Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Stannard, an author, musician and former lobbyist. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner. This month marks his 13th anniversary as a regular, bimonthly columnist
for the Bennington Banner.
“The ones that they take captured, they’re gonna just let them grow up and be dummies.”
– Peoples Temple member; November 1978
[H]e was so charismatic, oh so charismatic and oh so handsome. There was a time that others thought of him as someone who did well. He was successful and sought after. He was a person others looked up to, believed in and would follow him anywhere. They wouldn’t simply do his bidding, they were thrilled to do his bidding.
Jim Jones was a fanatic, likely traumatized as a child by his alcoholic, racist father. As a young person, he was fascinated with Stalin, Hitler, Mao and even Gandhi. He was a Communist sympathizer with a strong religious bent. Religion, it seemed, was his vehicle to fame and recognition. He supported integration and was accepted by the NAACP for his humanitarian work.
There came a time when things went haywire. Someone/something put sand in the gears of his mind. He came to believe that he was something he was not — the reincarnation of Gandhi, Jesus, Gautama Buddha and Vladimir Lenin. The strange little boy who held funerals for dead animals that perhaps he killed had grown into a man filled with conspiracy theories that the government, and the press, were out to get him.
On Nov. 18, 1978, the twisted thoughts of this one man collided with reality. Nine hundred nine members of the Peoples Temple drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid resulting in the largest loss of civilian life in history. Of the 909 who died that day, one-third were children, presumably murdered by their parents who were led astray by their oh-so-charismatic leader.
Those of us who were around back then could not comprehend what happened. How could nearly 1,000 people take their own lives because they were told to do so by some crazed, fanatic man with a twisted religious bent? People aren’t that dumb, are they? Sure, people can be convinced to toss one more dart at a balloon at a local fair knowing full well that they’re getting ripped off, but killing yourself and your kids on the command of another? No way. Yet it really happened. In Jonestown, Guyana, on Nov. 18, 1978, a charismatic leader convinced his followers to do exactly what he commanded them to do — to do the unthinkable.
Now you may be thinking that this was a one-off and could never happen again, but you’d be wrong. It’s happened many times before and it’s happening right now. In the past we’ve had charismatic, authoritarian leaders and we have them today. Russia has Vladimir Putin, who not only mesmerizes his followers, he kills those who openly oppose him.
With the help of a foreign country ruled by the aforementioned Putin, America has elected its own charismatic, conspiracy-theorist president, a president who has been documented to have lied to America over 1,000 times since being sworn in. He defames and denigrates our press, which has established rights in our Constitution, calling it “fake news.” He advances wild and crazy “birther” theories. He says an investigation that has yielded dozens of indictments is a “witch hunt.”
He now acts like a cornered beast who will say or do anything to get out of his self-created mess, but to many, he is their messiah. He is a man who “tells it like it is,” even though it’s a lie. It’s evident that there are people in America who will believe anything and still willingly “drink the Kool-Aid.”
There are those who won’t. What about the members of Congress who know full well something is wrong yet remain silent? They won’t drink the Kool-Aid, but will complacently sit back as others do. At what point will these leaders decide they’ve put the nation through enough unthinkable stress? Aren’t they the ones who can halt this madness or are they the ones who grew up to be dummies?
