The Katherine Massey Book Club @ The C.O.W.S. hosts the 10th study session on Michael Meiers' Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment. This infamous mass murder has countless parallels to our recent literary selections - Columbine, Michael Swango, and The Hart murder-suicide. The Rev. Jim Jones, a White man born in a Racially Restricted Region of Indiana, took a thousand people from California to Guyana, South America. On November 18th, 1978, Jones killed nearly all 1,000 of his mostly black followers and orchestrated the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan. Some were shot, but most were poisoned with cyanide, just like "Double-0 Swango." For nearly 100 years, this event described as a bunch of brainwashed black loons following a White charlatan to their death in the jungle. Meiers' work suggests something far more nefarious. Last week, Meiers detailed the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk - both classified as White. The White male assassin, Dan White, was branded an "all-American" - which basically means White, and received way more sympathy than all of the hundreds of murdered black Jonestown survivors combined. White employed the "Twinkie Defense," alleging that after binging on junk food the evening of November 26th, a sugar stupor the following day caused him to mindlessly slaughter two White elected officials using hollow point bullets. He reloaded between the murders - and waved to future mayor Dianne Feinstein. White gays rioted in San Francisco to display their outrage over the lenient sentence White received - when he could have landed the death penalty. Meiers suggests that Jones was motivated to kill Mayor Moscone because he knew about the Peoples Temple's crimes and might snitch to investigators of the Guyana carnage. The prosecuting attorney, Joseph Freitas, was roundly criticized for his efforts and subjected to daily reminders and suspicion that he deliberately botched the 1976 investigation of voter fraud involving the Peoples Temple (and Mayor Moscone). Listeners and Gus T. think Meiers failed to present sufficient evidence of Jones' involvement in the murders and/or his motivation to kill these 2 White Men. However, there are many other reports that discuss this extraordinary bit of California history. #BlackPantherParty #TheCOWS15Years INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Cash App: https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 605.313.5164 CODE: 564943#