Nov. 18, 2008
30 Years Later, Jonestown's Horror Endures
CBS News: TV Crewmember Wounded While Covering Cult Recalls The Tragic Massacre
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Play CBS Video Video The Jonestown Tragedy "Only On The Web:" The mass suicide of more than 900 followers of the Reverend Jim Jones still haunts those who witnessed the tragedy. John Blackstone reports.
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Hundreds of bodies are strewn around the Jonestown Commune in Jonestown, Guyana where more than 900 members of the People's Temple committed suicide in Nov. 1978. (AP)
California Congressman Leo Ryan went to discover the truth along with an NBC News crew. Steve Sung was the soundman.
"We thought the place would be people scared, frightened. It turned out to be just the opposite," Sung told CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. "I mean it looked like a very well-run community."
But then an elderly woman handed a reporter a note.
"The note said help us to get out of here," Sung recalled.
Others began begging to leave and order quickly turned to chaos.
"All of a sudden, they pick up rifles and start shooting at us," Sung said.
Rep. Ryan lay dead as did NBC reporter Don Harris and cameraman Bob Brown.
"I heard a real loud shot, and piercing pain on my shoulder," Sung said. "I was so scared, I didn't know what to do."
Then Sung said, "I shut my eyes, closed them pretending I was dead and they walked past me."
With armed guards ringing the compound, Jim Jones then ordered everyone - adults and children - to drink a mixture of Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
"Let's just be done with it. Let's be done with the agony of it," Jones was recorded telling his followers, whom he called to "die with a degree dignity."
The compound soon became stone silent. Bodies piled on top of bodies - over 900 in all.
Such was the scale of the horror at Jonestown that many cemeteries didn't want to accept the dead, didn't want to be associated with the tragedy, reports Blackstone. At the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Calif., 409 victims are buried in a mass grave.
One of the enduring mysteries is how Jones himself died. He did not drink the Kool-Aid. He was shot, but no one, to this day, is sure by whom.
Thirty years later, Sung, who is now a freelance video editor, still carries the physical scars from that day. But while those wounds have healed, the emotional scars remain.
"All the children are gone," Sung said. "I, I just couldn't believe it."
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- Tool,dear how true yer words are. That is why I don''t attend church. I rather go to God first then some crazy minister of the church. i AM 54. I don''t pity Jones BUT the people he locked up and used them for their money. I knew a person from Bargor Maine that died at the Waco thing that was in the news Janet Reno did her part in it. i MEMBER SOMETHING IN THE NEWS ABOUT THE PEOPLES TEMLPE, i AM NOT COMFORTFUL WITH THEM NUTS. i HAD TO DEMAND OUT IN THE MORMON CHURCH. i HOPE THE GENT WHO WAS THERE THE BEST AS I WISH HE NEVER SAW THE UGLYNESS OF A MAD MANS CONTROL.
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- Jonestown was just the first time that some Nut Case Evangelist made the people "drink the Kool Aid."
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Not likely. The only tragedy at Jonestown were the hundreds of children that were murdered by their brainwashed parents. Anytime you let ANYONE control your thinking brain, then you are lost.
Posted by kansas1946 at 10:08 PM : Nov 18, 2008
Thats why Jesus was against "Organized religion". And made it possible for you to go directly to GOD with your prayers, (Not some human Priest.)- Reply to this comment
- As far as blaming the Jones horror on religion..sick, twisted and sociopathic people will use any means available to further their goals; ***, drugs, money, God.. whatever it takes.
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That is true, but unless people are programmed to believe that a human is speaking for some superior being, God, whatever, they will not be succeptible to people like Jones. Any person of faith that does not understand that they are fully capable of reading the Bible or whatever religious text that goes along with their faith and that they don''t have to have another human telling them how to understand it, then they are going to get into trouble. - Reply to this comment
- Yup. That would have meant 1,000 more people voting for Obama. Lol. YES WE CAN! Ha ha ha.
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Posted by deathofusa at 08:31 PM : Nov 18, 2008
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Not likely. The only tragedy at Jonestown were the hundreds of children that were murdered by their brainwashed parents. Anytime you let ANYONE control your thinking brain, then you are lost. - Reply to this comment
- I have to wonder how many of you were even alive then. I know a few of you were. If you had lived then, then you might understand a little more. These were people who were looking for some kind of hope in a time when you weren''t sure if you would be alive tommorow, because everything and everyone could be incinerated with the push of a button.
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- this was a case of social darwinism. If these people were willing to follow this idiot to the death it is probably better they were not left running around among normal people.
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Posted by getoffmine1 at 04:16 PM : Nov 18, 2008
Yup. That would have meant 1,000 more people voting for Obama. Lol. YES WE CAN! Ha ha ha. - Reply to this comment
- Uh-oh..We have an educated person posting. Time to leave Oz & deal with facts. Damm, that''''s no fun.
Why is it lately that everytime you read the comments it''s a bunch of wise-guys trying be stand up comedians making smart a-- comments?
A lot of the people that died in Guyana where people trying to find meaning in life, who were suckered in by a wacko. Everybody gets suckered some time in their life. Just have some sympathy for the innocents that died and save the cute comments for your cronies. It''s getting old. - Reply to this comment
- Imagine supporting someone just because he was a good talker, promised hope, and believed in redistributing the wealth. Kind sounds familiar.
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- Guess I shot my mouth off too. Sorry about that.. didn''t mean to point fingers. It''s just that the whole Crusade (there were nine of them) thing, while "encouraged by the church, was actually instigated and carried out by the various European countries. It''s a very complicated senario muddied by social and economical factors and to lay it out as just a ''mean ol'' Catholic thing'' is a corruption of history. Now, if you want to Catholic bash, do a little research on the Inquisition; that, truly, was really a nasty piece of work. But, while you''re at it, don''t forget the the Salem Witch Trials, the 1857 Mormon Massace at Mountain Meadows or the fact that there nary lived a good ol boy KKK who didn''t sit in the front row of the Sunnyside Baptist/Calvanistic/Evangelical during Sunday morning service.
What I''m trying to say, and maybe not too well, is that men will use any vehicle available to add creedance and justification to their motley cause. Being ''on the side of the angels'' is the greatest marketing tool ever devised. And Jim Jones was a master of his trade; I just wish he had used his skills to market cereal instead of death. - Reply to this comment
- The propaganda system was allowed to show the mess-Bush tragedy is censored from the public.
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- The religous nut Jones only killed 1000 or so-petty when compared to Bush.
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- You know, I stopped drinking the Kool-Aid a long time ago... after I turned 11 I think.
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- It would be nice if, just once in a while, someone would open a history book before shooting off their mouth... Sure the Catholic religion orchestrated the crusades (1095-1272 in different campaigns) but,as Christians, they were the only game in town; Martin Luther did not begin organizing the first protestant religion until around 1517. The Crusades, while presented as ''''God''''s War," were all pretty much about reclaiming Jerusalem and keeping the Muslims (who were pretty bloodthirsty themselves)at bay.
As far as blaming the Jones horror on religion..sick, twisted and sociopathic people will use any means available to further their goals; ***, drugs, money, God.. whatever it takes.
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Posted by pepina42 at 03:20 PM : Nov 18, 2008
Answer me this? Did Catholics murder on a large scale? Cause that is the basis of my comment...not just to shoot off my mouth as you say. - Reply to this comment
- this was a case of social darwinism. If these people were willing to follow this idiot to the death it is probably better they were not left running around among normal people.
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- And now, 30 years later, 52% of Americans drank the Obama Kool-aide served up by the Liberal Media.
Cheers!
Posted by CBSisPravda at 02:31 PM : Nov 18, 2008
That''s because 52% of Americans were already sick from the Bush-aid you drank in 2000 and 2004.
And for the poster who indicated that the people of Jonestown went willingly, that''s not true. Perhaps you should read a little more about it. - Reply to this comment
- It would be nice if, just once in a while, someone would open a history book before shooting off their mouth... Sure the Catholic religion orchestrated the crusades (1095-1272 in different campaigns) but,as Christians, they were the only game in town; Martin Luther did not begin organizing the first protestant religion until around 1517. The Crusades, while presented as ''''God''''s War," were all pretty much about reclaiming Jerusalem and keeping the Muslims (who were pretty bloodthirsty themselves)at bay.
As far as blaming the Jones horror on religion..sick, twisted and sociopathic people will use any means available to further their goals; ***, drugs, money, God.. whatever it takes.
Posted by pepina42 at 03:20 PM : Nov 18, 2008
Uh-oh..We have an educated person posting. Time to leave Oz & deal with facts. Damm, that''s no fun. - Reply to this comment
- It would be nice if, just once in a while, someone would open a history book before shooting off their mouth... Sure the Catholic religion orchestrated the crusades (1095-1272 in different campaigns) but,as Christians, they were the only game in town; Martin Luther did not begin organizing the first protestant religion until around 1517. The Crusades, while presented as ''God''s War," were all pretty much about reclaiming Jerusalem and keeping the Muslims (who were pretty bloodthirsty themselves)at bay.
As far as blaming the Jones horror on religion..sick, twisted and sociopathic people will use any means available to further their goals; ***, drugs, money, God.. whatever it takes. - Reply to this comment
- Sorry for the double post. The "publish" button froze for like 10 minutes.
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Posted by Questionnews at 03:09 PM : Nov 18, 2008
No worries, it''s happened to me - Reply to this comment
- Sorry for the double post. The "publish" button froze for like 10 minutes.
- Reply to this comment
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