Came as close to pure evil as anyone I've ever heard or read about.
Came as close to pure evil as anyone I've ever heard or read about.
DRIP
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Believe me when I say I am not a soft-hearted apologist for any evil-doers, but I firmly believe that monsters aren't born, they're created.
I'm probably going to get a great deal of flak for my comment, so be it. How would any one of us have fared with a 16-year-old junkie mother, no father, shuttled between people who couldn't care less for your welfare, let alone for your happiness? Sometime in the future the genetic predisposition towards what is considered evil may be discovered, but you have to admit, upon reflection, that that predisposition must be fed to blossom.
I've got a bike you can ride it if you like
I agree with this. And, genetics certainly does pay some role, IMO. I see it in siblings who were raised in the same environment, but have personality traits of one parent over the other.Originally Posted by Casey
People say the only things you can't avoid are death and taxes. But, I add genetics to that list.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Upbringing no doubt amplified a genetic predisposition, which is doubly sad. That said, I find it very, very difficult to feel any sympathy toward this person knowing what he did.
There's a big difference between sympathy (I have none for him) and understanding that he wasn't born with horns and others are equally responsible for the monster he grew into.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Others have been born with similar or worse circumstances and didn't turn out this evil.
Report on the news this morning said the Tate-La Bianca murders were "the end of the '60s." Some truth to that. Them, and Altamonte, brought the youth of America to the realization that it's not true that "all you need is love."
I was thinking along the same lines this morning. I have no sympathy for Manson, but to dismiss Manson as "evil" and not look at contributing factors does little to help us stop things like this in the future. I don't think Manson, despite genetic predispositions, was inevitable. There were probably points at which a positive influence could have intervened, or at least put him on the radar in a more serious way that might have prevented disaster. You're not going to stop every case like this, but there are usually warning signs that people in retrospect are sorry they didn't follow up on. Why we don't is really a societal question.
In all, though, I think Vincent Bugliosi, the attorney who prosecuted Manson, put it best. "Today, Manson's victims are the ones who should be remembered and mourned on the occasion of his death."
Bill
Manson was diagnosed with a couple of mental illnesses included schizophrenia and yeah, he was subjected to a horrible upbringing. But some rise above it, others do not. Most mentally ill people are a danger to themselves. Manson was a manipulative little shit with delusions of grandeur, a racist, a misogynist, and the motherfucker never showed a single bit of remorse or self-awareness his entire incarceration. May he now be subjected to all of Hell's particular delights.
It was a crazy time. Great for music but the social upheaval was substantial. I saw this quoted today and it's worth posting:
“This mystical flirtation with the idea of ‘sin’—this sense that it was possible to go ‘too far,’ and that many people were doing it—was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969…The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. On August 9, 1969, I was sitting in the shallow end of my sister-in-law’s swimming pool in Beverly Hills when she received a telephone call from a friend who had just heard about the murders at Sharon Tate Polanski’s house on Cielo Drive. The phone rang many times during the next hour. These early reports were garbled and contradictory. One caller would say hoods, the next would say chains. There were twenty dead, no, twelve, ten, eighteen. Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remembered all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”—Joan Didion
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
God yes, let's do whatever we can to prevent people "falling through the cracks," let every child born be wanted, let social safety nets catch those caught in the whirlpool of downward spiral. Let there never again be a evil fuck like Charles Manson.
Alas, that has not been the direction of things since 1969 has it....
Just because I could, I downloaded Charlie's 1969 album "LIE" (available everywhere for free, don't pay for it) and listened to it again. His songs were nothing great, but I give him props for trying. Some say the producer who turned him down owned the home Sharon Tate was staying in, some say Carl Wilson or Mike Love were dismissive of Charlie when he got pushy and weird. We'll never know what triggered his sociological breakdown. It doesn't matter. He could not be redeemed.
Let's see....cynical or hopeful? Ah, fuck it, I'll take hopeful.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
the outrageous part was the pop icon status he held. Not sorry he checked out.
"Alienated-so alien I go!"
The guy lived until 83, over 50 of those years being imprisoned for various offenses. That's a tough SOB.
Equally? I don't think so. I'd say partly. But, it's not to nitpick.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
Glad to see this legacy of the '60s end.
I grew up In Chatsworth, CA, not far from the old movie ranch where Manson had his cult. Needless to say that was all said and done by the time I rolled around, but Manson and his cult still had a hold of the collective imaginations local Gen-X youth.
I never went up the "Manson Caves" as some were wont to do.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
To quote Chuckie:
"Pretty girl, pretty, pretty girl, Cease to Exist...Never had a lesson I ever learned but I know we all get our turn..."
Lets be careful not to blanketly blame the 60s and the hippie culture of the 60s for the horrors of the Manson murders. Manson was born in 1934. He grew up in the 40s and 50s in his formative years. He was an "adult" by the mid 50s during the height of the placid Eisenhower administration. His irresponsible excuse for a "mother" who abandoned him was born in the early 20th century.
By the time Manson got to Haight Asbury by the mid 60s and then later LA after being released from prison for the umpteenth time, the peace/love/drug youth culture of the 60s was already in full swing.
Being the little con man/pimp/hustler that he was, the now mid 30s hardened criminal mind of Manson, shaped by years of institutional neglect and a complete lack of any kind of normal family life and education, learned quickly that he could hustle, con and impress naive and gullible troubled teens and college age kids, most of whom were runaways, with the aid of drugs of course. Like one of his heroes Hitler, he could manipulate and program and even brainwash these young runaway teen girls and guys to buy into his "I am Jesus/God" BS because of their naïveté and their own troubled lives.
That's not to excuse any of the horrible murderous decisions these younger followers decided to act on with the prodding and manipulation and direct commands of Manson. They are also responsible for their own actions, but ask yourself if young girls like Krenwinkle, Atkins, Van Houten etc would have gone on brutal murderous rampages in the complete absence of Manson in their impressionable drug fueled lives. That was Bugliosi's whole theory and theme in getting convictions on Manson for murders where he did not pull the trigger or brandish the knife himself--he was the mastermind manipulator. One who was the product of the 30s/40s/50s not the 60s. He took advantage of the 60s culture, but was never really the symbol or product of the 60s.
See above. Manson was not a product of the 60s. And you could argue that he brainwashed his followers by subverting what that expression meant. So no you need more than just love, but love isn't what caused those murders of course.
Report on the news this morning said the Tate-La Bianca murders were "the end of the '60s." Some truth to that. Them, and Altamonte, brought the youth of America to the realization that it's not true that "all you need is love."
Last edited by DocProgger; 11-20-2017 at 06:28 PM.
^^^
Quite right, but I don't think such a broad brush was being used. This miserable little turd smear was the very antithesis of the 60's in many ways.
BTW Vincent Bugliosi who we lost a couple of years ago was a brilliant prosecutor and legal mind who knew a criminal when he saw one... man we could really use him now.
RIP Vince.
Bugliosi's Helter Skelter book is one of the most fascinating and well written books I have ever read. Read it multiple times in HS after seeing the very well done TV movie because I was fascinated by how Bugliosi prosecuted the case and used the Beatles tie ins and Hitler obsessions Manson had to bring him down. He outconned the con man and Manson knew it.
Well said, DocProgger, Manson was the antithesis of a hippie. I only meant his actions helped bring the whole naïve flower-power culture crashing down on itself as we encountered real evil.
True. I was more addressing the media reports of this in my posts. Sometimes the media due to time constraints and sometimes not thorough research, takes the easy "Manson was the symbol of the free love druggie hippie 60s" as a way to neatly summarize the whole thing. That can improperly mis- educate the younger generations who didn't live through the era, and it also feeds into the kind of moralistic right wing "moral majority" mindset that uses Manson as some broad brush failure of the 60s youth counterculture and the "leftist" opposition to the war arguments etc
It is a shame he lived to see old age, something he denied his victims.
Member since Wednesday 09.09.09
All I have to say is GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!
Dave Sr.
I prefer Nature to Human Nature
Yeah, the Tate residence was owned or rented by Roman Polanski at the time but was previously the home of record producer Terry Melcher, who was supposedly given Manson's demo via one of the Beach Boys (Dennis probably?), and didn't act on it, and Manson thus may have known that house and been there before. He may have thought Melcher still lived there or didn't care and just picked it because he knew "pigs" lived there and knew the layout and location.
Re the nature vs nurture balance, it certainly doesn't help that he started out life as "No Name Maddux" on his birth certificate. Not an excuse but it goes downhill from there.
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