Jonestown

Up until about 24 hours ago I knew precious little about this piece of Americana. But before work yesterday I spent some 2.5 hours watching a PBS documentary on the subject. It was far more disturbing than I could have imagined. I'm afraid I'm not well versed on this type of cult, so maybe he's par for the course. But Jim Jones was one creepy sick individual. There's no two ways about it. I know this is obvious to all those who know the slightest bit about him. Watching the film really fascinated me and disturbed me. I'm the first one to admit that I have a morbid curiosity which probably explains my obsession with the 1918 Flu and the Cold War. I somehow feel guilty for having a new-found interest in this. I don't like what happened in the slightest, but I'm really interested in learning more.

I also have to admit that there is a huge part of me that thinks the idea of carving out a little slice of utopia in the rain forest sounds like a Jim Dandy idea, pun intended. Lord knows the way this country is headed (ie. Paris Hilton, SUVs, health care, Iraq & politics in general, crime, etc. etc. etc.) makes me keep a suitcase packed and passport handy at all times in case I ever get the nerve to make the big move to Canada/England or fall into money and can buy my own island. On the very very uppermost layer of the surface, all of the charity work and race relations work Jones did would be admirable if he weren't such a mad man. I have to wonder if there was any part of him that believed in what he was doing just for its own sake, or if it was all entirely methodical. I tend to believe the latter, though there is a part of me that thinks all that work came from somewhere genuine somewhere deep deep DEEP down inside the man.

I could go through a list of item after item after item about what I thought was creepy and truly disturbing about what I saw, but I won't. I'll just say that at the end as they played the Death Tape over footage of the people living there and dying there, I couldn't believe the horror. Even tonight as I lay down to sleep it haunted me. I'm glad I saw it, but I think it will be a while before it leaves me.