The Struggle For Hope In The 1970's

During the 1970’s many things were going on, the Vietnam war had just ended in a loss, Nixon was being impeached for rigging his election, and in general government trust had been at an all-time low and society was searching for peace and love in a nation that was looked at being hopeless. Many options were available, some of the options were not the best but it all had to do with the hunger for peace.
For the first time in history, in the 1970’s people believed that “the next 5 years would be worse than the past 5 years” (Carter). Hope was at an all-time low and everyone wanted peace in the world, they wanted leaders that they could trust to provide what was best for everyone, to prioritize their needs over their own greed. The years before had greatly hurt the American public, the assassinations of John F. & Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr brought moral down. The US army had been regarded as invincible yet the agony of Vietnam and …show more content…
It was tailor made for political rallies and it rose Jim Jones to power. During the 70’s he took a different turn, he began taking drugs and became more paranoid. His paranoia caused him to create paranoia in his followers, he made them believe that they were “just about to be destroyed” lucky for Jones a fire that burned down a temple helped validate his proposed statement, everyone is against them. This is when the beginning of Jonestown starts, he proposes for them to handle their own discipline, they must rat out those who have sex or those who sneak out, and people do. Punishments consisted of the community taking punches at you, until your knocked out, you then get woken up again and continue to get further punished, it created fear to not disobey the rules and to stay in line. Families were also no longer loyal to each other, they became loyal to Jim. If someone wanted to leave, their own family would report them because it had been declared as betrayal towards