Blog #1 Griffin, Dederich and his relationship to Chavez, as well as a comparison to Jim Jones

            Charles Dederich, the founder of Synanon had several key relationships with people outside of Synanon.  One of these people was Cesar Chavez.  Along with having a personal relationship with Chavez, Dederich can be compared to Jim Jones, the founder of Jonestown. 

            Cesar Chavez was born on March 31^st, 1927 and was a farm worker, and civil rights activist.  He was the founder of the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers union.  The reason Chavez began the UFW with Dolores Huerta was to fight for the rights and better treatment of Mexican laborers.  The UFW was located in the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California.  As time passed and Synanon began to grow Chavez quickly took notice, and during this period Synanon was still known as the best drug rehabilitation center, and was bringing in millions of dollars of gross revenue.  Chavez reached out to Dederich for advice and inspiration on how to grow his union and community into something as respectable as Synanon during this time.  One of the most important things Chavez took from Dederich is The Game.  Chavez utilized The Game as a way to strengthen bonds in the community and weed out spies attempting to bring down the union.    In the long run this caused the community suck into itself and become similar to the toxic Synanon, which did not allow people to leave, even when custody over those individuals was won.  When Dederich was being charged with conspiracy to commit murder, Chavez famously flew out to California to support Dederich.  Later on, when Synanon was a distant memory, Chavez came out and said establishing The Game as a key event in his community was a mistake because it only weakened membership relations.  First Chavez saw Dederich as a role model, but as time passed and something changed in Dederich, leading to the demise of Synanon, it appeared Chavez became reluctant he had supported Dederich in the first place.

            The lives of Charles Dederich and Jim Jones were very similar.  The childhood of Dederich was framed by the death of his siblings, and his alcoholism at a young age.  Dederich eventually found solace in Alcoholics Anonymous where he managed to become sober and founded Synanon’s values off of AA.  Similarly Jim Jones had a troubled childhood, and eventually separated his life using God.  Jones became charismatic and gained more religious knowledge, and a following grew behind him.  From the beginning Jonestown was considered a religious based community, but Synanon did not become religious based until 1974 when they filed to be tax exempt as a religious establishment.  One difference between the groups was the use of drugs.  While Synanon was founded on the basis of being a drug rehabilitation center, Jonestown utilized drugs as a religious experience, and maybe for other reasons Jones would use them to manipulate others.  While Dederich had his wife Betty who had a high position of power within Synanon, and often counseled Dederich on difficult matter, Jones was on the opposite spectrum.  Jones had no wife and was spoken about as someone to who use girls within his community.  During one of the films we watched in class we saw one woman speak about how Jones locked the door behind them and he began to sexually assault her, but she felt as if she could not cry out or go against him purely because of the power he held.  Similarly, there was the incident where the woman claimed she should be Jones’ wife, but when someone told her she had nothing to show and should expose herself to him right there, Jones simply nodded, agreeing with the mob, and allowing the woman to feel embarrassed naked in front of the crowd.  Both groups faced scrutiny by the media and handled it poorly.  When the media released a scathing report on Jonestown, and its “cult” culture, Jones became paranoid the government would come after him, so he moved his whole commune to Guyana.  When United States representative Ryan showed up in Guyana asking for information Jonestown was hospitable, but when Jones found out people were sneaking messages asking for help to escape to Ryan, he killed Ryan and other members of his crew as they began to board the plane to leave.  After murdering representative Ryan, the violence continued, as everyone in class is aware of the mass suicide, which killed over 900 people.  With Synanon violence was banned at first, but once Betty died Dederich began to resort to violence when a conflict arose.  When lawyer Paul Morantz took a case up against Synanon, he was quickly threatened, and eventually attacked when members snuck a rattlesnake into his mailbox, which bit him and nearly killed him.  Many cases of Synanon members using violence arose, such as Jack Hurst, who was a former president within Synanon, but spoke out against them and came home to find his door open and his dog hung in his living room.  These disgusting acts help correlate two communities together through violence, and two leaders who lost their minds with paranoia.  Jones was simply a man who became corrupt due to his overwhelming power while Dederich became mad when his wife Betty passed away and he was left alone with his thoughts.  It’s sad these two communities became shining examples of what cults and communes can become, scaring those around them, and threatening the lives of others.