Binged "Wild Wild Country" over the weekend.

That was my biggest questions as well. They basically said one sentence on the funding and nothing else.

quote:

---

Sheela was red pilled at the end and called them out about the duping of rich dumb Europeans, Americans, and Australians.

---

She knew what was going on all along, she just enjoyed the power.

Absolutely. She is lucky her did not spend more time in jail

quote:

---

It was pretty interesting, but I felt like they just glossed over the cult leader and his funding for the operation

---

I think they said in one of the early episodes that the followers donated most of their money and possessions to the movement... get enough wealthy people together and I can see where they got their starting funds.

I thought our nations attitude towards the cult as displayed by interviews with normal citizens, news and talk show clips, and political interviews- all from that time frame- gave a unique view of how as a whole our nation was against this cult. I just wonder how a similar movement would be received in the present. I just believe a lot more segments of our society would be livid if the same kind of attitudes were projected towards a group like this today- especially the media and Oprah-types.

That was some of the craziest shite I have ever seen. Sheela was bat shite

I didn't like the mayor that let them walk all over the townsfolk. She basically cried every time she was shown on screen.

I think you inately assume a lot of things about the cult going into the documentary. The best part about this documentary is IMO that they try to break you if those assumptions to get as close to an unbiased view of the situation as possible.

You may have felt they told the cults side more so than the townsfolk side but IMO that’s more effective storytelling in this case because their side hasn’t actually been told before. The townsfolk side is what you can mostly read online, seeing the critical pillars of the movement speak on it in present day allows for a really balanced narrative, or atleast closer to a balanced narrative that what was already out there. They wove that line pretty neatly, as soon as they would make one side seem like a shite head, they would flip it and show the other angle of the same plot and let you decide what side you believe

And while obviously the lawyer had a major bias, I think he did make some very sound legal arguments throughout the documentary that showed some of the major flaws in how the US government handled the situation

quote:

---

The fact that they made both sides appear equally responsible is just more evidence of bias because the things the cult did (like staging the largest bio-attack in American history, and importing, drugging, and releasing homeless people) completely eclipsed any actions by the townspeople.

---

The story wouldn’t be very interesting if it didn’t show a new perspective other than the one we already knew

And I don’t think they pardoned the cult at all, and they really showed what it had become whenever the politics got past the point of just the small town and into Wasco County.

quote:

---

said that treating the actions of the townspeople as if it was anywhere near the scale of the cult was evidence of bias.

---

I disagree that they did this. I think they showed the pattern of escalation from the cult in response to an action from the townspeople but I don’t think they ever gave me the impression they said they acted rationally in their reactions

And the actual towns people played a small part in the overall story. Once they controlled the city the story turned into the cult vs state and federal officials