In Defense of Charles Manson

Yes, you read that right. But hear me out . . .

The perfect example of how
tattoos look silly when
you get older.

Charles Manson, age 77, in prison for the last 40+ years, has been all over the news lately because California State Corrections had to take new photos of him. "His appearance had changed." See right. But I'm not here to defend Charlie's appearance...

I'm reacting to the latest stream of calls for Manson to be "tied to a stake and burned," "boiled in tar," "hung from a tree until his head pulls off," or at any rate put to death in some way, preferably slowly and painfully. 

From this, I gather that there are many falsely held beliefs about who committed the so-called Manson murders, what Manson's role was, and how Manson was turned into "The World's Most Dangerous Man."

                                         *****

 Geraldo interview, 1989

The U.S. and much of the rest of the world has lost sight of the fact that Charlie Manson is mortal. He has no special magic, no uncanny powers, no supernatural way to cause a person's death. (I don't give credence to Prosecutor Bugliosi's absurd claim that Charlie once stopped his watch.)

You could have accompanied Geraldo Rivera to meet Manson in prison and been in more danger from Geraldo than from him. The frisson you felt when first facing Manson would not be Charlie "getting inside your head," at least not by his own powers; rather, it would come out of the decades of misinformation portraying Manson as the evil and powerful Prince of Darkness. So who or what has created this image?

*****

Aura enhanced.

The pop-culture myth of Manson as Boogeyman was created by the U.S. establishment of the 60s-70s, using the powerful and rising tool of media. Manson was a thief, a drifter, an ex-con who with his "Family" unwittingly became the symbol of all things "threatening" about hippie culture. READ: Anti-war sentiment. The public face of which was "flower children" and not the educators, clergy, parents, etc, involved in the movement. Nixon himself had said in a speech that "opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S. [in Viet Nam]." Manson was turned into a symbolic monster to frighten the masses and turn them against the counter-culture.

During the trial. Can
you imagine?

Manson accepted the role handed him before the trial ended. He seemed to sense that he was being set up in a judicial charade and media blitz with a far-reaching political agenda. He became the extreme of the deranged and dangerous hippie everyone wanted to believe he was. 

The political campaign against Manson created an other-worldly image, well-maintained to this day, that leads people to hold simultaneously the naturally conflicting beliefs that Charlie is a clown and that he is Satan. The combination is powerful indeed: with roots in the Jungian Shadow, the insane criminal (think Hannibal Lector), the Joker, the Boogeyman. Charlie, for more than half his life, has played along.

Well, okay, he's a clown.

*****

No, this man can't control
you, for chrissakes, but the media can.

Now consider that Manson wasn't present at the Tate-Labianca murders.(Didja know that?) He was charged and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder (and thus the seven murders as well). The only basis for his involvement in this conspiracy was that he reportedly told the gang, as they left the first night, "Do something witchy." Insufficient evidence, wouldn't you think, to prove he conspired to murder seven people. Remember: He's not magic.

The real murderer-murderer of the Tate and Labianca households was Tex Watson. Watson drove the car, chose the homes, and made sure the girls involved themselves in the slaughter. According to his own account, he personally stabbed all the victims to death.

Oh, and he shot a few, too. That's right—Tex Watson brought a gun along. And instructed the girls to bring Bowie knives. The girls admit to stabbing some victims, but under Tex's pressure. See his website where he admits it and, unless I'm imagining it, sounds as if he still revels a bit in the retelling. (www.aboundinglove.org)

For most of his time incarcerated, Tex has been in California's cushiest minimum security prison, provided with amenities and opportunities. For example, he was married and has four children through conjugal visits (pause); he had free range of the grounds and workshops "on campus"; and he started and continues to run the non-profit ministry that he, as administrator, gets a handsome salary from. Lots of people support Tex and his Christian work, and he can buy lots of great stuff with his money. If the commissary doesn't have what he wants they will order it, "within reason." They're very accommodating, and Tex has always been a "star" within the prison.

"The Most Dangerous
Man Alive"
Hyperbolic much?

Unfortunately for Tex, he had to be moved from the cushy minimum security facility to a medium security prison after his escape attempt. Yes, I said, HIS ESCAPE ATTEMPT. So who among the now-defunct "Family" poses the greatest risk to society?

Tex Watson should have been made the Boogeyman, but the media had been pulled back by the time he went to trial and after Manson was convicted. The latter was the evil, drug-addled, violent and murderous hippie who "ended the 60s." All you had to do was look at him! The establishment's goal had been pulled off: Hippie = Threat to Society.

Tex didn't have the look for

the establishment's 'Have-Nots

vs. Haves' spin on the murders. 

Ah, but Charlie did.

The establishment swept Tex's trial under the rug so as not to spoil the anti-counter-culture message that had been crafted. Tex's starring role in the murders was buried so the media could continue to turn the public against the hippies and the anti-war movement.

Probably very few people can even tell you Tex's real first name. (It's Charles. The reporting was manipulated so that an inconvenient coincidence—two Charlies—wouldn't muddy the image of Manson as Public Enemy.) I wonder how many people know even that Tex was there and that Charlie was not, and that Tex will tell you that he killed all seven victims?

*****

"The Other"
A woman, a lesbian,
horribly abused.

To return to my main point, we should be wary of swallowing the media's message without thinking more for ourselves. We should refuse to buy into the hype surrounding Manson and every other media-manipulated symbol used to lead us toward one agenda or another. Charlie may deserve to be in prison (though I don't know what for by now...) but letting ourselves be fooled about what he is and who is really responsible for such terrible crimes does nothing in the name of justice and nothing for a larger understanding.

"The Other"
A gay man, mentally
ill,  psychotic.

Recognition of media manipulation and its underlying political motives takes the power out of highly publicized events and circumstances used to influence our world picture by representing one subset of people around us (could be anyone!) as secretly evil, another as "psychotic" (in a non-medical sense), whole ethnicities as murderous barbarians without consciences. We need to keep in mind that, like Manson, these are people, flawed people, but not inhuman monsters that we can never understand.

"The Other"
A child star, an addict, an alcoholic, a woman hunted down and  
humiliated by what must seem to be the whole world. 

All this is about controlling the masses with scary stories, dark folklore, cautionary tales, and monsters. We could all be a little more savvy about it. This isn't the Middle Ages.

 *****

What assumptions underlie
this headline?

Bonus Section!
For an example of how the Manson myth continues to evolve—and has become a Frankenstein's Monster the establishment certainly did not foresee—check out the Manson Fan Club link below. Don't think that's a one-off, though; it's just an example. There are Manson "followers" world-wide. Find them in Malaysia and Brazil. Find them on Facebook and Twitter. Really.

Link: The Charles Manson Fan Club

And from the Manson Memorabilia Store. . .

Charles Manson Rosary, $28

 

Early Lessons, #4: A Cheer for Cleveland

Camp Tippecanoe 

circa 1970

To the left,

To the right,

To the left, 

Right, left

My head be hurtin'

My bra too tight

My booty shakin'

To the left, to the right

My skirt too long

My afro been combed

Let's all get together

Right on, right on

Hey, hey, right on

Right on, right on

Hey, hey, right on

Right on!
  

Ages 7 to 11, I found myself attending a Y-camp every summer. It was great fun.  5-6 girls to a cabin. Horseback riding, singing, hiking, swimming, boating, crafts, and—everyone's favorite—Dining Hall!

Two distinct groups, from one distinct economic class, attended camp the weeks I went: Appalachian (white) girls, and inner-city (black) girls. It was some governmental program for "at-risk" children, and that's who qualified. Subsidized camp was our summer "opportunity."

Now of course none of us knew this at the time. We looked around and saw that white girls were housed together in cabins, and black girls were housed together in other cabins. Strong signal:  Us vs. Them (though surely this was not the intended message).

More salient at the time was that the black girls could beat the sh-t out of us. Appalachian kids can be pretty tough, but by and large we were no match for our sisters from Cleveland. And they seemed older and bigger than us. Older and bigger and meaner. We felt ourselves cowed all 'round.

      1... 2... 3... HAUL!  
YOU PEOPLE BETTER BE 
KICKIN' IN 'BOUT NOW!

You'ins is doin' it wrong!
Tawny gots it right, look.

_________________________

Besides being housed separately, we had our own dining table by cabin so we were segregated for three meals a day. Activities were assigned to cabins, not individuals.

Strike fear into ya?
It does me.

Oh, but there was "free time." That was when we all came together—

Remember tether ball? Most fights between the conveniently color-coded groups were over who would play next. Things stayed verbal and only mildly threatening for the most part but occasionally a sister needed to get serious.

In a split second arms wrapped to body, ball in face. They probably played three games to our one. We were cool with that.

_____________________

About a week into our two-week stay, things calmed down on the racial front. Some of us on the White Side had formed tentative friendships with our oppressors. The Black Side seemed to be softening toward us, too.

I credit myself. No, I do. By that age, I could be drop-dead funny and I soon reached the level "funny enough to let live" by standing near tetherball and calling out hysterical one-liners. Pretty soon, everyone was smiling despite themselves. Sometimes all of us had to stop to laugh. I want to claim that it was the first real break in the hostilities. It was also when I learned that I could pull off a lot with that being funny thing.

_____________________

There was this Michele, a screamingly funny black girl in a cabin close to mine. We started falling into back-and-forth joking and capping on each other, like real friends. Then we were running around in free-time together. Michele and her cabin-mates taught me the cheer that started this post and I've remembered it all this time.

I remember Michele in another way. She was special to me in no small part because she was black. Appalachian kids don't get to experience much outside the mountains, and no black people lived anywhere near my world. But there was something beyond the exotic:  Michele crossed the lines of Them and Us. We were in the same circle. It was a significant and powerful event in my life.

When Michele and I said good-bye, I gave her a prize possession. It was a funky, floppy Coke hat—a promotional thing my dad got because he was a grocer. All my friends coveted it, and I was crazy about it. I gave it to Michele with love and sadness but no feelings of regret.

I would love to have seen
how it went over in Cleveland....