Thread by @wrongformat

1) The Choice: Keep Drinking the Kool-Aid, or Walk Away
Obama-Led Resistance=Jim Jones Peoples Temple Redux

To cult preacher Jones, the USA was the Antichrist and capitalism was "the Antichrist system." The "Divine Principle" equated with Love, and Love equated with Socialism.

2) Temple members, most of whom were African American, were unwittingly and gradually subjected to sophisticated mind control and behavior modification techniques borrowed from post-revolutionary China and North Korea.

3) In 1972, the San Francisco Examiner and Indianapolis Star began publishing a multi-part Temple exposé. Jones threatened the papers with libel suits, and both canceled the series after the fourth of a planned seven installments.

4) Jones later made grants to several California papers, touting support for the 1st Amendment. In 1977, wife Marcy Jones admitted "Jim used religion to get some people out of the opiate of religion" and slammed a Bible on the table yelling, "I've got to destroy this paper idol!"

5) After the Temple mobilized volunteers and voters to elect Democrat George Moscone Mayor of San Francisco in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.

6) During the Peoples Temple's halcyon days, Rev. Jim Jones was also politically and socially tight with a Democrat Who's Who, including Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Jerry Brown, Mervyn Dymally, Willie Brown, Art Agnos, and Harvey Milk.

7) Ex-member Tim Carter said Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Guyana was established as a refuge from "creeping fascism."

"Corporations, or multinationals, were getting much larger, their influence was growing within government, and the United States is a racist place."

8) In 1977, before publishing an article criticizing Jones and the Temple, New West magazine editor Rosalie Wright read it to him over the phone, ostensibly because of "all the support letters we received on your behalf, from the Governor of California (Jerry Brown)" and others.

9) "We leave tonight. Notify Georgetown (Guyana)." -- Jones note to Peoples Temple members, 900 of whom ultimately joined him at his Jonestown commune.

In Nov. 1978, Rep. Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate allegations of of child abuse and people held against their will.

10) Several Temple members seized the chance to flee Jonestown with Ryan. The morning of 11/28/78, as Rep. Ryan's party was boarding the plane at the Port Kaituma airstrip, gunmen dispatched by Jones ambushed the group, killing Ryan, three journalists, and one of the defectors.

11) That evening, Jones told his followers at Jonestown the time had come, and commanded them to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. In all, 918 people died, including 276 children who were poisoned by their own parents.

12) Jones had ordered Michael Prokes to transfer a suitcase of Peoples Temple funds to the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Four months after the Jonestown mass suicide, Prokes held a press conference, at which he read a statement and then fatally shot himself in the head.

13) In 1979, the Associated Press reported a U.S. Congressional aide's claim that there were "120 white, brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit." Sound familiar, Rep. Steve Scalise?

14) Historians have said Temple members were unwittingly and gradually subjected to sophisticated mind control and behavior modification techniques perfected by Communist China and North Korea.

Like those Obama's Resistance employs to stoke Trump Derangement Syndrome.

15) "It’s been a pleasure walking with all of you in this revolutionary struggle. No other way I would rather go than to give my life for Socialism, Communism and I thank Dad very, very much." Recorded statement by 1 of 918 cultists Rev. Jones commanded to drink that Kool-Aid.