Page 8 Portland Observer Thursday. November 30, 1978
Wiison joins
KGW-TV staff
Ì
_ _s*-. <
We Ain't
W hat We Was
Retired A ir Force radar technician
Jim Wilson has been hired by the
KGW -TV News Department for the
s ta tio n ’ s s till-e v o lv in g m ini-cam
operation.
Wilson comes to Channel 8 from
K T P S -T V , a U H F public broad
casting television station in Tacoma.
After a twenty-year tour o f duty
w ith the U.S. A ir Force, W ilson
studied at the L.H . Bates Vocational
School in Tacoma, where he
acquired his FCC First Class
O p e ra to r’ s License and in itia l
television engineering experience.
W ilson’ s present responsibilities
with KG W s “ Newsccnter Eight” in
clude operating the complex equip
ment associated with electronic news
cameras, s till somewhat new
throughout the television industry.
“ I ’m still learning, and I ’ m en
jo y in g i t , ” says W ilson. “ I t ’ s
great!”
W'ilson is m arried, has fo u r
children.
A O N E -W O M A N DRAMATIC PIECE
STAGED BEFORE A LIVE AUDIENCE
Isy Monk
portrays a very old Black woman who
recalls what it has been like being Black in
America during the past 300 years.
10:30 P.M . THURSDAY
Oregon Educational and Public Broadcasting Service
Jim Wilson joined the staff of K G W -T V , as a member of "Newscenter
Eight.’’
* KOAP-TV 10ffi8
This ad made pow lbla by tb l. .« .lio n b The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
People’s Temple typical mix
of idealism and apocalypse
by Rasa Gustaitis
(PNS) — A deep longing and an
ancient, recurrent vision o f death lie
behind the story o f the People’s
Temple Church.
To some who joined it in earlier
days, it was the community that the
1960’s had promised and then failed
to deliver: a close big fam ily that
transcended both race and class
barriers and lived in celebration o f
God while working to transform
society.
This idealistic aspect o f the church
drew not only people who were lost
and confused but also others who
found it spoke to a need that our
society largely ignores. It offered a
chance fo r a coherent life b u ilt
around spiritual practice.
But to understand what happened
later, when degradation and destruc
tion took over, we must look to the
past. The People’s Temple Church
story is part o f a dark and violent
stream that has coursed through the
West, sweeping out from dim
recesses o f the m ind and across
history in times that shared many
qualities with the present.
Since the Middle Ages, religious
leaders have repeatedly risen from
the people to preach the coming o f
the end. They gathered around them
a following that was willing to obey
implicity, die i f asked, and await the
ultimate confrontation between good
and evil that w ould herald a
m illenium during which all would
live peacefully as children o f God.
in Europe between the 11th and
16th century, the Salvationist
messiahs foresaw an imminent final
struggle between C hrist and A n
tichrist.
Almost always they arose during
times o f rapid social change when
many people were uprooted, family
bonds were weakening and breaking,
and “ the gap between rich and poor
was becoming a chasm,” according
to historican Norman Cohn. Their
follow ers usually came from u r
banized areas.
“ Then in each o f these areas in
turn a collective sense o f impotence
and anxiety and envy suddenly
discharged itself in a frantic urge to
smite the ungodly,” Cohn wrote in
his book, “ In P ursuit o f the
Millenium .” By so doing, believers
hoped to bring into being, “ out o f
suffering in flic te d and suffering
endured,” the final Kingdom.
In the M iddle Ages, these
movements included the Crusades
and the Flagellants who beat them
selves bloody in religious fervor. All
o f them had leaders who called for a
renunciation o f the world, often for
self-denial and self-torture. Usually
these leaders also perform ed
healings, as did Jim Jones.
These movements led to the first
pogroms against Jews and the
slaughter o f clergy, Moslems and
others believed corrupt. They also
led to the tw entieth century
totalitarianisms, including Nazism in
Germany.
Jim Jones is linked to this dark
current, though no precedent exists
for his people’ s mass suicide.
But it was the coupling o f the
longing for brotherhood and the sense
o f imminent doom that helps ex
plain why his congregation grew so
powerfully before its preoccupation
with death turned upon itself.
In March, 1976 many San Fran
ciscans learned o f the temple for the
first time when it came to the aid of
Kamook Banks, the young wife of
American Indian Movement leader
Dennis Banks, who has been forced
to have a baby in prison because her
friends could not raise the $20,000
bail. She was being held for trial on a
charge o f possessing firearm s, o f
which she was later found innocent.
Jim Jones announced that his
people had voted to put up the church
educational fund, which was spon
soring 100 members through various
schools, as bail. Late one evening the
congregation gathered to welcome
the young mother, her husband who
was him self a fu g itiv e fro m a
warrant in South Dakota, and their
ten-day old daughter.
The threesome stood in the pulpit
and thanked the church. The
congregation responded with a ren
dering o f “ We shall overcome” as
powerful as any since the day Martin
Luther King gave his “ I have a
dream” speech on the steps o f the
Lincoln Memorial.
Indeed, this congregation seemed
to embody the civil rights movement
o f the 196O’s. It was a mix o f Blacks
and whites and included people who
spoke street jargon and others who
were college graduates, attorneys,
nurses and teachers. Some o f the
women wore veils and bright-colored
cotton dresses that identified them as
members o f the agricultural mission
in Guyana.
One young white woman said she
was a jo u rn a lis m student at the
University o f California and one o f
the 100 studying thanks to the Church.
She had gotten involved w ith
People’ s Temple after some mem
bers picked her up hitchhiking on the
road between Ukiah and San Fran
cisco, and her life had assumed a new
meaning. She had dedicated herself
totally to the community.
T his student was one o f the
thousands o f young people who had
opted for a spiritual life, becoming
part o f the broad and diverse
movement that continues to grow
across the country. It has brought
about the form ation o f numerous
communities. Most o f these are quiet
and devoted to the nurturing o f life.
They plant gardens, raise animals
and children.
But the movement also has its dark
wing. It includes groups that are
preparing fo r armed confrontation
and c o n tro l th e ir members by
methods that seem to obliterate in
dividual choice.
S h o rtly a fte r the Banks cele
b ra tio n , the dedication o f some
o f the temple members began to
seem excessive. During subsequent
visits, a reporter and photographer
observed that temple guards were
acutely watchful o f their every move
and kept them from unguided con
versations or explorations. It began
to be evident that the congregation
existed within a sealed reality system
and had broken its allegiances to
conventions o f thought and values
that those outside its walls share.
For centuries, such groups have
seen society as corrupt and headed
for disintegration or holocaust. They
saw themselves as righteous rem
nants and revolutionary builders o f a
Millenium.
In the People’ s Temple pavilion in
Guyana, Jim Jones erected a sign
above the p la tfo rm where he
preached as “ prophet o f G o d .”
Ironically it warned: “ Those who do
not remember the past are condem
ned to repeat it.”
He’s grabbed your tax dollars
for hydro dams. Then denied
you cheaper electricity
It began 35 years ago with the genesis of the most awesome hydropower
network in the world. By Congressional law, the idea was simple: electricity
from the Northwest s taxpayer-built dams would go first to rural and
domestic users... people like you in your homes.
But times changed, and so did the interpretation of the Federal law.
Today, it doesn’t matter that your taxpayer dollars built these dams. If
you're a residential customer of Pacific Power or any other investor-
owned utility (as about two-thirds of the homes in the Northwest are),
you're denied access to this less expensive electricity. What you get
instead are higher home electric bills.
To cut your home electric costs, Pacific Power s been fighting
for access to federal hydropower... all the way to the courts. Now,
leading members of Congress have recognized that legislative
action can and should bring you your share.
If you're a customer of an investor-owned utility like Pacific
Power, proposed legislation can mean a 20% cut In home
electric bills. Immediately. And more cost cuts will come.
Finally, customers of all utility companies, investor-owned
and public alike, will equally share the hydropower tax
dollars generate.
Don Frisbee, Pacific Power's Board Chairman, testified
before Congress in response to proposed legislation. If
you'd like to read what he had to say, just ask one of the
people in your Pacific Power office for a copy of his
statement
And make sure your Congressman knows where
you stand: Taxpayer dollars built the dams. Taxpayer
homes should share the benefits. Reallocation of
federal hydropower, through Congressional action,
is the way to clip his wings.
T h e P eople a t Pacific Power.
Working to cut your energy costs down to size.
Demand that your Congressman clip his wings.