When did "drinking the Kool-Aid" become such a popular phrase?

[tcfrogs]

I don't recall hearing that phrase much before a couple of years ago. Heard it on Hannity and on DU mostly.

I do know the origin - James Jones/Guyana, right?

[boobooday]

1. People said it a lot after the Jim Jones thing

And then it made a comeback.

There was of course, that other cult in San Diego, who ATE THE PUDDING.

It just doesn't have the same ring, I guess . . .



http://www.wgoeshome.com

[taxidriver]

2. its an attempt by both sides to infer extremism on their adversaries.

for better or for worse.

[AlGore-08.com]

5. I think it's more accurate to say it infers blind obedience to dogma

Which results in a complete unwillingness/inability to see obvious truths.

[geniph]

10. Implies, not infers.

The speaker (or writer)implies, the listener (or reader) infers.

Sorry to be a grammar nazi, but that one always bugs me.

[Susang]

11. Irregardless...

Sorry, just wanted to see if your head would explode. ;-)

[madinmaryland]

13. ugh

My mother an english major had spent 40 years making sure i dont say "irregardless"

[tjwash]

19. She must have loved the movie "Roger and me"

nt

[geniph]

16. Owie!

Susan, that was mean. I'm going to go pout now.

;-)

[candy]

3. Yep,Jonestown!!!!!

[billybob537]

6. Why don'r we call it georgetown?

[Deja Q]

4. Despite Jimmie Walker who coined the term in 1974...

It was the Jim Jones phenomenon that caused it in 1978.

Jim Jones, like Sun Myong Moon, was a cult leader.

Unfortunately, unlike Moon, Jones had enough sense to knock himself off.

Unfortunately, Jones told his followers to do the same. Those who didn't comply were shot or forced to drink it...

[tcfrogs]

7. I knew the meaning - but appreciate the input

but I'm wondering more WHY it's gotten used so frequently recently? The very polarized Left vs. Right since election fiasco 2000?

[Susang]

8. Journalists started using it about each other

Remember that documentary Alexandra Pelosi did about the 2000 election? Many of the journalists used that term to refer to their colleagues who they felt were not being critical enough of Bush (as well as other politicians).

http://www.journeyswithgeorge.com/

edited for poor spelling

[Kickin_Donkey]

9. That's a good question ...

I've been hearing it a lot lately – but I hadn't heard it much in the intervening 20-plus years. Just on anecdotal evidence, that phrase seems to have made in comeback in the last one or two years.

Maybe it's being picked up by the younger generation who wasn't alive during Jonestown?

[sundog]

12. well, the bush/jim jones connection doesn't exactly

seem that outlandish at this juncture in history... a picture says a thousand words



the kool-aid is being served at the side of the stage

(I wonder if the guys on the balcony forgot their hoods)

[MikeG]

14. Pigboy said it in 92.

He said that all of the Democrats at their convention would be drinking Koolaid and commiting suicide if they nominated Clinton because of his alleged baggage, and that Bush I would win in a landslide.

[LowerManhattanite]

15. It was the Jonestown mass suicide that started it...

...when the hundreds of Guyanese believers in the proto-Koresh Jim Jones drank the cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid that was prepared in vats all around the compound. They allegedly soooo believed in his twisted religion that they willingly drank this poison in an ultimate attempt to cover stories of what was going on there.

Funny part is that almost no one remembers the events that led up to them "drinking the Kool-Aid"---namely the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan who went there on a fact finding mission after hearing about the crazy sh*t that was going down. Video captures him being shot down on the tarmac along with others. as the U.S. mobilized to do something about this, that's when Jones took his own life and urged his lemming-like followers to do the same to escape the evil clutches of their oppressors.

[name not needed]

17. It wasn't actually kool aid

It was Flavor-Aid.

eom

[Sequoia]

18. After "The Kool-Aid Acid Test"

by Tom Wolfe(?)