Saturday, May 15, 2010

San Diego State religious studies department chair trying to rehabilitate Jim Jones (yes, of the Jonestown massacre)

From Jawa Report:

Hey, it was only 918 people who were forced to commit mass suicide by a politically-connected Democratic power player and Marx-spewing Leftist. Daniel Flynn at City Journal takes down Rebecca Moore's new book, "Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple".

It would be tempting to dismiss Moore, who in addition to her latest apologia has authored such titles as A Sympathetic History of Jonestown and In Defense of Peoples Temple. But like the group whose reputation she seeks to resuscitate, Moore does not operate on the margins, however marginal her views. She chairs the department of religious studies at San Diego State. When the subject of Jonestown arises, as it did recently on the 30th anniversary of the events, media outlets solicit her expertise. Stanley Nelson’s PBS documentary “The Life and Death of Peoples Temple,” for instance, featured Moore as a talking head. And she published this latest book not out of her garage but through Praeger, a respected imprint of a major publishing house. However reassuring it is to believe that all cranks are tinfoil-hatted denizens of the furthest recesses of the Internet, the examples of Jones, the darling of the San Francisco power structure, and of Moore, a tenured, media-designated authority, prove that what’s comforting isn’t always what’s true.

For years prior to Jonestown’s cataclysmic finale, unheeded voices, such as journalist Les Kinsolving’s, warned America about the raven-haired preacher feted by San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, supervisor Harvey Milk, and mayor George Moscone. In her topsy-turvy narrative, Moore seems most concerned with refuting these lonely critics. She calls the relatives of Jonestown members who exposed oppression within the Temple “apostates” and “defectors,” faulting them for failing to “consider the effect these actions might have upon residents of Jonestown.” The slain Congressman Ryan didn’t provide adequate notice for his trip and embarrassed the Temple by bringing an entourage of journalists, Moore claims. “Violence erupted because Jonestown residents believed that Ryan jeopardized their ultimate concern, which was to be in solidarity with all oppressed peoples, but especially with African Americans. He represented the power of the state and its ability to destroy the community.” This is the kind of tripe that one would have expected to hear over a Jonestown loudspeaker. Here it is in a book by a department chair at a respected university.



Here's a lesson in how an intelligent person, with, one would assume, a real grasp of the historical facts, can still cling to wrong side on what appears to be a simple issue. Jim Jones coerced his followers (918 of them) to drink poison Koolaid and die. And yet, this SDSU professor seeks to make a hero of him.

Similarly, we read professors, politicians (ex-Presidents) tell us that "Israel is an Apartheid state", when the truth is, Israel has Arab-Muslim Parliament members and Muslims live better in Israel than they do in the Palestinian territories. Additionally, Palestinians really do insist that no Jews live in Gaza or the West Bank. That's right; No Jews allowed. But somehow, to our intellectual betters, Israel is the Apartheid State.

And, when Israel kills a few Palestinians in targeted military actions in response to Palestinian violence, we are told there is a genocide going on against the Palestinian people. The other day, the head of the UN Human Rights Commission said the blockade of Gaza has created a situation worse than the Nazi death camps of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, this same UN representative seems to care not at all that the Arab Muslim government of Sudan has killed nearly 2.5 million black Christians and Animists in a real 25 year-long genocide.

One would hope that, if there is a hell, this SDSU professor, this UN Human Rights Commission rep, and this ex-President would be forced to live with the Palestinians and the Janjaweed.

4 comments:

mah29001 said...

Say...besides being an obvious cult leader that he was...wasn't he also an obvious Communist too?

The Left like to put the so-called Religious Right in bed with the Moonie cult led by "Reverand" Sun Myung Moon. But Jim Jones copied much of the same tactics the Moonies have been doing.

Why does it seem like the Left can associate themselves with cults they agree with? Even Angela Davis, notorious Communist and Communist Party USA member defended Jim Jones!

revereridesagain said...

I've heard plenty of idiotic conspiracy theories about Jonestown. And heard plenty of "religious studies chair" types make excuses for every kind of destructive, vicious cult under the sun.

But this kind of garbage starts piling up once the event is far enough in the past that a significant number of people have never even heard of it and therefore don't really care. This allows the bottom feeders such as Moore to circulate such stuff amongst the like-minded. Maybe she's like to try to rehab Charlie Manson's "family" next.

The entire Jonestown mass murder was audiotaped, and I presume Ms. Moore listened to that tape (as have I), and if she managed to come to those conclusions then she must have had her head too far up her rear to hear clearly.

And yes, this is precisely the sort of cultie camp follower who will make similar excuses for al Qaeda, the Taliban, and every other Islamic excrudescence.

Always On Watch said...

RRA,
Maybe she's like to try to rehab Charlie Manson's "family" next.

I was going to make that very same comment myself. You beat me to it.

Pastorius said...

It's the same dynamic that allows them to promote Che Guevarra as a hero now.