Talk:The Jonestown Carnage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article was nominated for deletion on 19 May 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus. |
Contents |
[edit] Relevance of the Page
In spite of being a skeptic/atheist,what makes you think that there is atleast some truth in the version given in the book? This is the question frequenly asked by people who wholly accept the popular version. I think it is necessary at this point to enumerate some of them as I have created this page, which is not yet completed.
- McCarthy era in USA.
- The fact that all US government documents relating to Jonestown carnage remain classified.
- The book under discussion was published in 1987 when the extra curiosity of the people had almost died out.
- The book has a couple of photographs of the members of the Peoples Temple with Soviet Officials. And the photographs do not seem to be manipulated ones.
The article is not yet completed. It is not upto the mark I am expecting out of a wikipedia article. I am confused how to condense the book into a singe wikipedia page. I request somebodyelse who read the book to do their bit to improve it. MANOJTV 04:50, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Separating claims
Reading the book's claims, I think it's very important to realize that the book is actually making a number of claims, which vary greatly in how much evidence is presented to support them, and in how much evidence should be presented to support a claim of such magnitude. In general, the description contains the following claims:
- Jim Jones was attempting, or at the very least contemplating, the moving of the whole Peoples Temple from Guyana to the Soviet Union.
- The US government in the form of the CIA not only conducted the massacre at Guyana and forged all the physical and documentary evidence to make it look like a suicide but assassinated Congressman Leo J. Ryan themselves.
The first of these claims is not even surprising. I thought it was generally accepted knowledge that Guyana was chosen in part because it was under a Marxist government, which welcomed the propaganda value of almost a thousand defectors choosing to leave a Western democracy for reasons of freedom.
The second of these claims is by contrast a much harder claim to support. What sort of documentary or witness evidence is provided to support this theory? The description in the article claims that the book "quotes extensively from various sources" but unless those sources had something substantive to say, it actually provides no support at all for this second and difficult claim. -- Antaeus Feldspar 11:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Relevance of Quotation & External Links
The user User:Antaeus Feldspar questions the relevance of extensive quotations from the book.
As I had no intention of passing on my personal views as the information from the book, I thought it prudent to stick to the actual text from the book. But I have no problem if somebody who read the book edits the article in order to improve it and makes it moe terse. But it should be done without making it yet another Jonestown kind of page.
Anybody who has gone through the existing Jonestown article would find that it is essentially a CIA version of the massacre. The article says nothing about the association between the People's Temple and USSR. Why?
It is in this context one should read the present article The_Jonestown_Carnage with extensive quotations. The book could be part of USSR propaganda. But so is the CIA version. Taken together we may approach the truth.
Relevance of the external link "An open letter to scholars, activists and advocates for religious freedom" from a Jonestown resident is that it independently corroborates, at least partly, the information given in the book. And that too from one who was once a Jonestown resident. MANOJTV 29 June 2005 09:05 (UTC)
- To say that the existing article is "a CIA version of the massacre" is to be taking for granted the book's unproven claim that there is a "CIA version" that differs from the true version. -- Antaeus Feldspar 29 June 2005 11:54 (UTC)
[edit] Relevance of Images
The image of the children at Jonestown is relevant not only because it is one the photographs appearing in the book but also because it shows the life in Jonestown as a pleasant one which is precisely one of the intentions of the book. I in fact am planning to scan a few more photographs and upload them to this page. That will be done when I add some more information from the book.
I agree with the changes made by the user Antaeus Feldspar in the external links. But will the user care to go through the Jonestown page and make similar changes (such as CIA alleged..., CIA claims... )at the beginning of almost every sentence appearing in that page? MANOJTV 06:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
- I think that a variety of pictures is good, but we need to be clear in the captions about the source of the photos. If you can find the actual photo credits in the book that'd help. I think I heard that all Soviet copyrights have ended, so that we can use the photos without copyright violations (unless someone else owns the copyright). Remember, we should just be describing the book and its thesis, not trying to prove or disprove it. Cheers, -Willmcw 18:11, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
- No, the user won't. As I have said earlier, to do so would be to endorse the unproven POV claim made by the book that there is a "CIA version". Has it been alleged that the commonly-accepted version of events at Jonestown is somehow different from what really happened and that the CIA is responsible for concocting this cover story? Yes, it has been alleged. Has it been documented that the CIA even influenced what people currently believe to have happened at Jonestown? No. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Is there a CIA version?
I didn't give much thought to the copy right aspect when I uploaded the image. I should have thought about it. Hence I happy to know from Willmcw that all Soviet copyrights have ended.
Regarding the question of whether there is a CIA version to Jonestown episode, I think there is. After going through the material - both pro and against - available to the public, I somehow find it difficult to believe that CIA had palyed no role in Jonestown massacre. The historical role played by CIA, FBI etc in eliminating the political/ideological rivals of Corporate America (here I include not only the business but the dominant political parties, government and their funtioneries too)gives credence to my belief. Don't forget that Leo Ryan, a democrat, was one of the most vocal opponent of CIA's sinister role in politics and he also co-authored the Hughes-Ryan Act of 1974.
And, given that the Jonestown tragedy was a result of a suicide pact among the residents, what could have been the possible motives? I find none. The information available suggest that Jones was wedded to atheist ideology which rules out the possibility that he was in search of a heavenly abode in the after-life. Jim Jones did not use the usual spiritual clap-trap that one normally comes across in religious congregations.
According to an article appeared in The San Francisco Bay Guardian on March 31, 1977 (which is extensively quoted in the book under discussion), the Peoples Temple church service resembled a Civil Rights rally. The Peoples Temple addressed national/international political and social issues such as the support of American govenment to despotic regimes in Iran and Chile, the partiality of American criminal justice system against the poor, etc. They sang at their congregation, not Hallelujah, but Oh, Freedom and We Shall Overcome. MANOJTV 06:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
- Here it is: Template:PD-USSR. It applies to copyrights from 1973 and before. I guess that doesn't help us after all. -Willmcw 06:32, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] more than just typos
I was trying to go through and correct typos in this article, but partway through realized that some of the unindented paragraphs appear to be wholesale quotations. I'm marking this in need of attention instead... I'm not qualified to try to fix the problems here. nae'blis (talk) 18:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Disputed?
What is disputed? The contents of the book or the wikipedia page on the book? If the former, then the category disputed should not be appearing in the page. I say this because, the wikipedia page, as of now, is on the book itself and it is not a discussion page on the contents of the book. The article does not contain anything that is not there in the book itself.
If the dispute is about the contents of the book, one can, of course, add a paragrah on this aspect. But that does not call for the 'disputed' category to be included in the page itself.MANOJTV 11:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Speedy tag
this doesn't seem like a speedy to me. Which criteria does it meet? This article has been here a while, numerous editors have worked on it. seems like it needs an AfD instead if the book is not notable. I'll put it up for AfD if no one objects (drop me a line on my talk page) ++Lar: t/c 19:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Why I voted to keep this article on the current Request for Deletion
If nothing else, this is very interesting evidence of late-1980s propaganda techniques carried out by the Soviet Union. It is therefore of intense historical interest. See also the deletion request. --arkuat (talk) 04:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
