The Col often takes inspiration from the comments and there was a big debate in there recently about brainwashing... how if you look at the photos and the docs and you can see that the girls were in fact slavishly eating up Charlie's bullshit.
I could not agree less. Have any of you people done any drugs at all?
If you look at both Hendrickson documentaries what you see are people out of their heads on drugs. Weed, sure, speed likely, who the hell knows what else.
You don't see people accurately brainwashed. In fact the most drugged out people in those are the "heroes" Watkins and Posten. These were young people partying and fucking in the desert. When you get faded, or do LSD which was in heavy rotation then, the most stupid shit sounds profound. "Because the world is round it turns me on". Heavy man. "Coming down fast twenty miles above you." Oh, wow. "There is an upside down river in he desert." Shit man, let's go.
Did Charlie "lead"? No doubt, he had 15 years on most of these people. Did he brainwash? Well not like the fucking Manchurian Candidate.
There's one theory I have which I have never sewn together that involves the kids need to please Daddy. It makes a lot of sense. Leaving aside Kasabian who never makes any sense in any fucking occasion, why send the other three to Tate? Because they owe him. Tex for drug burn, Sadie for bikers trashing Saloon, Katie because she fits in no where. So Daddy is pissed at Melcher and then shouts somebody should fucking do something.
And stoned out of their boxes, they do.
I really don't see evidence of brainwashing at all in this case. I do see a shitload of drugs though.
Later on during the trial I see brainwashing. But it could all be explained by the fact that the girls are scared out of their minds and only trust Charlie, and he is having fun putting on a show.
12 comments:
That's what I think too. They got in way over their heads with drugs and were having problems with alot of people and it boiled over that summer.
In effect, they already were a crime family. It wasn't as if the girls went into Chatsworth to do waitress jobs or work in stores. They were stealing, dealing, scamming, credit card fraud, robbing their own parents.
Other than doing chores around Spahn Ranch, I never heard or read about any of them having jobs.
The remarkable thing about this crime is the unity they displayed, for the most part, during the trial. Usually, during a trial, people try to save themselves.
Which is what the girls should of done and after 40 years of incarceration, they painfully know.
Were they brainwashed? To some extent, but not anymore than any young person trying to belong to a group of peers.
But you are still responsible for your actions and you gotta have enough sense to say, Hey, things are getting a little crazy round here, I'll catch you all later.
The first stolen car that came back to that ranch,that would of been my cue to climb up on the highway and move on.
So they all had their chances to leave and they all had their chances to see things were going bad in a hurry.
Take Melcher out of the equation and maybe you're on to something.
Murders had nothing to do with Melcher. They knew who was living there. Even Santa Clause knew who was living there.
In reality, Melcher didn't do Manson any wrong. The Wilson's did when they changed the lyrics to his song without consulting with him first - and then conveniently avoided paying him.
The kids may have been totally loaded (or totally coming down) in the Hendrickson footage but what they were saying was very profound and very true - philosophically speaking (yes, even Clem). Of course one would have to be an out-of-the-box thinker to "GET IT."
They made Charlie the leader and he ran with it. It was the most control - hence the most FUN - he'd ever had in his life.
Sure some of them wanted to "please daddy" but they all certainly had their own reasons for doing what they did.
It makes me laugh when people make out that Manson had devised an evil plan to brainwash hippies into peforming his diabolical deeds.
Guy simply hung out with easy to impress young girls and they all took shitloads of drugs.
These girls chose to make him into something greater than what he was and Manson, having the time of his life with all the lavish attention thrust upon him did nothing to disprove it.
TomG said;
In effect, they already were a crime family.
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Spot on.
Did you ever hear of John gotti doing a garbage run?
Scamblehead said:
Did you ever hear of John gotti doing a garbage run?
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No-one said they were a successful crime family... by and large, they seem to have been a pretty useless bunch of criminals- but it seems fairly undeniable that at least Tex & Bobby were aspirational gangsters... and Charley's always been pretty upfront about who he was.
There's an interesting rave on BB's web site, where he pretty much explains Hinman's death as being a result of him wanting to be accepted as a "tough guy" by his biker mates. That always made more sense to me than any claim of Charley's mystical powers of brain-washing.
Bobby wasn't an aspiring gangster. Where do you get that?
He was/is an incredibly innovative and brilliant musician. THAT'S what he was doing.
Hinman's death was a result of a horribly rotten batch of MDA that Hinman sold the Straight Satans via Bobby. Bobby went to get the money back and Hinman refused. Bobby pleaded with him for 3 days before the incident erupted into an all out brawl in which Bobby killed Hinman.
Reckless homicide or manslaughter, but NOT murder in ANY degree.
If Bobby was simply trying to impress his biker buddies (sounds kinda gay) he would've just went there and killed Hinman right away. End of story.
It would've lasted 3 minutes rather than 3 days.
http://www.beausoleil.net/wizard/Seconds%20Interview.htm
Quite a long interview... in it he says mescaline not mda (quite a different drug, though they're both phenethalymines).
He also says...
"At one point there was supposed to be a party given by the Straight Satans motorcycle club out in Venice and they wanted to score, and I wanted to impress these guys. I wanted to be accepted by them, because I was still oriented more towards being a barbarian than a Hippy, and that lifestyle appealed to me. I thought that was what I wanted to be like, even though I really didn't know what they were—what I had mocked-up in my mind was sort of superimposed over them. "
Aspiring "barbarian" rather than gangster maybe?
It was still murder in anyone's book. The second Bobby decided to stab Gary to shut him up, rather than take him to a hospital, it became first degree murder.
It was not first degree murder. He didn't go there with the intention of killing his FRIEND. The situation evolved into that. As far as stabbing Gary... At that point it was kill or be killed. Hinman had gotten the gun in his hands at some point. Bobby can say whatever he wants now, keeping in mind that the parole board will be reading it. Sometimes lawyers instruct their clients to say something that doesn't necessarily reflect the truth but resembles it. Omitting is not lying. And Bobby knows it would sound too cliche and innocent to say he was a hippie musician without violent inclinations. The parole board would interpret it as though he was attempting to completely exonerate himself.
MDA or mescaline, whatever it was, specifics get fuzzy in memory over the years. The point is that Bobby was trying to make a bad deal good. If he didn't get the money back the Satans would be coming for HIM - not Hinman.
Although Bobby wasn't one to take any shit from anyone - and not one to cower when faced with conflict - music was his chief passion.
At no point was it "kill or be killed," at the Hinman residence. Gary was a peaceful guy. Gary did grab the gun at one point, in self-defense. Unfortunately, Gary told BB he was going to turn him in to the police, and BB killed him to shut him up. Bobby did not intend, at the beginning of the ordeal, to kill Gary, or he would not have stitched up Gary's cut as he did. When Gary threatened to call the police, that was when BB decided to kill Gary. Bobby has stated this in interviews.
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