On Nov. 18, 1978 in Jonestown in Guyana, a city he started and was named after him, the “Rev.” Jim Jones induced 912 of his followers to “drink the Kool-Aid” spiked with Valium and cyanide, which is where we get that phrase. (Some accounts say it really was Flavor-Aid; other accounts say both drinks were used.)

I remember this well because at the time I was studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and read everything I could about the massacre in the California newspapers, which thoroughly covered it because of the state connection and Jones’ prominence in politics here.

The “Rev.” Jones actually was an atheist communist con artist who used religion to build a personality cult around himself. Watch this YouTube of him and followers praising the Soviet Union singing the Soviet anthem:

Bay Area Democrats

Jones also was deeply plugged into the Bay Area and U.S. Democratic political establishments.

According to a 2012 article on Salon, a liberal website:

“Jim Jones, the strange and charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, proved a master at politically wiring San Francisco in the mid-1970s….

“Jones soon learned that his control over a well-organized, mixed-race army of some 8,000 dedicated followers gave him major stature with San Francisco’s liberal elite. Redevelopment had bulldozed the Fillmore’s political power into the ground. But now this strange white man with the hipster shades, Indian-black hair, and cadences of a black Bible-thumper seemed to be erecting a new political power line into the rubble-strewn, crime-ridden no-man’s-land. Jones could be counted on to deliver busloads of obedient, well-dressed disciples to demonstrations, campaign rallies, and political precincts. The city’s liberal Burton machine — run by congressional powerhouse Phil Burton — quickly identified the Peoples Temple juggernaut as a potentially game-changing ally in its long battle to take over city hall.

“It was Burton ally Willie Brown – a rising force in California’s state capital — who first recognized that Jones’s organization could play a pivotal role in his friend George Moscone’s run for mayor….

“In the December runoff between Moscone and [conservative Republican John] Barbagelata, Peoples Temple went even further to secure victory for its candidate. On the eve of the election, Jones filled buses with temple members in Redwood Valley and Los Angeles and shuttled them to San Francisco. Security at polling places was lax on Election Day, and many nonresidents were able to cast their ballots for Moscone, some more than once. ‘You could have run around to 1200 precincts and voted 1200 times,’ said a bitter Barbagelata later, after losing by a whisper of a margin. But he was not the only one who claimed that the Peoples Temple stole the election for George Moscone. Temple leaders also claimed credit.

“Moscone at first tried to appease him with a harmless post on the human rights commission. But the temple leader insisted on a position that had more clout, and the mayor decided he was in no position to alienate Jones. In October 1976 Moscone announced that he was naming Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority, which oversees the operation of the city’s public housing. The agency, the largest landlord in the city, was a notorious maze of corruption, and it provided Jones’s organization with ample opportunity for shady self-dealing. A few months later, Moscone pulled strings to promote Jones, making him chairman….”

Jones was a little bipartisan, although not deeply involved in Republican politics the way he was with Democrats:

“But Jones was also happy to exchange mutually complimentary correspondence with the offices of then-former Gov. and future President] Ronald Reagan and statesman Henry Kissinger.”

And this presidential connection:

“During the 1976 presidential campaign, Jones wangled a private meeting with Jimmy Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, at the elegant Stanford Court Hotel on Nob Hill, arriving with a security contingent that was larger than her Secret Service squad. Later Jones accompanied Moscone and a group of Democratic dignitaries who climbed aboard vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale’s private jet when it touched down at San Francisco International Airport.”

Jerry Brown

And then- and current-Gov. Jerry Brown would not be left out of the fun:

“Governor Jerry Brown sang the preacher’s praises. Congressman John Burton, Phil’s brother, lobbied the governor to appoint Jones to the high-profile board of regents, which oversaw California’s sprawling public university system. San Francisco Supervisor – now U.S. Senator — Dianne Feinstein accepted an invitation to lunch with Jones and to tour Peoples Temple.”

And Harvey Milk, later assassinated with Moscone:

“But no political figures were more gushing in their praise of Jones than Willie Brown and Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s rising tribune of gay freedom. Milk, a perennial candidate for office until he finally won a supervisor’s seat in 1977, aggressively sought Jones’s political blessing. ‘Our paths have crossed,’ Milk wrote Jones during an earlier campaign for supervisor, in a letter filled with the kind of awed reverence that the cult leader demanded from his followers. ‘They will stay crossed. It is a fight that I will walk with you into . . . The first time I heard you, you made a statement: “Take one of us, and you must take all of us.” Please add my name.’”

Podesta is from Chicago and has been a Democratic fixer and political operative for decades. So maybe he wasn’t aware of the Jonestown connection to his Democratic Party.

One question remains: As Podesta spruces up the Obama administration, will the prescription for fixing Obamacare include patients drinking the Kool-Aid?

Some budget action might take place today. But who knows.

Meanwhile, government apologist Peter Schrag charges that Republicans, “having swallowed Grover Norquist’s no-new-taxes Kool-Aid, and intimidated by a couple of Southern California radio talkers, would try to block any version of Gov. Jerry Brown’s split-the-difference budget solutions.”

But Schrag is the one who “swallowed…the Kool-Aid.” The reference is to the the 1978 massacre at Jonestown, Guyana of 918 people. Most of them were forced by the “Rev.” Jim Jones (actually a non-religious con man) to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.

Jones and his followers were left-wing Democrats tied into the state’s Democratic establishment during the first governorship of Jerry Brown. Jones even met several times with then-First Lady Rosalyn Carter, wife of liberal Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

The real Kool-Aid being drunk now in 2011 is by those who believe the state’s budget problems will be solved by a massive, $13 billion yearly tax increase for five years, costing each family $5,000 over that period.

Meanwhile, back outside Schrag’s own private Guyana-in-California mental world, the Daily News reports that we soon may be paying $5 a gallon for gasoline. Schrag probably is aware that gas prices have risen.

But our servants in the state Legislature probably missed that one because they get free cars and gasoline, courtesy of the taxpayers of California. Here are some of the models they’re currently driving (some legislators make payments above what the state pays, as noted in the link):

Calderon, Ron, D-Monterey Park: 2006 Cadillac STS

Cedillo, Gil, D-Los Angeles: 2007 Lexus RX 400H Hybrid

Cogdill, Dave, R-Modesto: 2009 Chevrolet Silverado

Florez, Dean, D-Shafter: 2007 Lexus RX 400H Hybrid

Hollingsworth, Dennis, R-Temecula: 2007 Ford Expedition

Huff, Bob, R-Diamond Bar: 2008 Cadillac CTS

Runner, George, R-Lancaster: 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Wright, Rod, D-Inglewood: used 2005 Cadillac XLR Roadster (pictured above)

GOP Redevelopment Hypocrisy

Schrag does quote Gov. Brown on the hypocrisy of most Republicans in backing the continuation of wasting $1.7 billion a year on redevelopment. As my colleague Steven Greenhut noted in his column yesterday:

California Republicans love to talk about limiting government, fighting bureaucracy and keeping taxes low, but March 17 they proved that this is nothing more than a rhetorical device. Given the opportunity to rein in the size and power of government in a tangible way, Assembly Republicans — with a sole exception — punted. They rallied to save some of the most abusive and wastrel government agencies around.

The sole exception was Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton.

If Californians had any sense, Norby would be made governor in a special election.

But too many people, beginning with Brown and Schrag and redevelopment-obsessed Republicans, would rather keep chugging the Kool-Aid.

March 29, 2011

Tonight, July 30, Gov. Arnold gave a speech before the supersecret, elitist, cultish Bohemian Grove club. Reports the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

No one other than Bohemian Club members and their guests will hear the governor’s speech, which is — like everything that transpires during the 17-day midsummer enclave — done in absolute privacy.

Plutocrats and powerbrokers, including former presidents, annually flock to the 2,700-acre wooded retreat where neither women, other than grove employees, nor outsiders of either gender are permitted.

What a joke that Arnold calls himself “the people’s governor,” a slogan he plasters across every state Web site with his picture on it.

And isn’t the guy supposed to be a sensitive feminist? But no women are allowed at the Bohemian Grove. What’s with that?

A lot of conspiracy theories swirl around the Bohemian Grove. But you don’t have to believe any of that to understand that this place is just plain weird. Wikipedia explains:

The Cremation of Care ceremony was first conducted in the Bohemian Grove at the Midsummer encampment in 1881, devised by James F. Bowman with George T. Bromley playing the High Priest.^[17] It was originally set up within the plot of the serious “High Jinks” dramatic performance on the first weekend of the summer encampment, after which the spirit of “Care”, slain by the Jinks hero, was solemnly cremated. The ceremony served as a catharsis for pent-up high spirits, and “to present symbolically the salvation of the trees by the club…”^[18] The Cremation of Care was separated from the Grove Play in 1913 and moved to the first night to become “an exorcising of the Demon to ensure the success of the ensuing two weeks”. The Grove Play was moved to the last weekend of the encampment.^[19]

The ceremony takes place in front of the Owl Shrine, a 40-foot (12 m) hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports. The moss- and lichen-covered statue simulates a natural rock formation, yet holds electrical and audio equipment within it. During the ceremony, a recording of the voice of club member Walter Cronkite is used as the voice of The Owl.^[1] Music and pyrotechnics accompany the ritual for dramatic effect.

See what I mean? Weird. Creepy weird. It reminds me of the Jim Jones cult. Only instead of drinking the Kool-Aid themselves, they’re pouring it down our gullets.

Creepy "Cremation of Care" ceremony at Bohemian Grove in 1907