I never read Helter Skelter although I recall Mother Jones News or Rolling Stone running a shortened version of it back in the day. I read enough of that to supplement the coverage in the news. Many years later I read something from somebody who interviewed Manson in prison. The story from the interviewer showed some skepticism of the prosecutors who put all the blame on Charlie. The skepticism seemed warranted but in hindsight I suspect that Manson was simply pulling the wool over yet one more person’s eyes. Still, I haven’t revisited the Manson story other than to catch news stories of parole hearings for his imprisoned followers though the years with all the swastikas self carved onto their foreheads. Do I still think there is a partical of truth to the prison story Manson was pedaling that he was simply a small part of the Manson commune and that there was someone else who was the real brains behind all the killing? Naw.
I just bumped into this story about Manson’s youngest groupie who thought she had escaped the story only to be pulled back into it forty years later. Manson was guilty as sin.
Charlie’s “magnetism” was part of the acid dropping era. Luckily, his pull was confined to some small parcels of California’s back woods. Its worth remembering that entire nations can get caught up in the delusions of someone with a good sales pitch. Charlie isn’t the only Messiah to have inspired the ignorant with his visions of a race war. But that megaphone has been placed in the tiny hands of our nation’s Chief of State. And he has fans as addled as the Manson Girls. Ex Congresswomen Bachmann says we will never see a more Godly President than Donald Trump.
Forty years from now Michele may be remembered as our Era’s version of a Manson girl. There is one difference however. Michele isn’t a teenager from a broken family.
