Monday, January 23, 2012

Book: A Thousand Lives

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at JonestownA Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Holy fucking shit. This book -- the first to include recently released documents collected by the FBI in the wake of the massacre -- blew my mind in terms of showing just how dangerous the mixing of church and state can be. One of the reasons that Jones got away with abuse, fraud, etc., was the fact that the church had friends in high places in government, in the United States and Guyana. Hell, Jones himself was chair of the San Francisco Housing Authority for a time, named to the position by Mayor Moscone, who he helped elect. Also, he was at the forefront of “faith-based initiatives,” encouraging members to open up group homes to house the folks being tossed out of mental institutions by dear Governor Reagan (with all of the government money going to the church of course), collecting foster children (some of whom ended up in Jonestown), feeding the homeless, helping addicts overcome. There was a perception that the group did so much good that reports of beatings, financial malfeasance, Jones’ drug use, etc., were discounted for years by authorities up. And ironically, the CIA was too worried about violating the church's First Amendment rights to investigate repeated reports from those who escaped the church that a mass suicide was being planned years before it actually happened.









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