<P> In December 1978, Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin told a convention of the American unit of Pax Christi that American planning for nuclear war and preparations for civil defense was "the Kool - Aid drill without the cyanide ." </P> <P> According to academician Rebecca Moore, early analogies to Jonestown and Kool - Aid were based around death and suicide, not blind obedience . The earliest such example she found, via a Lexis - Nexis search, was a 1982 statement from Lane Kirkland, then head of the AFL - CIO, which described Ronald Reagan's policies as "Jonestown economics," which "administers Kool - Aid to the poor, the deprived and the unemployed ." </P> <P> In 1984, a Reagan administration appointee, Clarence M. Pendleton Jr., chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, was quoted as criticizing civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson, Vernon Jordan Jr., and Benjamin Hooks by making an analogy between allegiance to "the black leadership" and blind obedience to the Jonestown leaders: "We refuse to be led into another political Jonestown as we were led during the Presidential campaign . No more Kool - Aid, Jesse, Vernon and Ben . We want to be free ." </P> <P> In 1989, Jack Solerwitz, a lawyer for many of the air traffic controllers who lost their jobs in the 1981 PATCO strike, explained his dedication to their cause in spite of the substantial personal financial losses he incurred by saying: "I was the only lawyer who kept the doors open for them, and I thought I'd get a medal for it...Instead, I was the one who drank the Kool - Aid ." </P>

Pa says the killings have started. to what does he refer