My dear neighbor, Tobias, mentioned in another thread that a new episode was posted to George Stimson's Goodbye Helter Skelter Youtube channel. I thought I'd drop a link and see if anyone wants to share their exegesis with me.
My dear neighbor, Tobias, mentioned in another thread that a new episode was posted to George Stimson's Goodbye Helter Skelter Youtube channel. I thought I'd drop a link and see if anyone wants to share their exegesis with me.
128 comments:
Bugliosi talked through his nose. I can't take my focus off it.
Of course they all backed away from the Helter Skelter hypothesis. Because killing people to kick off the race war means premeditation, and that's harder to explain away. They all knew what they were going to do at Cielo when they got into that car.
Question. Why is the motive so important if the admitted killers fingered Charlie and said yeah he told me to go do it, and Hatami and Rudi are there to nail Charlie's coffin shut? Wasn't that enough?
Bugliosi said in his book that, while motive is not required to prove guilt, providing this information when it is known can be a great help in achieving that result. He said that he felt it particularly important in this case because the crimes were so senseless.
Bugliosi also gave a quote to Penthouse years later that is featured in this podcast, stating essentially "whether Manson himself believed HS, I have no idea - he may have not."
I have always thought this same thing, "surely Charlie couldn't have been THAT stupid" (to believe in something as wild as HS. But then I remind myself that he was preaching the HS warning to the sheriffs hauling him & the others in after a raid weeks before the murders - and that he was spewing the same to Stephanie's roomies just a day or two before Tate - and I think that yes, it is entirely possible that he felt this to be true.
As for why Stimson focuses so heavily on Copycat vs. Helter Skelter, I dunno. I suppose it is his attempt to deflect (much) blame from Manson directly and instead pin the responsibility on Kasabian, Watson and the others.
As Simon points out in his book, however, the HS motive was prime territory for appeal and Manson didn't even bother to mention it, so Charlie's objection mustn't have been TOO great.
GGW said: "Why is the motive so important..."
A DA is not required to prove motive. It is not an element of a crime but the the defendant having a motive reinforces guilt and the absence of a motive undermines guilt. Also, humans want to know 'why' something happened and leaving that out of a case can be dangerous for a DA.
In Manson's specific situation he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder which then pulls in all of the murders. A member of a conspiracy is guilty of all of the crimes of that conspiracy and if the purpose of the conspiracy is murder they are all guilty of murder. So we need an agreement to form a conspiracy and that is where motive becomes more important: it defines the conspiracy. HS was the conspiracy. Put another way HS= kill people.
George Stimson focuses on motive because if Kasabian and Watson thought this up as a way to get a brother out of jail and all Manson said was 'do what you want but do it well' Manson is not part of the conspiracy and is, thus, not guilty.
Of course he has never explained night number two with any clarity and night number two puts Manson exactly where he spent the last 50 years fo his life even without night number one. Then you have Shorty....Hinman.....
The minute Manson got in the car on night number two he was going to prison for the rest of his life.
Thanks, guys. You're surely sick of rewriting those thoughts again and again. I appreciate you. Motive is the rabbitty-est rabbit hole of them all. How many minds have left this realm over its miserable partisanship?
Charlie's refusal to understand his responsibility in the deaths is a huge part of this study for me. It's always at the edge of my thinking.
I've never had a chance to sit down and talk with George Stimson although I hope to one day.
tobiasragg said...
"surely Charlie couldn't have been THAT stupid" (to believe in something as wild as HS."
Yet he also thought he was Jesus Christ and that the Beatles were talking to him. Symptoms of madness, surely. HS wasn't a stretch after that.
"You're surely sick of rewriting those thoughts again and again"
I am typing a response because this, too, vexes me a bit. But not really. We just had a lengthy discussion (again) over motive under an unrelated post, and here is Stimson motivating yet another one.
I have been watching hours and hours of Manson in recent weeks and it is amazing how possible it is to actually make sense of Charlie-speak once you get into the groove. Charlie spoke around things rather than addressing questions directly, but once you begin to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff it is possible to actually *hear* much of what he seems intent on saying. I hesitated in composing this post because I did not want to devote lengthy paragraphs to the matter, but I will attempt to explain what I have gleaned succinctly. I mainly do this with an interest in how others might respond, but anyway . . .
In his media appearances over the years, from Sawyer to Rivera to strange European reporters, Charlie Manson has admitted to almost every single murder-related thing he has ever been accused of - and in public. From the "you owe me one" private convo with Tex to the "witchy" comment to the girls to waking Leno and Rosemary up to announce that they have company to cutting Shorty to slashing Hinman - Charlie has never been one to deny these things. He even admits to things that Stimson now seeks to discredit, such as stopping at the Pasadena church to check the doors - though in Manson's retell, he simply walked round to the backside of the building to take a piss.
Charlie's big thing over the decades, as Green so often reminds us, is that he does not believe that any of these admissions mean that he is guilty of anything - much less conspiracy. Charlie uttered "I wasn't part of no conspiracy!" over the years almost as much as he uttered "my father was all the vets from WW2" and "I am not a part of your world!" Manson never changed his tune over all of those years.
To me, what we have here amounts to a full confession. It's just couched in disagreement with the legal definition of conspiracy.
In all of these years, Manson himself has never really interested me much. I've a real-life, meaning non-internet, friend who remains fascinated with the dude even after all of these years. Charlie has always seemed a full-of-shit little pimp twerp to me. The ones who fascinate me most are the followers. That means the true-blue believers who then saw the light like Krenwinkel and Van Houten, but even more so the ones who still cling to the illusion - Sandy, Squeaky and, by extension, Stimson. Were it possible, I would love to crack them open psychologically and truly understand what makes them tick these days.
Krenwinkel, LVH and the others underwent prison programing for decades and they came to renounce Manson. And yet Squeaky, who spent years in prison, never did apparently. Where do you feel Sandy Goode might be standing right now, if she had spent more time in prison than she did?
didn't Charlie preach HS to the sheriffs in the truck on the ride down after his last arrest. It was his last moments of freedom and as such months after the killings and not two weeks before. Or am I wrong. Or maybe he preached to the law more than once.
You could be right, Zeke. I can't remember which raid that happened with, lol. But I have assumed that these unnecessary "preachings" indicate that Manson really did believe that stuff.
Another aspect of Stimson's latest installment that I would love to question him on is his decision to include such a lengthy clip from Krenwinkel's CourtTV parole hearing. He uses her "I didn't know nuttin!" claims there as evidence that HS wasn't a real thing while ignoring that it was Krenwinkel herself who scrawled "Healter Skelter" on the Labianca fridge.
It is these massive leaps over fact that drive me a bit nuts with Stimson. Yet strangely, I do not feel a need to be confrontational with him, were I to exchange directly. As I said in the other thread, I respect the dude for holding the beliefs that he does even while I do not agree with the conclusions he has drawn.
Tobias, was Good actually mailing the letters that sent her to prison? Or did the fuzz find them after Fromme pulled a pistol on Ford? Just shy of a decade either way.
Green, reposting my response so that I can add the link I was hoping to include.
I've never paid that much attention to the timeline associated with Blue's legal difficulties. I will say that she is a piece of work, she has never really shed her utter hostility to the world, has she?
This interview is brief, succinct and representative of Ms. Goode from the trial onward. It is also brief and highly entertaining, I think. Conducted just a week or so after Squeaky did her thing. Check it out if you care to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Xzuj74fBY
Charlie to police at the time of the Barker arrests:
"Charlie told us(arresting officers) that his group was out there looking for a place to hide because there was an impending race war. He told us that the blacks were going to win. He told us that because we were number one, cops, and number two, white, we should stop right there, let them loose, and flee for our lives."
I believe he expressed similar sentiments to the cops at the Spahn mini-raid of July 28, 1969
Thanks for the link, Tobias. Like her, I suffer from the inability to keep every thought in my mind from escaping my mouth. However, I try to stay away from the assassin-type threats. Good was ahead of her time with the eco warrior rap. I knew lots of girls like that in the early 90's.
Larry Bailey, Hawthorne, that short anxiety trip I just sat through on YT. There's a lot of revolutionary stuff going on that we always dismiss or explain away by calling people crazy. Were there subcategories of "true believers" believing different things?
GG-W said:
Bugliosi talked through his nose
Paul Fitzgerald referred to him as a "sword rattling harbinger of death," of whom "death never had a more vigorous advocate" that descended, "to misleading half truths, distortions and non-sequiturs in the guise of legitmate legal argument" and had "the infinite audacity and temerity to profane the scriptures."
The man was indeed a poet, even if he didn't know it. 🤢
starviego said:
They all knew what they were going to do at Cielo when they got into that car
Weighing up all that they have said at various points over the years, I just do not believe that. Pat & Linda have always been consistent about this. For over half a century. Susan's earliest recorded statement {to Caballero and Caruso} was that she did not know what was to happen until they got to Cielo Drive, which, oddly enough, jibes with Pat. Only Watson knew what was to ensue before he left.
But before you jump on me and beat me with a stick for "defending the poor dames," I will add that, in my eyes, that makes their subsequent actions worse and makes it all the more explainable why Susan died in prison and why Pat is unlikely to ever leave it. Pat in particular is in deep, deep shit. Paul Fitzgerald, unwittingly, hammered a thick 6 inch nail in her coffin when, in his summing up at the end of the penalty phase, he said "Patricia Krenwinkel is 23 years old. With 365 days in the year, there are approximately 8,400 days in 23 years and approximately 200,0o0 hours in her lifetime. The perpetration of these offences took at best, 3 hours. Is she to be judged solely on what occurred during 3 of 200,o0o hours of her lifetime ?"
The answer to that has long been "yes" and particularly so as there was nothing prior that indicated it {not even the conversation in the trailer with Charlie} and nothing subsequently that showed that she was just running to form. Tex, Leslie, Bobby, Bruce and Clem {and Bill Vance and Larry Jones, if one is to believe Bruce} all knew well in advance that they were going to kill someone before their first murders. Susan had already been involved in murder as had Charlie {as he thought with Lotsapoppa}. It didn't apply to Pat and one can even see this freaking out the parole board members in 2016 and 17, almost half a century after the events. That someone can turn just like that to murder, with hardly any time to process the info just given, that you are going to kill, then turn away from that, well, can you blame anyone for having misgivings as to your insight or trust you you when you've shown no inclination towards murderous violence before, but then.....?
GG-W said:
Why is the motive so important if the admitted killers fingered Charlie and said yeah he told me to go do it
Do you mean at the time or subsequently ? And important to whom, the jury or the rest of us that have spent the last 50+ years discussing it ?
and Hatami and Rudi are there to nail Charlie's coffin shut? Wasn't that enough?
Not really. Hatami never identified Charlie and Rudy's ID didn't prove a thing in terms of murder. Realistically, all we get from that is that Charlie disturbed Rudy in the shower, asked for Terry Melcher and said he'd like to talk to Rudy and Rudy said he was going away for a year.
tobiasragg said:
Bugliosi also gave a quote to Penthouse years later that is featured in this podcast, stating essentially "whether Manson himself believed HS, I have no idea - he may have not."
I have that 1976 Penthouse interview in its entirety {but with a wife, not the magazine ! 🙄 I'm a good lad. I threw it away but kept the verbals !🤤}. Most of it is about the killing of Bobby Kennedy. This is a section of it:
Penthouse: Why do you think Manson urged his followers to become murderers?
Bugliosi: There were three main reasons. One was to ignite the war between blacks and whites that he called Helter Skelter, a war in which Manson saw himself as the ultimate beneficiary. He said the blacks would win but wouldn‘t be able to handle power and would look for leadership to those whites who'd survived. So Charlie tried to frame black people for his murders. The Manson family believed in Helter Skelter - hook, line and sinker. It was the family’s religion and credo. But Charlie is a very evil sophisticated con man and I cannot conceive of his believing some of the things he preached about, such as a bottomless pit, the family growing to 144,000 people and himself becoming the leader of the world. Oh, he was a megalomaniac and would’ve loved to become the leader of the world but I find it difficult to think he believed those murders could actually start a worldwide race war between blacks and whites. My guess is that he used Helter Skelter as a vehicle to work his followers into such a lather that they were willing to kill for him. Whether he believed it, I have to guess no. And I have to guess because Manson has never admitted his involvement in these murders.
I feel very strongly about the two other motivations he had. One was a kind of revenge. He’d once been turned away at the plush residence where Sharon Tate lived. Before she moved in the house had been occupied by Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son. Charlie had gone there to get Melcher, a record producer to record him and Terry had refused. Manson was a frustrated singer-guitarist and on the night of the Tate murders he was striking back at that. The residence symbolized society’s rejection of him. The third motive was his pre-occupation with death. Charlie was always lecturing the family about death and how beautiful it was in fact most of the songs he wrote contained constant references to death. And where did he lead the family after the murders? Death Valley. Paul Watkins, who left Manson before the murders, said it best: Death was Charlie’s trip."
Interesting, eh ?
David said...
The minute Manson got in the car on night number two he was going to prison for the rest of his life
So did Grogan
all we get from that is
Well, that and the fact that Sharon, Jay, Abigail or Wojiciech actually saw Charlie and directed him to the guest house.
tobiasragg said:
I have always thought this same thing, "surely Charlie couldn't have been THAT stupid" to believe in something as wild as HS
In this world, there are people that believe that if you have AIDS and then have sex with a baby, you'll be cleansed of the disease. Stupidity has nothing to do with the power of belief because some stupid people believe nothing at all. And some highly intelligent people believe the planets and the time you were born fixes your character and personality.
The human being can believe anything.
spewing the same to Stephanie's roomies just a day or two before Tate
It was her sister.
I think that yes, it is entirely possible that he felt this to be true
Forget what others said about him, just by putting together things he himself said, one can see he believed it. Often when he was trying to show he didn't !
As for why Stimson focuses so heavily on Copycat vs Helter Skelter, I dunno
George boxes clever 🥊. He states quite openly that the copycat is not a good idea, the implication being that we can see it's just the kind of thing these young ignorant women would come up with. It's plausible, given the parameters, whereas HS is not. He's just part of the ever growing swathe of people on all sides of the debate that do not believe that something like HS could honestly be believed by anyone, much less acted on. He's certainly not alone.
And we live in historical times where everything that once seemed so certain is up for being challenged. Were the Beatles the great originals ? Not if you read David Rowley's "Beatles for sale." Were slavery and colonialism bad for Africans ? Not if you listen to Mike Parry or even our own former contributor, MHN. Should the allies in WW2 have bombed Dresden ? Were the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified ? And so on and so forth. Both sides carry nuanced and plausible arguments. You can see the thinking ¬> HS is weird. Was it right ? Or was there something else ?
Also, what is highly significant is that George emphasizes it not as the copycat, but as "Get a brother out of jail." In his book he states this key sentence ¬> "The means chosen to 'get brother out of jail' might not have been well thought out, but the idea itself was virtuous." He both states and often implies the virtuousness of the Family's mode of being, something he has in common with them at the height of their notoriety. Even when admitting to killing or threatening it, they were never saying they did wrong or were regretful.
the HS motive was prime territory for appeal and Manson didn't even bother to mention it, so Charlie's objection mustn't have been TOO great
In George's book, Charlie says:
"I got that idiot for a lawyer...Kanarek never did anything but obstruct...And then he started an appeal without my permission. I told him 'I'm not going in that direction'. He went in that direction anyway. He destroyed all my chances of getting back..." Again, it's slightly more nuanced than that, but you get the general drift.
Matt said:
David said...
The minute Manson got in the car on night number two he was going to prison for the rest of his life
So did Grogan
Ah yes, but there was nothing independent of a perp's word to tie Grogan to any scene, whereas, there was the leather thong found to be tying Leno's wrists, and Linda saying Charlie had been wearing it or ones just like it, yet she noticed later that evening that he no longer had it.
And of course the linkage with "HEALTER SKELTER" written on the fridge with all the witnesses {DeCarlo, Kasabian, Jakobson, Watkins, Poston and others} that testified that Charlie talked about it all the time. On its own, it is fightable. Put together with the plethora of evidence linking the two nights, Charlie was tied to both scenes, at the very least circumstantially.
GG-W said:
Charlie's refusal to understand his responsibility in the deaths is a huge part of this study for me
I sometimes think that is what God thinks about human beings when it comes to the existence and ways of God !
starviego said:
Yet he also thought he was Jesus Christ and that the Beatles were talking to him. Symptoms of madness, surely
Christ conflation isn't an unusual by-product of the LSD experience. It happened to John Lennon. It happened to Ella Jo Bailey. It happened to Vince Taylor. Even Leslie had her crucifixion experience on acid. Not many ascribe madness to them. Steve Turner puts it like this in his book, "Hungry for Heaven,"
People started out on trips as hard nosed materialists after a bit of fun and emerged with their egos ripped & mauled, unsure at first whether they’d seen God or were God. Whatever they’d been through, the world appeared different....to many, such experiences were devastating
HS wasn't a stretch after that
I'd say that at every point in the last 5 or 6000 years, there have been cultures, nations, philosophies and groups of people and individuals to which or whom HS would not be a stretch.
tobiasragg said:
In his media appearances over the years, from Sawyer to Rivera to strange European reporters, Charlie Manson has admitted to almost every single murder-related thing he has ever been accused of - and in public
The significance being that all of it has come post being sentenced to death. And rarely directly or if so, with interesting, deflective explanations and word games.
I'm fascinated that he remained so pissed with Nuel Emmons' book which isn't oblique in its characterizations of Charlie's own words.
He even admits to things that Stimson now seeks to discredit, such as stopping at the Pasadena church to check the doors - though in Manson's retell, he simply walked round to the backside of the building to take a piss
Sometimes, it's hard to work out whether George is seeking to absolve Charlie from murder altogether, or just HS, because sometimes, one can pick up the impression that the 2 are conflated.
If it's the former, one wonders why he has him involved in Hinman, LaBianca, Cielo and Shea at all. Even if you accept all of George's notions, Manson still lands as guilty of murder and conspiracy.
Incidentally, to accept "Get a brother out of jail" with the available evidence, one has to conclude that Charlie's influence and mastermindfulness {I'm reliably informed there is no such word but I don't care. There's not many 5 syllable, 17 letter words beginning with M !} is even more than it is if one accepts HS. For starters, why should the fact that Tex, Linda and Susan "owed" Charlie for past services rendered, have a bearing on Bobby ? And when Charlie commanded them to "do something" about the Bobby situation, what did he have in mind ? It's one of the great slip-ups in his book, that use of the phrase "general command", to describe Charlie wanting "Beausoleil out of jail and he communicated this desire in no uncertain terms to the others at the ranch...And they owed him [for shooting Crowe] to the point of committing murder." You can never get away from Charlie directing the events, whether HS or GABOOJ.
Zeke002 said:
didn't Charlie preach HS to the sheriffs in the truck on the ride down after his last arrest. It was his last moments of freedom and as such months after the killings and not two weeks before. Or am I wrong. Or maybe he preached to the law more than once
In a roundabout way, he did, twice, once the day after the Hinman murder and then the day of his Barker arrest. The second one was more overt. The July 28th one was inviting the police to join them in war against the Panthers.
tobiasragg said...
But I have assumed that these unnecessary "preachings" indicate that Manson really did believe that stuff
He even says things in George's book that indicate he believed it.
Charlie's big thing over the decades is that he does not believe that any of these admissions mean that he is guilty of anything - much less conspiracy
That's just called denial. Whether he believed it or not was neither here nor there. Did every slave trader think what they were doing was inhumane ? Does every Russian soldier believe that executing Ukrainians in cold blood is actually a terrible thing ? Does any racist believe that anyone of the race they hold to be inferior, is their equal or countryman ?
There are tons of things people refuse to believe or accept that zillions of others can see quite clearly. I work daily with kids that refuse to accept they were in the wrong over certain matters. Even when later, they are on the receiving end of similar and they see the perps as being in the wrong.
Manson never changed his tune over all of those years
Well....from time to time, he added a little C# minor 🎼 variation or moduation to his symphony 🎹 in Db major 🎷.
Law Professor Carrie Leonetti presents a strong case for Manson's schizophrenia in Eye of the Beholder. With sources she can provide upon request.
https://www.swlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2017-04/2%20Eye%20of%20the%20Beholder.pdf
I should maybe make a post and get that document into the library. Manson apologists who present opinions as peer-reviews sources will disagree and say Charlie was pulling a fast one on every dumb doctor who stumbled into Charlie's mind, but it's hard for me to budge off that document. Incidentally, are there any other academic pieces anyone can refer me to that were published in the university way?
Star:
"Charlie told us(arresting officers) that his group was out there looking for a place to hide because there was an impending race war. He told us that the blacks were going to win. He told us that because we were number one, cops, and number two, white, we should stop right there, let them loose, and flee for our lives."
Reading thru the thread, with posters here wondering if the fact that Manson told this to the police is somehow indicative that Manson truly believed HS, there's also the possibility that he had sized up the specific arresting officers in the car as being somewhat mistrustful, or perhaps even what;s now termed "racist" towards blacks, and by telling them this, he was attempting to influence them in his favor.
The old "I'm one of you" routine.
I don't think that this is the main reason he told them, nor that he did not believe in HS (he may have), but suggesting another facet of Manson: a street-smart veteran of the system, expert at sizing up people, attempting to manipulate their impression of him.
This is pretty much what he did to everyone else I'm aware of.
G. G-W:
There's a lot of revolutionary stuff going on that we always dismiss or explain away by calling people crazy.
This is a very bad problem for people who habitually seek a simple solution to what may be a complex problem.
The diarreha mouth aimed at the cops show that he used HS to manipulate at least. The 2nd night puts him in jail for sure. Hinman too.
GABOOJ!!! Just looks funny.
Here's my favorite Charlie quote.
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
Just kidding. That's Luke 14:26 from the NASB. Here are umpteen other versions with some apologetics tossed in.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/luke/14-26-compare.html
Some people are in evil cults. Others not so much.
G. G-W:
I hope you're not looking for consistency out of humanity. 😧
Alas
Dan S said...
GABOOJ!!! Just looks funny
As a musician and songwriter, I thought you'd appreciate the rhythmic import of that one, Dan.
shoegazer said:
with posters here wondering if the fact that Manson told this to the police is somehow indicative that Manson truly believed HS, there's also the possibility that he had sized up the specific arresting officers in the car as being somewhat mistrustful, or perhaps even what;s now termed "racist" towards blacks, and by telling them this, he was attempting to influence them in his favor
Both may well be true. It could be that there was a good likelihood out in the wilds of Inyo, that there might be cops with a less than loving attitude towards Black people, if they housed a similar attitude towards Hippy types and Charlie tried to steer that to his advantage. After all, that's what he tried with officers Olmsteed and Grap, the day after Gary Hinman was murdered.
GG-W said:
Here's my favorite Charlie quote.
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
Just kidding
Charlie may not have used that exact form of words like Jesus did, but his aroma and action said those words over and over and unlike Jesus, there was no deliberate metaphors or exaggeration involved. And that's exactly how the Family took it.
Allegory is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Dan, I agree they were all talking about HS. But I also think Tex got spun out like the big dumb jock he is and turned words into actions. Brenda, boil me up another hunk of that Bellerdonner.
G. G-W:
Watson is an odd case. He seems completely unable to set his own agenda, and barring someone to set it for him, he drifts until he finds either a temporary activity, or he finds someone to tell him what to do. I believe that this really comes out in some of the parole hearings. He sorta knows it now, but this doesn't change his ability to set his own agenda. I think it's simply lacking in him; I've met people like that before.
He was a veritable killing machine when given the green light; he went thru all those people like a chain saw thru tofu. He appears to be a talented amateur.
With proper training, who needs la femme Nikita?
Anyone who reads that last line and doesn't yell, "NAHKEEETAH!" in their mind is missing out.
shoegazer said...
Watson... seems completely unable to set his own agenda, and barring someone to set it for him, he drifts until he finds either a temporary activity, or he finds someone to tell him what to do.
Agree here. Which is exactly why any theory about TLB essentially being Tex's drug burn revenge initiative is not tenable.
Ditto Bruce Davis re the Zodiac.
Off topic. Does anyone have the Mary Brunner testimony in the penalty phase of Manson's trial handy? I'd love a link or pdf. If it's in the index, the volume number would be enough. Is that where she denies being at Bobby's?
The Mary transcript runs from page 26,941 to 27,077 and I think the vol number is 3090 to 3091 although I don't know what those numbers mean.
Gracias Señor!
Wow so even in the penalty phase, Kanarek thinks Mary's name is Mary Hinman, and also keeps calling Nancy, "Brenda."
In defense of Stimson, Brenda puts love of brother out there from the stand.
"Brenda puts love of brother out there from the stand."
Yeah, but it was in the penalty phase, wasn't it?
Yessir. Irving attempting to sabotage Mary while her attorney begs the court to intercede made me feel completely anxious. I also drank a cup of tea and ate, conservatively, three rows of pink bunny Peeps.
Tobias, do you have any Mary transcripts not on Cielo you'd be willing to share?
"Tobias, do you have any Mary transcripts not on Cielo you'd be willing to share?"
Fraid not, sorry. I poured over all of this last year and, while it was great fun while it lasted, I am not a collector of such things. Two bits, though:
-What's the point of introducing an alt theory/motive after guilt has been declared? Hardly an original question, but such things continue to boggle the mind. At least mine.
-Did the whole dramatic "look at me . . . Mary, look at me . . . " exchange between Bummer Bob and Mary in the courtroom happening during guilt or penalty? I swear, that entire passage makes one drool over the notion that cameras could have been present. Truly the stuff of prime time TV, here we have a man fighting for his freedom and his life and a woman torn between acting in her own self interest on the stand by telling the truth or continuing to lie for him. That was just flabbergastingly amazing stuff, I thought.
That excerpt from Burton Katz's book had my heart pounding. Judge Divorce Court to the rescue for real. Here's the link. Forever grateful to you, Mr. B.
http://www.lsb3.com/2013/12/the-perjury-of-mary-brunner.html
The Dracula-like command to look into his eyes happens during Bobby's sentencing hearing while he attempts to get a new trial and accompanying death sentence for Mary.
I seriously wanted to slap Kanarek today.
Tobias said: "What's the point of introducing an alt theory/motive after guilt has been declared? Hardly an original question, but such things continue to boggle the mind. At least mine."
So Manson can avoid the death penalty. Exonerate Manson, make Kasabian the 'real' instigator. It's rather juvenile but, hey, they tried.
Good god, Green - what a fantastic read! Thank you so much for sharing this.
Now I am wondering where on earth I found & read this transcript. It had to be from Cielo or some place equally as common as that, as I don't dig too deeply for such things.
But my god, this is SO much better than reading the bald transcript, which was completely over-the-top compelling on its own. This authorial cliffnotes version, coming from the prosecutor no less, only serves to heighten and inform what had to be a most tense day or two of court. Who knew that a gaggle of Manson girls was sitting there in the observation area, staring at Brunner as she underwent this torture? That sort of thing is not noted in a transcript of course, but boy does this factoid serve to underscore the drama of it all. I will say that the actual transcript is more compelling (as I remember it, anyway) in one way: that final Q&A between Beausoleil and Brunner on the stand is eons longer and more tortured than what is presented here. The whole "look at me . . . Mary!" thing went on for pages. It reads like a really bad TV show script.
There is a brief video out there on YouTube that captures the essence of this entire thing quite beautifully. A reporter has caught Brunner exiting the Hall of Justice via that alley they used as an entrance/exit for juries and witnesses. A reporter pretty much tackles her as soon as she reaches public sidewalk territory and asks this "will you or won't you?" (testify against Bobby) question of her for the evening news. Brunner tries her best to be casual and glib as she responds to this man with the mic - until he asks her about her child and how much she wants to see him again. That one takes her up short and we begin to see in her face and hear in her voice the dilemma that informs this stretch of testimony. Damn we needed cameras in those freaking courtrooms! I'd settle for audio, even. I imagine we'd be able to hear the flop sweat oozing from Bummer Bob's brow...
Brunner is the one, above all other, former Mansonites I would most like to hear from these days. Given Michael's loving curiosity over his father and a couple of the little things he said when I talked with him, I imagine that his mom spoke rather fondly of the incarcerated father. It would be interesting (in a morbid, tabloid kind of way) to hear her give voice to the conflicting thoughts and feelings that may still dwell within her. People say that Clem was the luckiest of the Manson lot, but I suggest that he has really been the second-luckiest. Mary Bruner quite literally got away with murder and breathes free air to this day.
This isn't the video I was thinking of, but it is pretty close. I haven't looked into the dates comparatively, but this seems to have happened on the eve of the whole "look at me" climax of this affair:
https://youtu.be/FtJtPgVZjLo
Tobias, I paused on those "look at me's" too. No legit print editor would let more than one make it to the final draft. I kind of set the scene on the Divorce Court tv set from back in the day in my mind. Here's some polite Divorce Court homophobia from 1987 with Mary's savior Judge Keene wielding the gavel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCv7i1q2Y5Q
Wasn't Burton Katz on some dumb judge show too?
I spent yesterday and today creating a Bobby timeline of who he claimed cut Gary's ear. In parole hearings, at least the ten on cielodrive.com, He has seven I-did-its, one Charlie-did-it, and two I'm-not-gonna-talk-about-its.
Beausoleil certainly possesses rock-solid conceit, doesn't he?
That alone justified the gas chamber.
I was talking to someone yesterday and we landed on Bobby's arrogance. Bobby refuses to treat the board as anything less than peers and I think that hurts him.
Personally, I dislike him as much for drawing those photos of children getting spanked with their pants down as I do for the murder almost. Beausoliel is a nasty man.
Beausoleil is a vain, less insightful and skilled Manson. And the reason for this is obvious: he's Bobby Beausoleil, so he doesn't need to. Charm and looks have always gotten him by, so no need for advanced skills.
It's conceivable to me that if the family evolved over time, Beausoleil was the most likely to contend with Manson for headman position. This is not to say that he'd be as competent, merely that he'd be the most likely one.
There seemed to have been a huge drop off in leadership abilities when Manson is excluded. It wouldn't hold together, I suspect. It was hard enough for Manson.
The formula was this, it seemed...
An expanding band of adoring young females was the core. Aimless men attracted to the ready availability of both drugs and submissive women (pimped by Manson for just this purpose): to them, it was sort of an endless party. Once these men were hanging around, Manson over time worked on them, providing them with a father figure and with direction.
Regular drug consumption acted as a sort to tenderizer, making Manson's pronouncements more profound than they actually were.
...and Manson was older. All of this gave him automatic status and gravitas.
In every case that I'm aware of none of the men were as deeply committed to Manson as the core women were.
Really, at the bottom it was a cultivated pimping operation.
Zeke002 said:
didn't Charlie preach HS to the sheriffs in the truck on the ride down after his last arrest. It was his last moments of freedom and as such months after the killings
I couldn't let go, something you said in a previous incarnation {I suspect} 9 years ago:
"I understand the impulse to reject Helter Skelter as crap and seek a more meaningful and less bizarre motive for TLB. And there are in truth some attractive storylines that you can plug in.
Let me ask you this. What was Charlie Manson doing in the very last 'out of jail ' moments that he had in his life?
As he was riding through the night air in the back of a sheriff's pick-up from Barker Ranch to Independence he was consumed with preaching to the sheriff's deputies about the impending revolution and how the blacks were going to take over and how the establishment wouldn't let Charlie and his clan do what they wanted and how the deputies themselves were in the crosshairs and if they knew what was best for them they'd hightail it out into the desert.
Since those moments the world has not know Charlie Manson outside of a courtroom or a prison room. He has been enclosed ever since.
Thus it is indisputable that while Charlie Manson was sucking in the last free air he would ever taste, he was in fact preaching Helter Skelter."
GG-W said:
In defense of Stimson, Brenda puts love of brother out there from the stand
In defence of Brenda, she could see that her whole way of life was about to go down the pans and no offence but she came over on the stand as sincere but bloody stupid. 🤦♀️ She was perhaps the easiest one of the bunch to see through. She was like someone with Stockhausen syndrome. 🫂 Gypsy was the consummate Family professional ! 🧑⚖️ ⚖️ 🔝 ♚
Grim, Nancy seems like one of the hardest cases imo. She's tough and unapologetically down for her crew. The way Fromme describes her with the poison oak or whatever, sitting beside Fromme silently crying as they drove through the night will always stay with me.
The Willett's are unfortunately the other side of that coin.
shoegazer said:
In every case that I'm aware of none of the men were as deeply committed to Manson as the core women were
Clem possibly.
However, life has taught me not to underestimate the heady cocktail of caring words and regular, powerful, orgasms.
The men were generally pretty damned fanatical. Until they weren't.
Beausoleil claimed he was never really a true family member, but that came after his murder bust. He was the first to scrawl Charlie philosophy in blood, let's remember.
Tex? True-blue believer. Until Jesus nudged Manson out of the way and took over.
Bruce Davis? Same. He was slavishly obedient to Charlie - including taking a powder and hiding out for a year or so on Manson's word and then surrendering himself on another Manson word.
Clem followed closely, until he saw the non-religious light in prison.
Brooks Posten was so confusedly obedient he tried mightily to die because Manson suggested it. Brookes took the ego-death rap quite literally and he ended up a puddle of a man for a while, there. Crockett supplanted Manson and, last we heard from Brooks, he was still a very faithful Crockett follower.
Same with Little Paul. He too was rescued by Crockett and it could be argued that he was mainly into the weed and the pussy, but he also bought into Manson's shit quite heavily.
TJ, Lovett . . . the list goes on.
Manson gave the dudes more latitude than he gave the girls, but most of those guys submitted themselves pretty heavily under Charlie's guidance. Picture the uber-hetero Bummer Bob and Little Paul kneeling between Charlie's parted legs and sucking his dick and you've got a very literal idea of just how obedient most of these guys actually were during the heyday.
Not sure where to post this comment/question, so I will do it here.
In the Cease to Exist doc, a story is told from the time that Terry Melcher lived at Cielo. He used to have a telescope out on that front porch and one morning he awoke to find that it had been moved from its usual spot to the far corner of the porch. Terry was a bit freaked out by this small incident, as he hadn't moved the telescope and no one on the premises that night confessed to having done so, either.
It is assumed, we are told, that this may well have been the result of a creepy-crawl. This is the first time I have heard of this, is anyone else aware of this story or other potential nocturnal visits to Cielo by family members?
Tobias, a lil bird told me none of the interviewees got paid on that doc. Shocker, I know. Melcher asking everyone at Cielo if they moved the telescope reminds me of comedian Steven Wright passed out on the couch in Half Baked while Guillermo Diaz asks if he killed Guillermo's dog.
tobiasragg said:
Terry was a bit freaked out by this small incident, as he hadn't moved the telescope and no one on the premises that night confessed to having done so, either.
It is assumed, we are told, that this may well have been the result of a creepy-crawl. This is the first time I have heard of this, is anyone else aware of this story or other potential nocturnal visits to Cielo by family members?
The story initially comes from Gregg Jakobson. I first came across it in William Zamora's 1973 pre~HS jury book, "Trial by your peers" and when I read it, I laughed heartily.
Basically, it wasn't Cielo, but the place Melcher moved to in Malibu. From the trial on Oct 16th:
Bugliosi:At some time later, did Mr Manson ever say anything to you about having contacted Terry Melcher or been to his residence or anything like that ?
Gregg:Yes
Q:When was that, when did Mr Manson have this conversation with you ?
A:It would have been the first of summer, June, July
Q:1969 ?
A:Yes
Q:And where did you have this conversation with Mr Manson ?
A:It was over the phone
Q:What did he say to you and what did you say to him ?
A:He asked if Terry had a green telescope spy glass on the porch of his beach house.
Q:In Malibu ?
A:Yes. And I said 'yes'. And he said 'He doesn't now.'
Q:Did Mr Manson elaborate on that ?
A:I don't think so. That was enough to prove to me that he knew where Terry lived and I think that is why he called, to show me.
Like a number of stories in this saga, the one you relate has spun out of control, assumed a different shape and over the years, become the sort of "fact" that gets related in documentaries. I mean, it must be right and proof of something if it's in a documentary, book, article or police notes, right ?
Beware the shapeshifter !👺 👻 👾 🧶 🦄
tobiasragg said...
Tex? True-blue believer. Until Jesus nudged Manson out of the way and took over
I'd say a good 5 years before Jesus was in Watson's orbit, he was abandoning Charlie. It took a while...but he was into self-preservation and Manson's death sentence wasn't something he was committed to !
But I think Shoegazer has a point when he makes a comparison between the deep commitment of the men and the women. The women were prepared to go to the gas chamber. The women were hard core Mansonites, even once the dust had settled. It was some years before many that had been around for a year or more really started departing the Manscene. Whereas, TJ, Watkins, Vance, Poston and others made their splits even before the murders.
It's not strictly true either way, but overall, I think the way to gauge the hardcorishness is to look at what happened after the Barker arrests. In reality, it was the women that took over the Family. And they tended to be the ones that made the murderous proclamations.
TG:
Like a number of stories in this saga, the one you relate has spun out of control, assumed a different shape and over the years, become the sort of "fact" that gets related in documentaries. I mean, it must be right and proof of something if it's in a documentary, book, article or police notes, right ?
You've put your finger on my biggest problem with this and other TBL sites.
It's as if reading and memorizing the canon is of greater value than ascertaining what parts of the canon are true/false/indeterminate. I chose this site recently over most of the others because there seemed to me to be a certain cadre of people who were fairly interested actually getting past the mythos and coming to grips with verifiable fact, or at least as close as we can ever know.
David is one such, and there are a few others.
But a week or so ago I wrote an article on the construction history of 10050 and 10048 Cielo mainly to show readers here one important thing: try to be a bit circumspect about what you think you know.
Before I published the article if I had polled people here "Who was the architect of 10050?", dollar to a dime, every single muthaf**kin' respondent reflexively would have said "Robert Byrd". And many would be absolutely certain of it, and a bit smug about knowing this, too.
But that's not the name on the records at LADBS. And all it took was a) skepticism about the common knowledge everyone bruited about here; and b) just a little online searching.
I think I see this same self-satisfied certainty about lots of topics here, and for the ones that are purely speculative, like personalities, that's fine. Opinions are like assholes: everyone has at least one... But there are a lot of fact-based topics that can be at least partly verified if one is more interested in accuracy than in personal opinion.
So I guess there are at least two main identities for this site: a fact-based accumulation, analysis, and evaluation of everything available out there; or a sort of fan-boy gossip session with points awarded for number of relatively worthless books read, sensational speculation, and bonus points if one can claim some sort of tangential personal connection with even the merest character involved in events that took place over 50 years ago.
The former is mainly a collaborative effort among like-minded readers, while the latter is more long the lines of posturing for effect.
Like Cyrus from The Warriors: "Can you dig it?"
Can you dig it?
"Basically, it wasn't Cielo, but the place Melcher moved to in Malibu."
I actually like the real story more than the fake one. Thank you for answering my question, Grim :D
"It's not strictly true either way, but overall, I think the way to gauge the hardcorishness is to look at what happened after the Barker arrests"
I think the same phenomena is true on both sides of the Mansonite gender fence. The girls always outnumbered the guys in this group anyway, and lots of girls left the group just as lots of guys did. I think the difficulties began before the raid; as Hoyt told reporters "when we got to the desert, Charlie got meaner."
On Watson, I do have to think that that year incarcerated in Texas as the original trial got underway may have begun the process of seeing things as they really were, perhaps. I cannot recall what, if anything, he says in that regard in that first book, but the ongoing headlines and television coverage of the trial had to be at least somewhat eye-opening.
Shoe, the answer the grifters and their dupes give is everyone in the trials was lying top to bottom. And we're dumb if we don't believe what someone told some "writer."
To that...
I'm in a running argument with a lovable dupe who insists we "know" Bugliosi was caught in a lie during the Manson trial. I can't find it anywhere in the transcripts.
Does anyone know if it actually happened?
TG:
The women were hard core Mansonites, even once the dust had settled. It was some years before many that had been around for a year or more really started departing the Manscene. Whereas, TJ, Watkins, Vance, Poston and others made their splits even before the murders.
To me it seems the mostly likely explanation is that it's rooted in biology: the women were bound to Manson by direct, actual, physical dicking, plus symbolic attractions, while the men were bound only by symbolic attractions.
So for the women, it was additive--more potential for a human bond.
G. G-W:
Even if true, all it would indicate with any certainty is that on that one issue he lied. It proves nothing at all about any other issue.
I mean, it would prove he was capable of lying, I suppose, but hey, I hope we'd all know that already, huh?
As the years roll on, the Manson study becomes increasingly tabloidistic (not sure if that's a word) and tailored to the people on Day One. I understand why so many researchers become burned out and drift away.
But who knows. The Fromme update comes out soon. Maybe she says yeah we were stealing Robert Evans' nose candy. Not gonna hold my breath tho.
"But who knows. The Fromme update comes out soon. Maybe she says yeah we were stealing Robert Evans' nose candy. Not gonna hold my breath tho"
I am a big Beatle fan, and a mate called Mark Lewisohn is in the midst of doing a staggeringly comprehensive, three-part bio of the band. Only the first installment has released. It delivers in two volumes, runs over 1700 pages, and ends at 1962, before the band became famous.
One of Mark's biggest research barriers has proven to be George Harrison. First it was George himself and since his death it has been his estate. Harrison was always a rather private individual and there are aspects of his personal life and history that he'd rather not see shared with the general public.
Paul McCartney is Mark's biggest fan and supporter, but he is also one of the worst sources for information. As we learned from the Anthology project, The Beatles themselves were often woefully bad at remembering their own history. I imagine this has become only more pronounced as the surviving members age. Lewisohn has shared that McCartney will sometimes become a bit miffed when Mark sometimes corrects him as he is relating a memory.
Manson history is truly a social history and, as such, less reliant on textbook-style dates and facts. Something like Fromme's book will be a fun read but I am not holding my breath for brand-new revelations or much factual accuracy. Personal histories are rife with folks presenting themselves in the best possible light and, of course, aging diehards like her and Good choose to ignore wide swathes of truth when it comes to Charlie and these matters.
One of my favorite more-recent pubs on this whole thing was the lengthy oral history that the LA Times did around the time of the 50th. While bare-bones when compared with a fleshed-out book, it is a pretty fantastic read because it presents the events & reactions to them from about every POV imaginable.
Tobias, I'll definitely grab the update on her book. Fromme tells us things in her way. The secrets everyone craves likely do not exist.
Or no?
G. G-W:
The secrets everyone craves likely do not exist.
Or no?
They do, but you gotta know the double secret handshake... 😉
HA!
GG-W said:
I'm in a running argument with a lovable dupe who insists we "know" Bugliosi was caught in a lie during the Manson trial. I can't find it anywhere in the transcripts.
Does anyone know if it actually happened?
What does the lovable dupe say the lie was ?
tobiasragg said:
On Watson, I do have to think that that year incarcerated in Texas as the original trial got underway may have begun the process of seeing things as they really were, perhaps. I cannot recall what, if anything, he says in that regard in that first book
Considering that first book is supposed to be about his decisive break from Manson and his redemption in Christ, it's an interesting phenomenon, that he's specific about neither. He never really talks about coming to Christ. He never really charts his decisive break with Charlie.
In my opinion, from a purely Christian point of view, neither him nor Susan should have written their books at the times they did. They should have waited 15 years to that point when they had some maturity under their belts.
Grim, I asked for the source and got the old "Bugs created HS and coerced all of his witnesses to talk about it" story. I also went searching for some type of censure or even an admonition from Older but found bupkis.
Grim has a better memory than me. Grim this is Col. Scott's old argument. I can't remember the 'lie'. Was it when he was put under oath over the "Manson Guilty" headline?
The lie was probably when Bugs was asked if he was the source of the 'celebrity hitlist' that was leaked to a reporter. As the prosecution benefited, most believe it was Bugs that leaked it.
Interesting. Thanks, Star.
"Considering that first book is supposed to be about his decisive break from Manson and his redemption in Christ, it's an interesting phenomenon, that he's specific about neither."
He must have talked about this in one of those first two books, right?
To be honest, I bailed out on the first one soon after the Jesus stuff kicked in. No offense, but his manner of proselyting turns me off and leaves me cold, so I bailed. But I have to think he spoke of being reintroduced to his faith, no? The one bit I remember is that he spoke of his religious activities as a youth and began connecting his current jailhouse experience with those early events. I figured the rest of the book was him building on this narrative, but I wasn't curious enough to continue reading to find out.
As for his break with Manson, he speaks extensively about those post-murder months, but he does so in typically remote fashion. Watson is one of the strangest mofos I've ever known of, he is oddly dispassionate and detached when speaking of personal experience - even meaningful events. He speaks of his months of wandering through various locations and experiences, the drugs he took, the journey back through the desert to return to Spahn, and the change of mind on the return. He also devotes a couple of chapters to his return home, the arrest, the lengthy incarceration period in TX, and his horrible treatment of his mother. He does go into detail about the legal advice he received and why he behaved as oddly as he did upon his return to California. He also speaks rather briefly about his trial, his hellish time on death row, and his eventual release into general.
But you are right, no where in all of those chapters and all of that detail does he really ever drill into his thought processes on Manson and his disconnection with those beliefs. He may have mentioned this somewhere along the way and I've simply forgotten. He does devote lengthy passages in that second book to explaining Manson, the appeal and the devilish nature of it all, but again he separates himself from the experience. It is almost as if he is speaking of life with Manson in the abstract. I see this same approach in all of his parole hearings along the way. As I shared in a past comment here, it is almost as if he stepped away from that person who was Tex Watson (even dropping the "Tex") and speaks today as Charles Watson, as if "Tex" was someone else altogether. I think this might be why he continues to receive five year denials - Watson seems one of the most remote and wooden human beings I have ever run across.
Just for fun, I chose to relisten to the Rev Ray tapes, and here Watson does speak a tiny bit of the transitions that he went through. It is all very hokey and corny as hell, but it did prove to be of interest coming out of this exchange.
Interestingly, Ray laundry-lists Watson's victims and he includes Shorty Shea in the list - without objection from Tex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBDE86bEXVw
I typically spend my evenings watching/listening to Mythicists debate Historicists. I also love learning about the Hellenists and Near East religions that predated the Christian and Hebrew faiths. After my years of study in those areas, I think a lot about how much of this Manson study is mythology vs history.
One of my good buddies uses O'Neill's book and their own personal suppositions and confirmation bias as grounds to never learn more or see things from any angle outside of what those parameters allow. As a result, we have a highly-trained Manson death squad executing the perfect crime. Ignoring of course that everyone who went to Cielo that night got caught and went to prison for their awful and stupid crime.
Lol highly trained? Charlie wouldn't have to show em how it's done if they were.
As for the "tex" sobriquet, i believe he preferred to be called charles or charlie and the girls usually called him that in contemporary interviews. The Charles confusion can be seen in lotsapoppa's call to the ranch when he asks for charles.
Sadie was so highly trained she got stuck on the Cielo fence when she tried to climb over.
G. G-W:
WRT mythicists vs historicists, this forum has much more value as a case study in common human responses than it does as a consistent source of quasi-reliable information re TBL.
Here you see it all: cognitive dissonance, outright denial, blind faith, defense of territory, piling on, narcissism, proxy witch-burnings, etc. What you seldom see is objectivity, which is also rare in the general population.
People need sides to belong to, it seems.
I think that's how we survived throughout history, Shoe. Us against them every time. Surely it's how governments get us to go to war.
Last year when I started getting my butt kicked on the blog every week, I asked a former MB writer why they don't post here anymore. Friendly readers was of course the answer, but they also said something I believe continues to this day. I see it in my newer friends, too.
Basically, the former writer said they realized they were in a pattern of believing whatever the newest "expert" with the newest "big find" was saying at the time, or whoever was the popular figure on the blog at the time. Hendrickson, Statman, Stimson.
And then they discovered the inaccuracies in Schreck's Rostau research and everyone jumped on him with both feet. It's a receipt I continue to pay today.
I've also made embarrassing genealogy mistakes in my own family research. Even called an old lady once and said her father's first wife was my grandmother when I was completely mistaken. So I trend toward empathy on that one. But talk about things you don't want to pop into your mind while trying to fall asleep. Hayzeus.
What I love about this cold place is the fact that people go look things up and call us on our mistakes. I haven't found many here repeating the same party lines.
"What I love about this cold place is the fact that people go look things up and call us on our mistakes."
This can be a great place to test-drive the latest book's theory or someone's recent "find". There are enough folks here who know quite a bit about this whole thing, and it usually doesn't take long to get down to some kind of truth - or at least a logical probability.
It's like the little telescope anecdote I viewed in one of the docs the other night. My thought was "hm, I've never heard that one before - I wonder if it's true?" Come here, share the story, and you learn more about it. That's great fun, actually.
G. G-W:
I think largely you're right, and maybe it would have been a good idea to have had at least one cup of coffee before posting.
I see some interesting thinking sometimes, intriguing, provocative in a positive sense--makes me want to check it, check all around it. In doing so, new combinations can be revealed, and these could simply re-enforce (independent validation) existing scenarios, or be a springboard for a new one.
But I also see some incredibly sloppy thought processes, too. A veritable laundry list of logical fallacies.
Too, I see this...a quick anecdote.
I had a very close friend who did a lot of entrepreneurial stuff. He was fastidious in his background research before embarking on an enterprise. He found almost all available information on his subject of interest, kept it organized, and here's the kicker, I shit you not...
He could not evaluate the data. For quite a while when younger he'd jump in after acquiring all of the needed data, and then some. He for a while took it on faith that possessing the data somehow would do the trick. I do not think that he grasped that once you had access to the information, you now needed to evaluate it and rank it in order or likelihood of impact, and under what circumstances the information interfaced with the details of the project.
To emphasize, he thought that the work of obtaining the all available information was itself the guarantee that he had the correct answers. He wasn't lazy by any means--much more industrious than I am--but had no real notion of how one evaluates raw information in order to apply it to the subject at hand.
I see quite a lot of that here, yew betcha.
On the Track of the Death Valley Hippie Gang, Jim Pursell’s Harrowing Arrest of Charles Manson Aug 6, 2018
"The ranger and I came down to the back door, or the west entrance. The other two rangers blocked the south entrance. I threw the door open, and ordered everybody sitting around a table to put their hands on their head ... A guy stood right beside the door, if he had been any closer the door would’ve hit him. He was holding an old, beautiful, brass spyglass, like what a captain of a ship would have."
As with much of this, I can't recall the where or when, but there was talk had Fromme not gone to meet Ford she was in the sights with Good for mail threats. A charge she never faced.
This suggests the mail campaign was well underway before the fuzz searched their pad post Ford.
July 69 wasn't it something to do with everyone teaming up to fight a common enemy?
This could also been seen in terms of Manson reflecting back people's own opinions/prejudices to them to get along with them.
Chris B said...
"This could also been seen in terms of Manson reflecting back people's own opinions/prejudices to them to get along with them."
Totally agree. I also think they loved him and each other when it came to the core group.
"had Fromme not gone to meet Ford she was in the sights with Good for mail threats."
Oh gosh, that wouldn't be a surprise at all. It's always been so interesting to me Red, Blue, Silver and other suddenly color-coded followers never really lost the faith, even after all of these years. The mailed threats of violence seemed like they were simply playing to form by the latter part of the seventies.
I love that Lynette Fromme is standing around sweating her ass off in a red nun costume and no one thinks to approach her until it's almost too late.
Anyone have thoughts on Harold Boro?
It's interesting to think about whether the Family, and all its manifold excursions and shenanigans, could have existed only 5 years earlier or five years later. It seems to me that the closest commonly known corollaries were Jim Jones and David Koresh.
And what, Esalen was kinda like the Family, but for wealthy pseudo-intellectuals, right?
So it seems like something like the Family could have existed, but would it have manifested itself around music and drugs? I mean, subtract the drugs from the equation and the outcome could have been very different.
What do you think?
"This could also been seen in terms of Manson reflecting back people's own opinions/prejudices to them to get along with them."
I am not feeling nearly as sure as Green on this one. Manson *said* "I am just a reflection of you" quite often, but he was speaking to and of the general public, the society that he felt had rejected him when he said this.
I'm not aware of much evidence at all that these followers were racist prior to having joining the group - or violent, Sadie excepted. I mean, there might have been a racist or two in the bunch, I guess that's possible. Most evidence points to all of these young people as having lived rather traditional middle-class lives to the point of their joining. Manson certainly wasn't parroting back these formative values back to the group.
Rather, I think their currency was faith, and the exchange was rather equal between Charlie and each of those who chose to follow him. Manson was a joke in prison. A loser among losers, it might be said. The need that followers fulfilled in Manson is confirmation of his self-perceived importance. Finally, he was respected, listened to, revered almost. In exchange for this, Charlie delivered what each follower needed most: acknowledgement that they were beautiful, wanted, valued. Traditional life is often challenging for the young; one struggles through school or toils in lower-level employment. Parents at the time could be neglectful and dismissive. Charlie "liberated" the kids from all of that - suddenly school and jobs didn't matter and everyone was free to play cowboys & indians in the desert.
So was Manson really reflecting the opinions of his followers? I think it was more a case of Manson liberating them from all that had come before and refilling their minds with his own opinions & prejudices. Listen to the girls from back then (and a few of them even today) and they all sound the same, they all say the same things.
Manson *said* "I am just a reflection of you" quite often, but he was speaking to and of the general public, the society that he felt had rejected him when he said this.
I've watched a fair number of video interviews with Manson--certainly not as many as regular posters here--but I formed the opinion that whenever he said something like that, this was nothing more than an evasion of responsibility by a demonstrable sociopath.
I'm aware that on this site people like to castigate (did I spell that right? 😐) villains and laud heroes. I don't actually hate Manson: for me to be capable of hate, injury of some kind would have to be directed at me or mine. Since this never happened, I then look at Manson, for example, as an object--a part of the social environment. In my judgement he's to be avoided, and if at all possible eliminated from society either thru isolation (this is what happened), or by some form of social culling, like capital punishment.
But that said, putting myself in his position, with his values as much as I understand them, as objective as I can get myself, he's doing exactly what one would expect of him: expelling an evasive load of confounding rationales.
And the more fool you if you should buy it...
"As for the "tex" sobriquet, i believe he preferred to be called charles or charlie and the girls usually called him that in contemporary interviews"
Watson always referred to himself as "Charles" but George Spahn preferred to call him "Tex" because of his drawl. That was back when Watson first joined the group in '68. The family seemed to use the two names interchangeably, but I think "Tex" became a preferred moniker because it helped distinguish Watson from Manson. Manson was always "Charlie" (though "Soul" became increasingly popular after the crimes) and Watson could be either "Tex" or "Charles" but never "Charlie".
Tobias, I'd say in general, down on the river, and heck maybe overall 90% of Ohio's white population was racist in those days. Charlie probably wasn't racist to the extreme of those who came before him and therefore thought he wasn't racist at all, but when he got out to California where things were more progressive, they all probably thought he sounded like a grand dragon about to fire up the cross.
I'm not sure where I am on Charlie controlling the group as a cult using the traditional definition. You always make strong points when I bring this up but I'm still stuck on people are coming and going as they pleased. Mary is down at Melba's. Tex is off doing Tex things at times.
That also could've only been the main players though.
"I'd say in general, down on the river, and heck maybe overall 90% of Ohio's white population was racist in those days."
Oh, without a doubt. I'd say a good half or more is still racist today, it gets pretty scary the further one travels south from where we live as you well know. Of course, there are shades of racism. These days many racists are what I'd call "racist light" if that makes any sense.
But Charlie grew up in prison really, and things are still *very* segregated there. I don't think Manson was KKK-level racist, but he certainly considered the blacks to be "other" and his attitude seemed more one of coloured folk being less-evolved human beings.
As for the cult thing, I don't know that physical isolation/constraint is a requirement to achieve cult status. There may be an officially-accepted definition of cults that would exclude this group, but I think it fair to say that Manson held an unusual level of psychological control over most of these people. As Little Paul's back-and-forthing demonstrates, one needn't be in close proximity for Charlie to still hold sway.
The other thing that ought to be acknowledged is that Manson, too, left the group at times. As the numbers began swelling toward thirtish fuller-time members, with associated hangers-on coming and going, the pressures of feeding, housing and keeping the whole lot together must have been rather great at times. Many of the member retells from this period speak of times that Charlie announced that he needed some time alone and he'd take off into the desert for a handful of days. Or he'd grab a male member and head off to LA for a while. The group would continue functioning rather happily and normally during these absences, which I think rather demonstrates the cultish nature of this group.
GG-W said:
I asked for the source and got the old "Bugs created HS and coerced all of his witnesses to talk about it" story
Well, when it comes down to it, one of the easiest things to demonstrate, is that it was not made up by Bugliosi. There is evidence of HS from Pat Krenwinkel, Brooks Poston, Danny DeCarlo, Al Springer, Virginia Graham, Susan Atkins, Paul Crockett and Charles Manson, before Bugliosi was even on the case. Crockett and Poston were talking with the cops about it a week before the Barker arrests !
David said:
this is Col. Scott's old argument. I can't remember the 'lie'. Was it when he was put under oath over the "Manson Guilty" headline?
The Col often used to say that Bugliosi lied in a capital case which could lead to the death penalty. We had some good sparring about it over the years and I often pointed out, that having read Stephen Kay's deposition, you could never convict someone on that. It was stretching it to even call it evidence.
You used to point out that the point the Col was making wasn't accurate. I seem to recall section 28 or 128 or something like that.
starviego said:
The lie was probably when Bugs was asked if he was the source of the 'celebrity hitlist' that was leaked to a reporter. As the prosecution benefited, most believe it was Bugs that leaked it
Did the prosecution benefit from the story of the celebrity hitlist ? There's a lot of stuff in the transcripts to remember, but I can't recall it coming up for the jury to hear. In fact, I seem to remember Bugliosi specifically writing in his book that he couldn't have used it and now I come to think of it, Judge Older had the windows of the jury bus blacked out when it made the papers, so they wouldn't see the headlines.
As for which of the lawyers leaked it, 6 of them had it. I suspect it was Daye Shinn. He had 'form' for trying to disrupt proceedings with newspaper articles and headlines ! I also wonder, even though he joined Kanarek in some kind of action, if Paul Fitzgerald might have been trying to get things muddied up so he could launch an 'unfair publicity' angle on appeal. He used to speak to the press, despite the gag order. In fact, in George Bishop's "Witness to evil" Paul is pretty loose with the lips. And then there was Squeaky....
I always thought it was interesting that the reporter, Bill Farr, never revealed his source and actually went to prison for it. And still, he never said who gave it to him.
"As for which of the lawyers leaked it, 6 of them had it. I suspect it was Daye Shinn."
Virginia Graham describes Sadie as speaking of this hit list, naming names and planned manners of death. I can't remember, though - were Graham's statements ever aired in public prior to the main trial?
I'm currently going thru vols 129-131 of the TBL trial, Jakobson's testimony.
I'm getting some retty distinct impressions of what Jakobsin is saying, how he is saying it, ad his additive comments and the way he tends to answer Bugliosi's questions.
Do any of you have any impressions of Jakobson as revealed thru his testimony?
Grim,
Right, what I can't remember is what the Col said VB lied about. Was it the hit list or the Manson Guilty?
That's where the VB lied bit comes from.
grimtraveller said...
Did the prosecution benefit from the story of the celebrity hitlist ? ... I can't recall it coming up for the jury to hear.
Not in the criminal courts, but certainly in the court of public opinion it was very defamatory.
David said:
Right, what I can't remember is what the Col said VB lied about. Was it the hit list or the Manson Guilty?
The hit list.
The Col's position was that Bugliosi made up HS as a motive for murder, as opposed to HS itself.
starviego said:
Not in the criminal courts, but certainly in the court of public opinion it was very defamatory
The way you put it in the original post {The lie was probably when Bugs was asked if he was the source of the 'celebrity hitlist' that was leaked to a reporter. As the prosecution benefited, most believe it was Bugs that leaked it} is rather misleading because it connects prosecutional benefit with a lie. But neither is true. The jury could not use that information even if they had known about it and the case against Bugliosi was thrown out.
The court of public opinion didn't convict people, so it was kind of irrelevant what the public thought during the trial. There were essentially 18 people that mattered ~ the jury.
shoegazer said:
Do any of you have any impressions of Jakobson as revealed thru his testimony?
Yeah. He wore his Charlie appreciation society president badge on his sleeve and obviously found him fascinating on a number of different levels. He also noticed the changes Charlie went through and while it wasn't sufficient to have him running to the police or psych services, it was sufficient for him have recall of it a year later.
Absolutely critical reading is that June 1970 Rolling Stone article, titled "The most dangerous man in the world" or something like that. It's split into 7 parts and book 5 is called "The Book of Manson" and in it, they speak to people that were musically connected to Charlie. One of the interviewees is some guy called Lance Fairweather, who is actually Gregg Jakobson. Considering the interview was done before the trial started, Jakobson is a little loose with the lips. But in it, he says he thinks Charlie is insane. It is fascinating, comparing that interview with his courtroom testimony. Put together, they round out how he felt and much of what he observed about Charlie.
He actually gave some intellectual credence to the Manson philosophy {even though he didn't hold to it} in a way that Watkins, Poston, DeCarlo, Kasabian and others simply could not. I wouldn't be surprised if the jury looked at him and thought, "this guy has made Manson completely understandable, at a stroke." I think he was one of the most damaging witnesses.
GT:
He actually gave some intellectual credence to the Manson philosophy {even though he didn't hold to it} in a way that Watkins, Poston, DeCarlo, Kasabian and others simply could not. I wouldn't be surprised if the jury looked at him and thought, "this guy has made Manson completely understandable, at a stroke." I think he was one of the most damaging witnesses.
I've completed Jakobson's TLB trial testimony. My impression is that he's an intelligent and fairly sophisticated individual who found Manson to be a compelling "package", to borrow Jakobson's term.
After reading this and thinking about it, if it's fairly accurate, I can begin to view Manson as evolving towards a disappointed and disillusioned idealist--almost child-like in his lack of understanding of the refined social processes then in force among the legitimate population. This was both his strength, in that ready opportunities stood out for him, and his weakness in that he did not understand the idea of self-restraint and posturing as part of the social contract then in force.
As his embitterment grew, he began to fall back into the survival behaviors he had doubtless developed in the institutional system in which he grew to adulthood. This included many behaviors that were not expected by general society, and because of this he was able to remain somewhat ahead of game. E.g., he quickly recognized the hunger for magic and mysticism then current among America's youth (which was evidenced by the popularity of Castaneda's books) and tapped into it, perhaps purposefully, and perhaps in part as a quasi-believer.
If we start with this as a working assumption--that Manson began basically as an innocuous beneficiary of the general credulousness of the progressive American society of the era--and especially the youth segment--and consider his increasingly violent ideas of comeuppance and social organization as personal disappointments mounted, it kinda looks like he began to think of "pushback", which was very probably an artifact of his institutional life.
So far as Manson's philosophic discussions with Jakobson, as related in the testimony, it's not hard to see where Manson is coming from with his ideas of good/evil and right/wrong. He viewed these as strictly situational, not absolute, and if the individual has no belief system that includes an external omnipotent authority, it does indeed fall back to each individual's own personal boundaries. There is therefore no authority for absolute moral underpinnings, only the personal beliefs/preferences of each individual. Those beliefs that are shared by groups therefore become the governing social principles, and are often codified into laws.
SIDE NOTE: I think that Jakobson tended to fall back onto "nature" as a proxy for the divine. He had a belief system that ascribed "right" to that which was "natural". But it's entirely possible to make the case that every event/outcome in the material world is indeed within the definition of "nature". This would include not only the growth/decay cycle, but also every byproduct of animate activity.
The social contract was looking up for grabs in that maelstrom that was SF67
It changed real fast.
67 was The Summer of Love, it was uncool to even rhetorically speak about open revolution and armed violence. Like the lyrics from the song...
If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
Images of protesters putting daisies in the barrels of the rifles of National Guardsmen.
But yeah, it was looking up for grabs from my generation's POV. But the established folks, they doubled down, favored a more restrictive social environment. It was a part of why Nixon was elected in 68.
So the "social contract" I was talking about was where Manson had to interface with the straight world, or at least the straighter world. People like Melcher, who liked to affect the outward signs of hipness, but really was a part of what Manson would think of as the Establishment.
Manson misjudged those interactions, probably from lack of exposure, being in institutions and all.
grimtraveller said...
The court of public opinion didn't convict people, so it was kind of irrelevant what the public thought during the trial.
The Life cover photo, the Stovitz's interview with the Rolling Stone, the celebrity hitlist leak, Charlie not being allowed to shave or get his hair cut, the dressing of the defendants in hippie garb----all were part of the concerted effort to demonize the accused and by extension the whole hippie movement. Bugliosi would of course most likely gone along with this agenda
star:
...Charlie not being allowed to shave or get his hair cut, the dressing of the defendants in hippie garb-
Are there any supporting links for these statements?
I recall coming across an interview where Charlie complained about not being able to shave or cut his hair, though I don't know which one. As far as the hippy garb goes, all I can say is that no defense attorney worth his salt would have allow his clients to appear in such showy outfits, so I think someone else was telling them to wear those things. Who provided those colorful satin dresses? I don't think they came out of the clothing pile at the ranch!
Star:
As far as the hippy garb goes, all I can say is that no defense attorney worth his salt would have allow his clients to appear in such showy outfits, so I think someone else was telling them to wear those things. Who provided those colorful satin dresses?
With links I would at least try to run this down, but without them, you've got your work cut out for you if you expect people to take the claims seriously.
starviego said:
The Life cover photo
Fair enough.
That said, I think it's a fantastic photo.
But in reality, it had as much to do with being a story, and appealing stories sold copies and sales made money.
the Stovitz's interview with the Rolling Stone
Not that many straights read Rolling Stone, you know ? I doubt many on the jury did. Rolling Stone was a countercultural mouthpiece, not an establishment one.
the celebrity hitlist leak
Again, that didn't impact the jury. And as we don't know who actually leaked it, your point can only go so far...before falling off the razor's edge.
If a journalist got hold of an interview in which the interviewee said that Elizabeth Taylor and Tom Jones and others were going to be murdered by the same people that "got Sharon" are you honestly saying that their primary concern was to discredit Hippies...over and above knowing it would sell copies and make lotsa m0ola $£$£ ?
Charlie not being allowed to shave or get his hair cut
And yet, he did. And looked great, either way.
the dressing of the defendants in hippie garb
You make it sound like they were forced to do this.
I think one thing that seriously irritates a number of commentators is when they see the defendants complaining years later, about things they insisted upon pursuing at the time. Pat, Leslie and Susan weren't interested in appearing drab and contrite during those trials. They were interested in sticking it to the conventional world. Hence the colourful clothes, singing, smiling and disruptions.
They grizzled about it in the years after, but the truth is that they weren't acting against their wills at the time, however misled they might have been. They were like Tex on the nights of the murders, dominated but utterly responsible for their actions.
all were part of the concerted effort to demonize the accused
I'm afraid Susan's December '69 story in the papers did that long before, and more effectively than anything straight society was to try.
Now, don't get me wrong, there was a war of attrition going on between the Family and the establishment and Grandma fights dirty ! Both sides, quite frankly, had no qualms about demonizing the other.
and by extension the whole hippie movement
The Hippy movement was being demonized from 1966. There were commentators that railed against most of its practices and mooted changes. And why not ? What society of any type, is going to embrace an alternative that makes it clear that the alternative strongly feels the society stinks ?
TG:
I think one thing that seriously irritates a number of commentators is when they see the defendants complaining years later, about things they insisted upon pursuing at the time. Pat, Leslie and Susan weren't interested in appearing drab and contrite during those trials. They were interested in sticking it to the conventional world. Hence the colourful clothes, singing, smiling and disruptions.
They grizzled about it in the years after, but the truth is that they weren't acting against their wills at the time, however misled they might have been. They were like Tex on the nights of the murders, dominated but utterly responsible for their actions.
If thefe's one thing remember from seeing coverage of the trial, it was that the girls were really, really enjoying themselves by demonstrating a devil may care attitude. This was a sort of circus performance.
And another thing that came thru loud and clear was that they were very clearly aping Manson, following his lead.
Now, for a guy trying to claim that the killers were capable of acting independently on those two nights, seeing all this should have made him shit his pants on the spot, because it was clear that the opposite was true.
Also, most young people like me--closer to True than to Manson's group--read The Rolling Stone pretty regularly; it was still primarily concerned with the contemporaneous music industry. But you are correct in thinking that those sitting on the jury would not be likely to.
Both sides, quite frankly, had no qualms about demonizing the other.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
"Images of protesters putting daisies in the barrels of the rifles of National Guardsmen."
- The kid who was photographed putting the flower in the barrel of the Nat'l Guardsmen's gun changed his name to Hibiscus. Hibiscus was a founding member of San Francisco's underground troupe The Cockettes...
Not exactly this, was it?
https://anglican.ink/2021/06/04/china-tiananmen-massacre-anniversary-crackdown-on-faith-and-freedom-continue/
Not so much 'his followers' but his interactions with outsiders or associates that occasionally resulted in prosecution testimony regarding Manson said this or that which means that it was his opinion or belief.
Manson's defense being that he was merely agreeing with whom he was speaking to regarding echoing their own prejudices.
Chris B:
Manson's defense being that he was merely agreeing with whom he was speaking to regarding echoing their own prejudices.
This is basically how you charm a new acquaintance.
I wouldn't have the stomach for this; too, I might burst out laughing at some of the stuff I'd apparently be agreeing with, even as I said it.
Just like this guy:
hilarious
For the avoidance of doubt and respectful request no one speak for me
BUG perjured himself - HE brought the newspaper into the courtroom
and yes Helter Skelter was not the motive
ColScott said:
For the avoidance of doubt and respectful request no one speak for me
I don't think anyone was, just stating what you said yourself, many, many times in the past.
BUG perjured himself - HE brought the newspaper into the courtroom
Which newspaper ? The "Manson guilty says Nixon" one or the one with the celebrity hit list ?
Sometime it would be fin to explain our forum handles.
Mine is from being asked for a username when setting up the MB account, and being slow-witted I just took the node name of the Linux workstation I was logged into at the time.
I'd given it the name when setting it up. I had heard of the "shoegazer" genre and dismissed it as an exaggerated focus on one minor characteristic. Then I saw a band in a bar in which the lead guitar was apparently looking fixedly at his shoes during each performance, and I was duly impressed.
Enough to name my workstation for this trait.
Per C Scott 'twas always the nixon one
Dan S said:
Per C Scott 'twas always the nixon one
Well, I want to honour his request not to speak for him.
What I will say however, is that the whole world and its brother knows it was Daye Shinn. He actually got into trouble with Judge Older because of it. Was sentenced to 3 nights in the County jail. That's why I want to know what the Col is talking about.
And Paul Fitzgerald brought the Herald Examiner into court, with the hit list story, and handed it to Judge Older.
So I'm not sure what newspaper [article] Bugliosi is purported to have brought into the courtroom.
Am I the only one who hears the current group of global climate changers in her speech ?
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