The Barwest Kool-aid Club

The sign outside the BarWest Kool-aid Club House

The BarWest Kool-Aid Club
Barstow Chapter

Captain 'Kool-aid Shields' explains to his BarWest Kool-aid Club
how he has been lying all along and the compacts are now dead

When speaking out against the BarWest influence of corruption in Barstow and the blind allegiance by which people have been bamboozled into following Tom Shields directives in supporting these compacts, I often use the term “BarWest Kool-Aid Club”. Usually I will be using that expression when at the City Council meetings and I am being limited to three minutes with about an hour of information that I would like to be covering.

'Captain Kool-aid', aka Tom Shields,
explains his strategy to the Kool-aid Club,
for how he plans to deal with anyone
who dares to oppose the BarWest Compacts

When I have used the term, I feel that it should be clearly obvious just from the context even if one is ignorant of what happened with Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple in Guyana or the history of the expression, “drinking the Kool-aid”, that preceded that mass suicide. But as obvious as it is to me, the term still seems to elude many members of the club and even those that do not support BarWest. So it seems incumbent upon me to offer an explanation for those who still haven’t caught on.

Scientific Fact: 98.5%
of all members of the BarWest Kool-aid Club
are also faithful views of Bill O'reilly. The
other 1.5% don't have cable in their trailers

So to those who still suffers from some degree of ambiguity regarding my use of the term “BarWest Kool-Aid Club”, I offer the following explanation of my use, a background on Kool-Aid the product, a brief explanation of the term, “drinking the Kool-aid”, and a rendition of the story of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in Guyana, complete with a YouTube video on the whole event.



Explanation of my use of the expression: “The BarWest Kool-aid Club”
By definition, a cult’s leader wields tremendous influence over his followers. But as the German people proved in the case of Adolph Hitler, the blind sheep syndrome is not limited to religious cults. Likewise, in the world of big money, greed can be the driving force behind blind allegiance. This is evidenced in situations like pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing. Amway ‘sales associates’ are often made fun of as having a giant A tattooed on their forehead while their product line is the only conversation that they are capable of talking about.

In Barstow we have a phenomena where BarWest comes to town in the form of Tom Shields. The next thing you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars are thrown around and a line forms of local leaders who line up to drink the Kool-aid and they instantly start shouting the praises of BarWest. Next thing you know Mayor Dale is flying around in a BarWest Lear Jet to lobby on their behalf. President of the Chamber of Commerce Tim Silva puts the Chamber up for sale as a public relations firm for BarWest in a deal to become the next City Councilman. Business leaders across town start worshiping at the throne of BarWest. And anyone who dares to speak ill of their god is chastised and ostracized.

Background on the development of Kool-Aid the product

Kool-Aid was invented by a Gerard and Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. In Hastings, Nebraska. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder. This powder was named Kool-Ade (and a few years later, it was renamed 'Kool-Aid' due to a change in government regulations regarding the need for fruit juice in products using the term "Ade"). Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. The artificially flavored drink is now owned by the Kraft Foods Company.


A brief explanation of the term, “drinking the Kool-aid”
It seemed as though Kool-Aid could turn water into a yummy drink even though it was obvious Kool-Aid contained no fruit, just sugar and an assortment of preservatives. Kool-Aid’s colors are aesthetically pleasing – bright red, blue, green, etcetera. At around $.25 for a packet which can fill an entire pitcher, the expense for the package of sugar seemed small indeed which was an incentive for mom, of course. Overall, Kool-Aid was the ideal drink for an unknowing kid and because it is saturated with sugar who would notice if a cup of Kool-Aid was laced with bitter cyanide.

Even prior to Jim Jones and 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died in what has commonly been labeled a mass suicide, the expression of “Drinking the Kool-Aid” used to connote the dangerous influences over souls by the workers of iniquity and to guard against their wiles. It was a warning of evil into an everyday habit of imbibing whatever nonsense accompanies that which is cheap, looks good and smells good.

Ever since the mass suicide of the followers of Jim Jones in Guyana, “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has now morphed to the point that it represents revolutionary suicide because of the tragedy at People’s Temple.


The story of Jim Jones, the People’s Temple, and the mass suicides in Guyana



James Warren "Jim" Jones was born in 1931, in Lynn, Indiana. He became a preacher in the 1950s. He sold pet monkeys door-to-door to raise the money to fund his own church that would be named Wings of Deliverance, which he later renamed the Peoples Temple and was located in Indianapolis. He gained respectability when he became an ordained minister in 1964 in the mainstream Christian denomination of Disciples of Christ.

After leaving Indiana, the Peoples Temple cult built its home in Redwood Valley, California, because Jones believed it was one of the few places in the world likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. Jones authored a booklet, called "The Letter Killeth" pointing out what he felt were the contradictions, absurdities, and atrocities in the Bible, but the booklet also stated that the Bible contained great truths.

He was particularly fascinated with how he could manipulate people. Rather than quitting after he got what he wanted, Jones pushed the envelope to see just how far he could go before the person objected. Throughout the years the young man perfected his craft and was very skilled in his new found art. He claimed to be an incarnation of Jesus, Akhenaten, Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine and performed supposed miracle healings to attract new members. Members of Jones' church called Jones "Father" and believed that their movement was the solution to the problems of society and many did not distinguish Jones from the movement. The group gradually moved away from the mainstream.


In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 1000 members of the Peoples Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after an investigation into the church for tax had begun. Jones named the closed settlement of Jonestown after himself. His intention was to create an agricultural utopia in the jungle, free from racism and based on socialist principles.

People who had left the organization prior to its move to Guyana told the authorities of brutal beatings, murders and of a mass suicide plan, but were not believed. In spite of the tax evasion allegations, Jones was still widely respected for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged. Around 70% of the inhabitants of Jonestown were black and impoverished.

In November 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to the Jonestown settlement in Guyana after allegations by relatives in the U.S. of human rights abuses. Ryan's delegation arrived in Jonestown on November 15 and spent three days interviewing residents. The delegation left hurriedly on the morning of Saturday November 18 after an attempt was made on Ryan's life by a man armed with a knife. The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end. Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them roughly 15 Peoples Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave. At that time, Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure. However, Peoples Temple survivors reported that a group from Jonestown left shortly afterwards in a truck with the intention of stopping the delegation and members from leaving the country alive.

Surviving delegation members later told police that, as they were boarding two planes at the airstrip, the truckload of Jones' armed guards arrived and began to shoot at them. It was here that Ryan was shot and killed. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, drew a weapon and began to fire on members of the party. When the gunmen left, six people were dead.

Later that same day, 909 of the remaining inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died in what has commonly been labeled a mass suicide. However, there is much ambiguity over whether many who died committed suicide or were in fact murdered. Some followers obeyed Jones' instructions to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Kool-aid. Others died by forced cyanide injection or by shooting. Jones was found dead sitting in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to the head, although it is unknown if he had been murdered or committed suicide. The autopsy on his body showed levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital that could have been lethal to humans who have not developed a tolerance to the drug.

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