Where I think the "drink the kool-aid" idea came from

[noahmijo]

Being 22 I don't know entirely when the "just drink the kool-aid" started going around, but my best guess is it has something to do with Jim Jones you know the Jonestown tragedy where 80 some people all believed the world was going to come to an end or something like that so they drank laced kool-aid to commit suicide.

So the "drink the kool-aid" to me seems to have stemmed from this incident in the sense that people just "drank the kool-aid" because they believed without questioning.

[bkcc]

1. You're right.

That's the explanation I've always heard given.

Sheeps being led to slaughter. It was the "if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" scenario taken to the extreme.

[eleny]

2. You're correct

I'm 57 and remember the day it happened.

[noahmijo]

3. I am so smart I am so smart S-M-R-T!

[Bat Boy]

4. I remember it, too.

Scary as hell.

Yep, that's exactly where the phrase comes from.

[patdem]

5. Pretty smart for 22, and you are correct...

I am old enough to remember the entire incident, and the congressmen going there before the cool-aid incident and being shot at.

I did not even start being political till I was over 40!! You are a smart person to start young. :hi:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. I think the congressman was actually killed. That sparked the

Kool-Aid massacre because Jones knew his gig was up then.

[patdem]

19. I thought so, but I erred on the side of being cautious

I recall some members of the party was killed, but I could not remember if the congressman was actually killed. Thanks for the reminder. :hi:

Edit: Just googled and found this..."Congressman Ryan and four others were murdered.."

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. Yes, that's exactly right. There is a further, disturbing implication

to the expression. Imagine all the people dying from the Kool-Aid. The ones who continued to drink it after the first large group died KNEW this meant their destruction, but did so anyway because it was easier to follow along the road to perdition than to question their belief in their leader. Despite the obvious evidence all around them.

[rumguy]

20. Unbelievable

What kind of people did Jim Jones attract? What kind of cult was it?

[TeacherCreature]

39. He started out as a evangelical Christian

but he lost his mind and became another messianic nut case.

[MissAnnThrope]

25. Well, There Were Those Who Didn't Want To Drink It,

But there were also armed men there, to shoot anyone who tried to escape or not drink the Kool-Aid. They were dead either way.

[Sugarbleus]

30. May I add one other detail...some were FORCED to do this

many saw what was happening and freaked out; didn't want to do it so ran and were shot.

These folks had to force their children to drink this shit. Other's had to force other adults to do so...then there were the ones who simply got shot.

Congressman Ryan and his group were shot at the small airport/strip by this bastard group lying in wait in the jungle weeds.

I remember this so well. It was THEE MOST atrocious event to happen in my lifetime to that point. These pictures bring it back and I'm sick to my stomach all over again.

[JJinSF]

7. numbers a little off

80? Closer to 600.

[Philostopher]

8. It did come from the People's Temple massacre.

Although some of us who are aware of (or old enough to remember) counterculture activities that took place in 1967 in California also find the allusion to the 'Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' and the whole LSD phenomenon, where people who didn't necessarily know they were consuming acid got a taste anyway sometimes. It's a later add-on, mind you -- but you must admit lots of Republicans you know sound like they're on psychoactive drugs, don't they?

[salvorhardin]

10. I always thought it came from

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.

[Mr.Green93]

11. 913 died at Jonestown

[noahmijo]

18. Ah well my bad (on the numbers)

All I've seen are photos and I read about the incident a long time ago like 5 years ago so I don't entirely remember the numbers. Don't even remember where I read it.

Call me insensitive to humanity but I took the incident as a testament as to how ignorant stupid people can be that it can actually drive them to do such heinous things to themselves and their own children.

[TeacherCreature]

40. Don't make that mistake

These were not all stupid ignorant people. Almost anyone can get sucked into a cult and not know it.

[iconoclastic cat]

12. A factual note: Jones used Flavor-ade, not Kool-ade

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. Is there still such a product as Flavor-ade?

[iconoclastic cat]

16. I'm not sure.

I couldn't find them on the Web.

[jmowreader]

24. Yes, you can still get it

..

[mitchum]

42. Thank you! I have told people that fact time and time again...

but, alas...:)

[alphafemale]

13. Blind devotion to a leader. Isolation and fear to quell questioning.

Remember they shot people, including a congressman, at the airport because the truth about Jonestown was about to come out.

I do think Bush and his followers are just as insane/brainwashed as Jim Jones and his, and that is scary as hell.

[Mandate My Ass]

15. There was a biography episode on Jim Jones just the other night

Evidently he had "practice" sessions beforehand to get
people used to the idea so that they'd not be terrified
when he actually gave the real order.

I'll never forget that day. It was quite harrowing.

[alphafemale]

21. Didn't they believe he was going to raise them from the dead?

Then he would be proved to be the Messiah?

I've also heard the first who drank may have believed that this was just another drill

I'm not sure, but I seem to remember this.

[Mandate My Ass]

23. I'm not sure, I had to turn it off

They actually played audio of the slaughter. Those with
children were called first and told to administer it and
you could hear the kids screaming with pain while JOnes kept
telling them it was OK and that death with dignity was
better than being invaded. I couldn't take any more so I
flipped the channel.:scared:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

17. Here's a link to an account of the incident.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial4/jonestown/

[jmowreader]

22. Partly right, partly wrong

The phrase does refer to the Jonestown massacre, so you're right there.

You're slightly off on the body count--if "more than an order of magnitude" can be considered slight. The first reports from Jonestown claimed that 408 American citizens had died; the final body count was 913.

What really happened: Jim Jones opened a religious community called the People's Temple. It was a standard cult operation, but Jones kept telling his followers that outside forces stood ready to destroy all they had created. If the outside forces ever got strong enough, the Temple members were to participate in "revolutionary suicide."

In the fall of 1978, one cult member's family contacted their Congressman, Jim Ryan, and shared their concerns with him. In November 1978, Ryan and a congressional delegation flew to Guyana to investigate the People's Temple. After seeing the squalor in that place, Ryan and his delegation returned to the airport. Jim Jones sent some of his security troops to kill the whole delegation.

While the congressional delegation was being killed in execution-style murders, Jones called his followers together. He told them that he had a vision that someone on the airplane was going to murder the congressman, that the backlash was going to destroy the People's Temple, and to prevent it they were to conduct the Revolutionary Suicide operation. These people REHEARSED this! Many times! First the children were to be given the drink (a big cauldron of kool-aid with about six pounds of potassium cyanide stirred into it), then the adults. Children too small to drink from cups had the poison squirted down their throats. Then the security forces piled the bodies on top of one another. Jones himself was shot.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid" means to blindly follow someone who will ultimately do you harm.

[Morning Dew]

26. Thought it was Leo Ryan

n/t

[jmowreader]

27. It was. Damn, I'm having a hell of a time with names today!

Sorry.

[Alex146]

36. was more than one congressman killed

?

[Zorra]

28. Letter to editor

June 19, 2003
I just read "Jesus Plus Nothing", by Jeffrey Sharlet in opednews. When did Charlie Manson get out of jail? I didn't hear about it. If you are on 24th St. in Arlington and you see some kids at a little stand selling kool-aid, uh, like, it might be a good idea not to drink any.

Name and information withheld out of fear.

[noahmijo]

29. They let him out of jail?????!

I think even the most peaceful pacifist wouldn't mind seeing that guy fry.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

37. Manson is still in jail. n/t

[Zorra]

41. That was sarcasm related to the article mentioned in the post. n/t

[Bridget Burke]

31. They didn't all drink the Koolaid

(or whatever the poisoned drink was).

Some were injected with poison & others were shot. It's a bit smug to look down on all the victims. Almost a third of the over 900 who died were children & there were also many old people. And many of them were not white.

As of 1998, most of the information the government gathered on the incident had not been released.

www.cnn.com/US/9811/18/jonestown.anniv.01/#1

[The Night Owl]

32. Just as an aside... Jim Jones and George W. Bush...

Jim Jones and George W. Bush... To men who have claimed that God speaks to them and speaks through them.

[DemBones DemBones]

33. It was grotesque. It was all over the news on Thanksgiving,

when we all had our families gathered. I remember feeling sick and depressed for weeks.

I could always explain sex to kids better than I could explain something like this.

[Unperson 309]

34. Jonestown People Did NOT Drink Kool-Ade!

Seriously... they didn't.

They drank Cherry flavored Flav-R-Ade, a competitor of the Kool-Ade brand!

I remember the story vividly and that was one of the memes that got out incorrectly. Cross-branding (as in calling facial tissues Kleenex) causes almost ANY premixed noncarbonated drink to be called Kool-Ade.

309

[Cleita]

35. It was reported originally in the press as Kool-Ade.

The name stuck sort of like using Kleenex, but it could be a different brand. So more people know what you are talking about if you refer to drinking the Kool-Ade than saying drinking the Flav-R-Ade.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

38. I think the Flavor-Ade people are just as happy that everyone thinks it

was Kool-Aid, no?