Jonestown mass suicide

billzhao

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New documentary explores Jonestown mass suicide

4 a. ]+ f7 g( t! O' cTwenty-eight years later, what's left to say about Jonestown? Nine hundred members of a religious cult followed their fanatical leader to Guyana and willingly committed suicide by drinking a Kool-Aid-like mixture laced with cyanide.

* @7 B6 [& \+ E" w6 F& r9 x0 ?% T3 q* lWhat more could there be to the story? Plenty, it turns out.
1 G$ j$ n+ I0 |& hI watched an advance copy of the new documentary, "Jonestown," by filmmaker Stanley Nelson on Sunday, and found myself drawn deeply into a macabre tale that I had little prior knowledge of.
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Nelson interviewed more than two dozen former members of Jim Jones' controversial Peoples Temple, including some who survived the Jonestown mass suicide -- which, by the way, looks more like mass murder now. And Nelson has unearthed dramatic video and sound recordings -- never seen or heard before that shed new light on the establishment, development and downfall of the Peoples Temple, right up until the moment Jim Jones passes out the cups.
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  t0 s! K; C! U. u' O$ |The most chilling part of the film is the audio tape of Jones urging his followers to choose death over persecution. I heard, for the first time, the emotionally-pitched debate between Jones and parishioners who would rather live than die in the South American jungle. It was like a scene out of Apocalypse Now, only this time, the killing was real.
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$ q1 c' D) I! ?- tI also learned that Jim Jones didn't suddenly take a hard left onto the highway of darkness. He was deeply disturbed from childhood, and is even suspected of abusing animals, something many experts believe is a hallmark of an emerging psychopath.

What's most tragic though is that Jones' followers don't come off as a cult of religious deviants. They were -- for the most part -- earnest people, attracted to the Peoples Temple for the sense of community they couldn't find in their own lives. It gave them a feeling of belonging, though as the years wore on and Jones' insanity escalated, membership came at an ever-increasing, and in the end, ultimate price.
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