Interestingly, [Cult leader Jim Jones] may well have been the inspiration for the rainbow flag, which flies prominently above Harvey Milk Plaza today, and thousands of others locations throughout the Western world. The history of the flag, first designed and sewed by Milk’s personal friend Gilbert Baker, is obscure (intentionally perhaps?), but Jones was fond of proclaiming himself to be head of the “rainbow family.” It is not at all far-fetched to suppose that it was Jim Jones who introduced the term to Milk and Baker, and hence the idea for the flag, which first flew in 1978, a few months before the Jonestown massacre and Milk’s assassination. Further supporting Milk’s connection with Jones is the strange and macabre fact that Milk’s ashes were mixed with grape kool-aid before being scattered into the sea.
Very little of this history makes its way into the official story. I am glad I avoided the film Milk, and not because I object to the subject matter, but because learning about the lies of omission (Jim Jones was out of the picture) would have ruined it for me. Sometimes, historians get closer to the truth than those who lived it, because they are not constrained by political loyalties, taboos, and personal concerns. Hopefully, when enough time has passed and Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown and Jerry Brown are but memories, someone will produce a film that truly does justice to the urban political revolution of the 1970s, which was the seed out of which the contemporary progressive machine emerged.
On looking back, it seems to me that Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein and Willie Brown, despite their political achievements, remain in the shadow of Jim Jones. For all their success and determination, they were children under the same father, following a vision they didn’t come up with themselves. Dianne Feinstein and Willie Brown may have lived to see another day, but they, too, drank the kool-aid.
No political figures were more gushing in their praise of [cult leader Jim 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.”
Not content to hear dignitaries whisper flatteries into his ear, Jones staged a testimonial banquet in his own honor and demanded that politicians in his debt offer him public tribute. On the evening of September 25, 1976, the Peoples Temple headquarters on Geary Boulevard was converted into a formal dining hall with linen tablecloths and floral arrangements. At the head table sat Mayor Moscone, District Attorney Freitas, and Assemblyman Willie Brown, who acted as the evening’s exuberant master of ceremonies. As he introduced the man of the hour to the overflow audience, Brown reached new heights of shameless, ass-kissing puffery. “Let me present to you,” Brown roared, “a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein . . . Chairman Mao.” By the time Jones rose to tumultuous applause, he seemed likely to walk on water.
Because Milk and Moscone were murdered so soon after the Jonestown tragedy, there was immediate speculation that Peoples Temple was somehow involved. Ann Kronenberg, Milk’s hand- picked successor, told Milk biographer Randy Shilts, that when she first heard Milk was murdered, she thought Jim Jones was responsible. Rumors began to circulate (and some persist today) of obscure connections between Jim Jones and Milk’s murderer, Dan White. Vague rumors of a falling out between Milk and Jones also surfaced. One story has it that Milk asked Peoples Temple to remove his name from the church’s list of supporters when reports of violence and theft first came to light, and that he was outraged when the Temple failed to comply with his demand. Eventually, history settled on an official story: Jim Jones was a master manipulator who used unwitting local politicians to gain power for himself. The politicians, including Milk and Moscone, used Jones for volunteers and votes, while remaining personally distant and blissfully unaware of rumors of Temple violence, abuse, theft and even murder. The timing of Dan White’s murderous rampage was deemed coincidental.
However, upon closer inspection, it is clear that Harvey Milk was a strong advocate for Peoples Temple and Jim Jones during his political career, including the tumultuous year leading up to the Jonestown tragedy. Milk spoke at the Temple often, wrote personal letters to Jim Jones, contacted other elected officials on the Temple’s behalf, and used space in his weekly column to support the works of the Temple, even after the negative New West article went to press. Milk appeared in the pages of the Peoples Forum, the Temple newspaper, and received over fifty letters of sympathy from the residents of Jonestown when his lover, Jack Lira, killed himself in September 1978.
It is readily apparent from the letters and historical memorabilia that Milk and the Temple enjoyed a mutually supportive relationship until their concurrent deaths. Why then is the relationship such a secret, even taboo to discuss? The only biography of Milk to date, The Mayor of Castro Street, by Randy Shilts, downplays the Milk/Temple relationship, even going so far as to paint Milk as one of the countless people who cruelly ridiculed and ostracized the surviving Temple members and their supporters. Like most historians, Shilts opted for an image of an expedient politician, instead of truthfully portraying how Milk worked with Peoples Temple until the end of his life.
Enough time has passed since Milk’s brutal murder to reanalyze this relationship, to explore how and why Harvey Milk supported Peoples Temple,...Harvey Milk irrefutably supported Peoples Temple.
It may be understandable why in November 1978 the supporters of Milk would attempt to distance the newly martyred supervisor from the still-unfolding horrors of Jonestown. However, we as witnesses, historians, researchers and writers have an obligation to tell future generations the whole truth, as we understand it, to record as much documentation as possible and let the biases and subsequent interpretations transform over time,...
If Milk supported Peoples Temple, now is the pivotal time for us to unveil the truth,...It is most important that we not participate in or settle for the revisionism and obfuscation that has passed for the historical account of this relationship to date.
One of the main themes of this blog - expressed here, here, here, here, and here - got an eloquent little hearing, from Benjamin A. Plotinsky, over at City Journal recently. In fact, it was so close to what I've been saying, I wondered if they hadn't been reading me. Whether they have or not, I'm still glad to see it out there, because it gives credence to the message I've been delivering almost from Day One:
"Cast your mind back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the president of the United States amid much rejoicing. The hosannas—covering the inauguration was 'the honor of our lifetimes,' said MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews—by then seemed unsurprising. Over the course of a long campaign, hyperbolic rhetoric had become commonplace, so much so that online wags had started calling Obama 'the One'—a reference to the spate of recent science-fiction movies, especially The Matrix, that used that term to designate a messiah.
It all seems so long ago now, as one contemplates President Obama’s plummeting approval ratings and a suddenly resurgent Republican Party. Yet it’s worth looking closely and seriously at the election-year enthusiasm of media elites and other Obamaphiles, much of which was indeed, as the wags recognized, quasi-religious. The surprising fact is that the American Left, for all its claims to being 'reality-based' and secular, is often animated by the passions, motivations, and imagery that one normally associates with religion. The better we understand this religious impulse, the better we will understand liberal America’s likely trajectory in the years to come."
Actually, City Journal (as far as I know) is the only publication that seems to be on the same wave-length I am, also presenting us with an article about The People's Temple, by Daniel J. Flynn, that underlines the long-running Democratic Party/cult connection:
"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.
Indeed, Jim Jones was a power player in Bay Area politics and thereby a player in national Democratic Party politics. Local politicians and activists benefited from the slave labor that he could provide on little notice to people political rallies and hand out campaign literature. In gratitude, Moscone appointed him chairman of San Francisco’s housing authority and Willie Brown likened Jones, a man who would eventually kill more African-Americans than any Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, to Martin Luther King, Jr. First lady Rosalyn Carter and her husband’s running mate, Walter Mondale, both met with the cult leader. Jones even appropriated the title of Huey Newton’s book, Revolutionary Suicide, to describe the extermination of his flock (which included several of Newton’s relatives). Once Jonestown’s residents had performed this 'revolutionary suicide,' the wills left behind bequeathed all to the Soviet Union."
How anyone else is missing all this, I don't know. Or maybe I do. Look at the quote, above, and you see the name of "Saint Harvey" Milk, who just had an Oscar-winning movie made about him - starring Hugo Chavez-loving Sean Penn - but it was a movie that erased all of Milk's connections to cultism. Of course, it had to, because if the decades-long connection between the Democrats and cults were ever made explicit - a connection that is just as vibrant today as ever, if not more so - they'd lose their black support (amongst others) in a heart beat.
This is what conservatives have to understand now - this is how we finish the Democrats off. As Mr. Plotinsky says, they've got us in The Matrix right now, but I've been saying all along that I'm Rorschach from The Watchmen, and the truth I'm revealing is The Truth, and I'd rather look crazy than allow it to be covered up for the sake of lying politicians, lousy gay pride movies, or even my love for women. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's been happening, so far. 
But maybe - just maybe, if everyone remembers these cultish NewAge forces destroyed my marriage, killed my mother-in-law and three others, and can get over my (more-than-justifiable) anger - they'll decide to investigate all this in depth, and everyone's perception of me will change. It ought to, because I ain't hurt nobody.
I'm "The One" that's been hurt.
"If there was a winner in the first presidential debate it would have to be Barack Obama, but only because he managed to get in a couple of punches on John McCain without looking like he was picking on Granddad.”
"For first time in modern history, a presidential race is actually going to be decided by the vice presidential pick.
"The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign.
"He is Gay Marriage Sam, so he has no choice but to try to make it as respectable and as apple pie as possible."-- Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, on the issue of gay marriage in California - and Gavin Newsom's reputation - in the San Francisco Chronicle.
I don't know if the California Supreme Court overstepped it's boundaries or not (I haven't read it's verdict) but I do know - if you're gay and serious about marriage - having a standard bearer who slept with his best friend's wife (and is, apparently, always on the make) ain't a good sign of it. 
Democrats (represented by an ass) must seriously think Republicans (represented by an elephant) forget these things as fast as they attempt to. 
They must, because they party like it's 1999 every time something like this happens (forgetting the politics of primaries are completely different from the politics of general elections) while their glaring hypocrisy is steadily presenting the rest of us with a picture that is, definitely, coming into focus - long before November - and it ain't pretty.
The two largest cities in California, both, have mayors (that's L.A.'s above) who showed an extreme lack of sexual impulse control in office. That's not going to sit well when they run for higher office. People in San Francisco may have a laugh about their mayor's transgressions - "an elected official who revels in being a pariah" - but citizens of (the much larger and more conservative) Los Angeles do not. 
Barack Obama has refused to have his picture taken with Newsom - or even be in the same room with him - despite the fact Newsom has done fund raisers on his behalf. But he will be seen with John McCain. 
Oh well. As I've made clear, I don't see a Democratic win coming in November (no pun intended) and - rather than issues like gay marriage - their defenders, like "Mayor McDreamy," are exactly why I can't see it happening: 
I don't think it will this time, either, no matter how it looks on the surface right now. Politically-speaking, the rest of the country doesn't even come close to the superficiality of the average San Franciscan. 
So, Democrats, enjoy the party while you can. And while you're at it, you might want to design a new mascot, because the one you have doesn't seem appropriate considering the situation,...
"I think most white politicians do not understand that the race pride we all have trumps everything else."
"To intimate that you may face a challenge for what you believe in, I just think that's over the top. I think my citizens pretty much understand that I am a person who stands up for what I believe in. I'm not saying that if I run again somebody won't hold that against me. That's politics. My thing is: Bring it on!"
"If the party wanted the superdelegates to merely ratify the voters' choice, the party wouldn't have superdelegates in the first place."
How could they hang with that creep? What were Oakland's leaders thinking?--Marshall Kilduff is a San Francisco Chronicle editorial writer.
Those questions run through the mind in the wake of revelations of how Oakland politicians tolerated the thuggish, thieving conduct of Yusuf Bey and his followers. For years.There was a city loan never repaid, high-profile visits to Bey's home base Your Black Muslim Bakery, muzzled police inquiries, go-easy letters to a sentencing judge, and help with a bankruptcy mess. At every turn, City Hall came through for a quasi-religious group that was more gangster than godly.
Only late in the game, when Bey's empire crumbled after the killing of local journalist Chauncey Bailey, did these enablers vanish.In the rearview mirror, it was abysmal judgment. But it's more than that - it's the heart of cynical deal-making, the transactional politics that mixes risk and reward to produce a decision. It's what happens when leaders fail in a fundamental way to compute the full effects of a decision.
This short-term thinking may work when locating a freeway billboard or curbing liquor sales in corner stores. But it doesn't compute with criminals linked to rape, spousal abuse, murder and torture with a heated knife. Lives, many of them, were scarred by Bey and the violent conduct he spurred.The explanations, if you can find one from his long-gone supporters, are plausible but soft: [Your Black Muslim Bakery] was a self-help beacon in a crime-soaked neighborhood. Ex-cons and the jobless benefited. The strong, even harsh ideals of the group sent a message of personal change and belief. That bad stuff? We had no idea, honest.
It's time for a history lesson. This spin was heard before, right across the bay where a parallel saga played out a generation ago. In the late 1970s, the Rev. Jim Jones likewise surrounded himself with big-shouldered bodyguards and a retinue of flunkies. He gave edgy speeches on civil rights and marched at housing eviction protests. His church nursed social programs and health care on a grimy corner in the Fillmore District. He was a wizard with the race card: a white preacher who led a congregation of largely black and poor followers. As in Oakland, the political set flocked to his Peoples Temple to be part of the show. Doubt was not encouraged.
The names of the visitors are gilt-edged Hall of Famers. In San Francisco, it was Willie Brown, gay icon Harvey Milk and then-Mayor George Moscone, who named Jones to the Housing Authority. In Oakland, Bey's chums included former mayor and now Attorney General Jerry Brown, Mayor Ron Dellums and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee. There were plenty of others on both guest lists.
Did these outsiders, on their closely-escorted visits, suspect something amiss or troubling? Did they wonder how either of these airless worlds operated? Were they worried about future embarrassment if the clearly eccentric Jones or Bey had a darker side?All of them are too smart and seasoned to have missed the trouble signs. Instead they put up with these deluded leaders and hoped things wouldn't get worse. In the meantime, the bargain held with the politicos picking up a high-vis ally while the two decidedly dangerous "community leaders" bought the respect they craved.
The two stories are about more than political back-scratching. Both Jones and Bey were never seriously investigated until late in the game. Jones ran a string of rest homes and foster care facilities that he milked for income. He sheared off pension checks from his elderly followers and sold their possessions in exchange for a promised-land journey to Guyana, where their lives ended. There was no official inquiry until Rep. Leo Ryan went to Guyana in 1978 to check on temple members at the behest of their worried families. That mission unhinged Jones, who oversaw the forced deaths of some 900 followers, including his own suicide.
Bey, who died from cancer in 2003, was a less spectacular saga. His business enterprises brought him respect and standing. His troops chased off drug dealers, which led City Hall and police higher-ups to protect him from investigation. If that sounds like a defensible bargain, you're forgetting the people raped, abused and killed by Bey's soldiers.There's an age-old question always asked when a monster falls: What have we learned to avoid a repeat? Judging from these two stories, there's a clear answer. Absolutely nothing.
