in a compound east of Waco, TX, dubbed Mount Carmel Center after the biblically significant mountain in Israel. Among the Davidians however, a complicated power struggle had begun unfolding following an unrealized doomsday prediction and the death of their primary organizer, Benjamin Roden. Groomed to reprieve the role of church leader, Vernon Howell (who would later change his name to David Koresh) battled with Roden's son George for a number of years over dominance within their small and strange community. These battles included bizarre incidents of public slander, corpse abuse and murder. The feud was put to rest in 1989 with Howell assuming leadership after George Roden put an ax through the head of a fellow Davidian, resulting in his commitment to a mental asylum.
Howell worked rapidly in his now unchallenged role of messiah to his people. Releasing a tape entitled "New Light," he claimed that God had instructed him to gather as many women as possible to procreate with him, while other male members of their order should vow celibacy. Further instructions under God's word found the Davidians stockpiling weapons for an impending end of days scenario. By 1993 Howell (now Koresh) and his church had picked up the attentions of both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), as well as the local media. The former for suspected possession of illegal firearms, and the latter due to rumors of statutory rape and child abuse within the compound. The Waco Tribune-Herald published a report.
"If you are a Branch Davidian, Christ lives on a threadbare piece of land 10 miles east of here called Mount Carmel. He has dimples, claims a ninth-grade education, married his legal wife when she was 14, enjoys a beer now and then, plays a mean guitar, reportedly packs a 9mm Glock and keeps an arsenal of military assault rifles, and willingly admits that he is a sinner without equal." -- Opening passage of "The Sinful Messiah," Waco Tribune-Herald, 02/27/93
The morning following the piece on Koresh and his flock, the ATF commenced a follow up to a warrant for the alleged unauthorized firearms, attempting to raid the compound. Two hours of exchanging gunfire immediately ensued, though both sides claim that the opposite took the first shot. The immediate result was the wounding of Koresh and the loss of a number of ATF agents. Subsequently the FBI and Texas Army National Guard were called in to assist with the proceedings. Led by Richard Rogers, an FBI operative with a poor history of "playing army," a haphazard fifty-one day siege took place at Mount Carmel Center. On April 19th, 1993, the final push to extract the Davidians occurred with catastrophic results. After sustaining teargas and multiple hails of gunfire, the church was set ablaze from within.
Of the seventy-six Davidian casualties in the attack, autopsy findings uncovered multiple causes of death including including gunshot wounds, exposure to flame and smoke inhalation, stabbings (supposed suicides), and crushed skulls by falling bricks as the building ultimately collapsed in on itself. Among them was David Koresh, slain in an armageddon that was in a way of his own design.
