Glenn Beck: Drinking the Kool-Aid

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/18391/

GLENN: Yesterday was a big anniversary. Most people didn't celebrate it. I didn't have my Jim Jones tree up. You remember Jim Jones, right? When I say Jim Jones and drink the Kool-Aid, when I say drink the Kool-Aid, what kind of movement comes to mind? If you've drank the Kool-Aid, most -- you know what? I bet we have some younger listeners that are thinking, "I've heard that before" but they don't even know who Jim Jones is. They don't know where "Drink the Kool-Aid" came from. I'm going to turn your world upside down unless you happen to really know the truth behind Jim Jones, and most people don't.

Yesterday was the anniversary. November 17th, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to some. November 18th, 1978, Jones had orchestrated the killings of 918 people. He was a leftist. Did you know that? Did you know what he really stood for, or are you just thinking that Jim Jones is a Christian cult leader? The parallels on Jim Jones and today are staggering.

November 18, 1978, after he killed 918 people, somehow or another he went from what he was known as especially in his home area of San Francisco, he moved in the eyes of Americans from an American leftist to an evangelical Christian fanatic. It was the Christian in him that did it. We've seen this happen over and over and over again, socialist dreams ending in ghoulish nightmares and then conveniently shifted. They shift everything into a commentary on organized religion and how evil organized religion is. It's important for those who have eyes and those who have ears to hear and eyes to see that they see history beginning to repeat itself. Even the Nation magazine represented at the time, the Temple -- Jim Jones' Temple -- was as much of a left wing political crusade as a church. Let me say that again. "The Temple was as much a left wing political crusade as a church." I want you to see if you can put any of the people that you are currently seeing out in today's political landscape into any of these characters from 1978. In the course of the 1970s the Jim Jones church social program grew steadily more disaffiliated from what Jim Jones came to regard as fascist America. Jim Jones was against fascist America and their social programs drifted rapidly towards outspoken communist sympathies, so much that the last will and testament of the people's temple, the people's temple and its individual members left notes. They bequeathed millions of dollars in assets to... do you know? The people, 918 of them that were killed by that crazy religious Christian preacher, after they drank the Kool-Aid, who did they leave their millions to? The Soviet Union. As Jones expressed to a Soviet diplomat upon his visit to Jonestown months before the suicides took place, quote: For many years we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known that the United States government is not our mother but the Soviet Union was our spiritual mother land.

I'm trying to get my arms around the spirituality of the former Soviet Union. "Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister only to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary. He knew he could bring the message of socialist redemption to Christians. Quote: I decided how can I demonstrate my Marxism. This is Jim Jones speaking. "The thought was infiltrate the church."

Try to think back. Is there anybody that you have heard that is preaching Marxist philosophies in church? Is there anyone who is bringing the Marxist philosophies and doing it with anger and bitterness against the United States? Have you seen anyone like that on the horizon? Have you seen anyone who is influencing others, whoever those others may be? Unless one counts his drug induced bouts with claiming that he was the Messiah, Jones didn't believe in God. A people's temple. At one point the people in the people's temple were a little shocked because, you know, a lot of them believed in God. But he dramatically threw the people down on the ground at one point and he said, no one's going to come out of the sky; no one is in heaven; there is no heaven up there; we'll have to make heaven down here ourselves.

Now here's the real tragedy of all of this. It could have been avoided. Thousands of miles north outside of the jungles, for years leading up to Jonestown, the good people and the officials of San Francisco, California looked the other way. Journalists looked the other way. Jones acted as a law unto himself in San Francisco. "So what if he abused children. So what if he sodomized a follower. So what if he tortured and held temple members at gunpoint, defrauded the government and the people of welfare and Social Security checks. He believes in socialism. Ends justify the means." The mayor of San Francisco at the time who was assassinated just days after the Jonestown tragedy actually appointed Jones to the city housing authority in 1975. Jim Jones, that crazy preacher in San Francisco, was appointed by the mayor of San Francisco to be a part of the housing authority. You see, his Marxist message really, he wasn't an extremist. He wasn't dangerous. He believed in many of the things that others believed in. He certainly wasn't dangerous. He could help us. He could help our community.

Does this sound like anyone else? Does this sound at all like -- does the name William Ayers come into it at this point? I think I've already seen the same kind of teachings from a preacher. Now is there a William Ayers character here that has been involved? In fact, they gave him all kinds of awards. He was a very popular guy. But the press was useless because the press agreed with a lot of what he said. Those members of the press that did -- well, there was one guy, Les Kinsolving, he did an eight part investigative report on the temple for the People's Examiner, 1972. His editors were pressured by Jones and the political leaders and they killed the report halfway through. The reporter said the temple was the best armed house of God in the land. He detailed the kidnapping and possible murder of disgruntled members, he exposed Jones' phony faith healing, he highlighted Jones' vile school sanctioned sex talk with children, he directed attention to the people's temple, massive welfare fraud that funded its operations. He showed how they were bilking the taxpayer and the United States government through fraud, more than six years before the tragedy in the jungle, but the press buckled and killed the story. A few years later after Jones had moved operations out of San Francisco and into the jungles of Guyana, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle penned an expose on the people's temple. Chronicle editor sympathetic to Jones spiked that piece as well. Ultimately made its way to New West magazine which, of course, everybody reads and so alarmed Jones that he departed San Francisco for his agricultural experiment because he knew how he could make a better world through Marxism. Oh, by the way, he was also not alone. I mean, it wasn't just the media. It was also -- let me see if I can name some names here. He had rent-free rent-a-rallies for liberal politicians. Jim Jones, because a lot of people could actually, he could just make people turn out, he could bring a lot of people to their alleys. So San Francisco political people like Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could snap his fingers and direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign. He was a community leader. He was a community activist. He was a community -- oh, yeah -- organizer. And it wasn't just hacks from San Francisco. He met with first lady Rosalyn Carter, vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale. He was with California governor Jerry Brown. Here's a man who killed more African-Americans than the KKK and he was awarded a local Martin Luther King, Jr. humanitarian award. He also won the praise of California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally, a state assemblyman Willie Brown. You heard that name? Angela Davis. Jesse Jackson. The Black Panthers were also with him.

You know, it's worth remembering today that long before anybody was in the jungle drinking that Kool-Aid, long before anybody was sucking that back, there's a lot of people in Washington and the political circles and the media that drank that Kool-Aid. And by the way, just in case you think I've made all of this up and just in case you think, "Oh, well, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Marxism, he doesn't know what a Marx -- he was a Christian zealot!" Let's let the words of some of those who didn't die but were there in the jungle, there were with him in San Francisco, let's let their words speak.

GLENN: By the way, this information just beautifully laid out by Dan Flynn and we're going to include this in our newsletter today. You must read it, absolutely amazing in the parallels. To me at least, to me the Marxist preacher, the Marxist hero of the city, the guy who's going to help turn everything around, William Ayers, just completely dismissed. The media, not paying attention at all. Dismissing, "Oh, it's no danger, it's no danger." And then, of course, the turning on Christians. That's the only piece that's still remaining. That's the only piece that's out there. I mean, it's coming. And this is why I've been saying you've got to know who you are. This is why I've been saying for a while please, please, Catholics, Jews, Muslims that actually are, you know, not trying to kill people, Mormons, Baptists, Lutherans, all of, everybody, Hindus, we must come together as a people of faith. There is an attack coming on religion. There is an attack on traditional values. There is an attack that is coming on people who believe in the Constitution. You don't have to believe what I believe. That's okay. But every time these socialist nightmares go bad, it ends in millions of deaths. Every time one of these socialist nightmares go down, all, you know, anybody who's following from 10 to 918 to 50 million in Stalin's case, dead. And it's always blamed. Always, always blamed on people of faith. I put my faith in people, at least leaders.

GLENN: I don't want anybody left with the wrong impression that I think there isn't anybody preaching about drinking poison Kool-Aid right now and cyanide. What I think that they are preaching right now is just as deadly and that is dependence, and dependence on others and dependence on the government and Marxism. Listen to this audio again and put it into that context.

VOICE: We turned our paychecks over every time we got paid and then we got an allowance, $5 a week.

VOICE: If I had to go to the doctor, it was taken care of. If I had to go to the dentist, it was taken care of. If I needed clothes, that was taken care of.

VOICE: You tend to not really think for yourself, and I did allow Jones to think for me because I figured if he had the better plan. I gave my rights up to him, as many others did.

GLENN: You hear that, we had healthcare, we had a dentist. They thought for us. How many people do you know that aren't thinking for themselves? Think for yourself. Believe in yourself. Where are we as a nation? Where are we as a people? We've come so far. And in the last 100 years we have just, just started to just say, "Okay, well, whatever, they can take that; I don't have to think about." Why are there homeless on the streets in New York? Why are things so bad in New York? Because we let the government of New York take care of everything. When you're living in a small town, you see a problem, you pick it up. You fix it yourself. You do something. Here the government is going to take. We just think they've got the better answer. How many times have you heard about the bailout? I don't know what to do. They know better than I do. And they're robbing us, in the middle of the night. It is just as deadly as anything you could drink out of a bucket of Kool-Aid. It is the dangers of Marxism. It's poison.