Manson at 77

Charles Manson is up for his 12th parole hearing. In response to a CNN request, the California Department of Corrections posted a fresh mugshot [Via LA Times]

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Svenski

That swastika sure would make a nice target for a lovely game of darts.
- Ipo
  
  Bullseye! You missed.
  
  But really, I don’t torture my prisoners.
- benher
  
  I’m sure the world will cheer for the brave soul who successfully falls a 77 year old mental patient… and stuck it to the ol’ swazi while he was at it.
mtdna

It’s disturbing that, when you think about it, Manson was an amateur compared to a lot of psychotic killers today.
- http://rhinocrisy.org/ saurabh
  
  You DO know that Manson didn’t actually kill anyone himself, right? He convinced his followers to do it for him. Unless you’re referring to, say, psychotic killers like Bashar al-Assad and other heads of government.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ROVGMU7U6DJ2Y74KQWFLDY4HHQ octolover
    
    “He convinced his followers to do it for him.”
    
    even that is up for debate. susan atkins may be as much or more to blame than manson ever was.
    
    i’m not a manson apologist, but i do feel that because of the high-profile victims involved, he didn’t even have a chance of a fair trial. “manson in his own words” is undoubtably full of a lot of bull from the mouth of a con, but i feel that a lot has been unfairly attributed to him. *shrug.*
    - ChicagoD
      
      Meh. California didn’t kill him. Life in prison, life until he’s sane. Basically a wash.
      - SomeGuyNamedMark
        
        He’s spent most of his life in prisons anyway so I doubt he could function in the outside world at this point anyway.
    - Mitchell Glaser
      
      Tex Watson’s book, which is free to be read online (it’s called “Will You Die For Me”), contains the following quote from Manson:
      
      “What I want . . . I want you to go to that house where Melcher used to live-[we knew that by now Terry had moved down to a beach house in Malibu] – I want you to take a couple of the girls I’ll send with you and go down there . .. and totally destroy everyone in that house, as gruesome as you can. Make it a real nice murder, just as bad as you’ve ever seen. And get all their money.”
      
      I discovered this book while doing research for my recently completed musical called Manson’s Girls. It’s a fascinating book which I recommend to anyone who wants to try and understand what happened back then. Towards the end of the book, Tex, who committed most of the murders, becomes a born-again Christian in jail and starts to describe his devotion to Christ in terms that are nearly identical to his devotion to Charlie.
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ROVGMU7U6DJ2Y74KQWFLDY4HHQ octolover
        
        thanks, sounds intriguing — i’ll have to give it a read.
        
        i used to have a theory that the tate-labianca killings might have been done in revenge — roman polanski and sharon tate were part of a group, along with jack nicholson, who were purported to have a sick sexual streak, made and swapped home movies, et cetera — polanski and tate in particular having a rumored habit of picking up young girls and giving them the old in-out real sadistic-like. so i think, ‘who’s to say that they didn’t get too rough with the wrong girl one night — one of manson’s — and they got them back?’
        
        then again, i do have a tendency to overthink and such…
      - bumpngrindcore
        
        Yes! But I think Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter is the best book I’ve read on the subject.
    - http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade
      
      Like what? Pretty much all people, both in and out of the Manson cult itself, confirmed he was a very controlling ring leader of his band of creeps.
ChicagoD

Santa’s on a bender.
- anderalert
  
  Insanity Claus
Brian Routh

interesting since he never actually killed anyone
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  interesting since he never actually killed anyone
  
  You know who else never actually killed anyone?
  - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
    
    No. Wait. Don’t tell me. Bambi’s mother?
  - http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose
    
    Laura Bush?
    - Preston Sturges
      
      No Laura Bush killed a man.
      - Ultan
        
        And bound a book in his skin. Librarian, you know.
      - ChicagoD
        
        Just for snoring, I hear.
      - http://www.lightning-rose.com/ LightningRose
        
        You need to take your sarcasm meter into the shop for calibration.
      - Preston Sturges
        
        No really, in high school. Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed a classmate. She was probably our only first lady to have killed a man. I don’t think she got a ticket or anything.
  - Ultan
    
    Richard Pearle?
    (BTW, that Manson picture reminded me of him – something about the habitual expression on the right side of the face / left side of the picture seems to match. Pic from Radio Free Europe 6/6/07)
  - ChicagoD
    
    Godwin alert!
  - SomeGuyNamedMark
    
    Santa?
  - Ipo
    
    He personally poisoned a man to death with prussic acid and he shot him in the head.
  - Cynical
    
    Apparently not Glenn Beck. I heard he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990…
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Looks disturbingly like some sort of ancient Asian wise man…..mist and mountains and scrolls and all that.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Witt/1041651388 David Witt

If he’d been a John Bircher, he’d probably be on the board of Koch Industries by now. Or a US Senator.
yupgiboy

Let’s put a fine point on it. Manson has never been convicted of killing anyone by his own hands. No one but Manson himself knows if he’s ever killed anyone.
- Brainspore
  
  No one but Manson himself knows if he’s ever killed anyone.
  
  Even that assumes he is capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality.
http://profiles.google.com/keithdtyler Keith Tyler

CHARLIE DON’T SHAVE!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DAPZTCOFVL7ZTV2DWQGZQOL2T4 ozzman69ca1

I think the guy should be paroled….only because people who admittedly committed murders have been let out after as little as 10 to 12 years.(with which I don’t agree) I am also no Manson apologist, I just think he was twisted as a youth and is more mental than anything else. He should be paroled to a mental hospital.
Can you imagine the media frenzy that would occur?
Can you imagine the books, movies etc that would be generated?
There are still people who would kill in his name, and others itching to knock him off, for the fame of it.
He has been segregated the whole time because other inmates want to kill him.
He is an old old man, conditioned from youth into the prison life.
The best punishment would be to take away his free room and board.
- marilove
  
  “He should be paroled to a mental hospital.”
  
  I would be okay with that, actually. And most mental hospitals aren’t exactly cushy. They can be just as bad as prison. And he’d probably still be separated from the general population most of the time.
  
  It’s either prison, or the mental hospital, for this guy, though. He’ll die in confinement.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ROVGMU7U6DJ2Y74KQWFLDY4HHQ octolover
    
    i’m with y’all; parole to a mental hospital would be the more humane thing to do. his rough childhood, combined with possibly organically-generated psychological issues… i think the man would possibly benefit from counseling, medication, what have you.
    
    i’m not sure he could ever be freed at this point, though. too high-profile for hat to ever happen, even if it were somehow determined that he was somehow completely innocent (not at all likely; i’m just saying *if*), someone would take him out – i have no doubts about that – because of the media frenzy you mentioned that would certainly occur.
    - marilove
      
      I don’t know if he was ever really fit for society. Dude has always been nuts.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  The worst thing you could do to him at this point would be to release him. I don’t think he could take care of himself in any basic way. He’s said himself that he’s spent most of his life in prisons.
  
  I’m sure some sleazeball would pay him a good chunk of change for a book or interview or some-such but he’d probably spend it all on magic beans.
- bumpngrindcore
  
  Last thing I heard, Manson was the bitch of his prison’s Aryan Nation head-honcho. Prison has not been kind to him.
  - C W
    
    “Last thing I heard, Manson was the bitch of his prison’s Aryan Nation head-honcho. Prison has not been kind to him.”
    
    I imagine, do you have a link for that?
  - SomeGuyNamedMark
    
    The head-honcho of the Aryan Nation there must be pretty desperate to go after a 77 year old mental patient.
Guest

wouldn’t that be 777?
Petzl

Any other mass murderers we should parole while we’re at it?
hypersomniac

Helter Skelter’s still a rad song. I played it backwards and it gave me a muffin recipe.
- ChicagoD
  
  But the muffin recipe started “get some followers. Direct them to kill a house full of people . . .”
  - keithfulkerson
    
    You can substitute margarine for that.
cnyoumans

Strange, if you cover one half of his face he looks very cold and calculating, cover the other side and he is looks sad and feeble.
WillieNelsonMandela

“Manson never killed anybody.”

I think the same is true of Hitler. I’m not aware of him personally killing anyone.

(Does this still count as Godwin’s Law since the person in question has a swastika tattoo? I think that makes the thread pre-Godwin’d, yes?)
- Preston Sturges
  
  Godwin does not apply to people with swatika tattoos.
- Brainspore
  
  I think the same is true of Hitler. I’m not aware of him personally killing anyone.
  
  Not true. He killed Hitler.
  - ChicagoD
    
    If by “killed” you mean “went to Brazil with” then yes.
    
    Kidding. Just kidding.
    
    It was Argentina.
- Vincent
  
  I know the same is true of me, and think that hopefully it is true of many other readers here. (OMFG we are all like Hitler unless we go kill someone!??!!?). But what is your point? That Manson should be treated like a murderer by the system because Hitler was evil?
  He was a cult leader who pushed others to kill, and he should be treated as such. He never killed anybody, it’s a fact and that fact should not be discarded simply because you think he’s evil.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    The point is that most of history’s mass murderers never pulled a gun or a knife on anybody; they just told someone else to do it. The fact that Mr. Manson didn’t physically murder someone no more exculpates him than it would exculpate Mr. Hitler.
  - Petzl
    
    We need to parole mafia bosses too. They don’t kill people*, they only tell people to kill people. That’s not illegal, rit?
    
    *Neglecting, for the sake of argument, “making your bones.”
- strangefriend
  
  Hitler was in WWI in the trenches, so he probably DID kill someone.
  - David M Deane
    
    Except Hitler was a messenger runner – a very dangerous job, likely to get yourself killed, but not one that usually puts you in a position to kill other people. So he probably didn’t personally kill anyone in WWI; the messages he was carrying might have resulted in the deaths of others but that’s getting pretty abstruse.
taghag

in the photo it looks like he was considered so dangerous he was set in concrete…
- TooGoodToCheck
  
  it does have a bit of a frozen-in-carbonite look to it, doesn’t it?
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  Maybe do a Myra Hindley on him?
Preston Sturges

He sent an audition tape to Fox to see if he could get his own opinion show in the 5:00 PM slot, but marketing said he “wasn’t edgy enough.”
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/42THFKXIPMJHQBIH6OPI4RVIDY Thebes

I think that to some extent he IS a political prisoner.

He never actually killed anyone, and while what he did was surely a crime he has served more time than many actual killers.
Why?
Because he “inspired” mayhem and homicide and is somewhat of a cult figure with groupies.
In some respects his continued incarceration sends a message that unrestrained speech is more dangerous than actual murder.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  How many times do we have to Godwin this thread?
  - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/42THFKXIPMJHQBIH6OPI4RVIDY Thebes
    
    Yeah, because issuing military commands killing tens of millions in a war of aggression while slaughtering millions of civilian Jews, Gypsies and dissidents, that is JUST LIKE what Manson did- and if one says otherwise one is supporting nazism or something… sigh….
    - C W
      
      Nobody’s comparing scale, they’re saying that your “he never killed nobody” argument isn’t a sign of his relative innocence.
- Petzl
  
  Yeah, I agree. Lock up the killers. But why are we persecuting people who tell others to kill. What’s our first amendment about if not protecting, admittedly unpopular, freedom of speech?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    What’s our first amendment about if not protecting, admittedly unpopular, freedom of speech?
    
    If you think that the first amendment was intended to protect mass murderers, then you have been utterly failed by everyone involved in your upbringing.
    - Petzl
      
      Don’t feed the trolls.
      - C W
        
        I’m so confused.
  - C W
    
    “What’s our first amendment about if not protecting, admittedly unpopular, freedom of speech?”
    
    It doesn’t cover this form of unpopular speech.
    
    Er, am I missing very-dry sarcasm?
- C W
  
  “he has served more time than many actual killers.
  
  Why?”
  
  Because he remains more unhinged than “many actual killers”, and most “actual killers” who have neo-nazi tats and want to make probation have their swastika removed prior to appearing before the board.
SomeGuyNamedMark

Since when did Saddam Hussein have a swastika in his forehead?
MailSmurf

A member of the Tate family always shows up to help convice the Board to deny parole.
He has spent nearly all of his life in reform schools or prison. He doesn’t know anything else.
baronkarza

Oh, I like the little circle of connected L’s on his forehead, marking him as a four-time Loser. That’s what he should be best remembered as. Loser.
Donald Petersen

I confess myself stumped. What exactly is that white frosting/packing material/snow/fur-lined Ice Queen cowl behind his head? It looks for all the world like the photographer was actively trying to evoke a Father Christmas vibe.
- C W
  
  Concrete?
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Do the sparkles, then, emanate from his aura?
Twilight_News_Site

Many years ago, a teacher I had told us about Manson since his brother was a guard at the prison he is held at.
As I recall, he said that it appeared the prisoner had despaired and/or was apparently horrified by what he had done. This was conjecture though, because he wouldn’t communicate, or do anything else. He said that the guards hated him intensely, not only for what he had done, but because Manson wouldn’t get up out of bed for anything, including to use the toilet. So they had to clean up after him, hose him/things off or something. My teacher said the brother and his other guards were completely fed up. I gathered that he was, by far, the worst part of a difficult job. That’s what I remember from what my teacher said.
Drabula

I usually agree with Antinous but not here. I’m sure Charlie was a total dick but a broken society produces lots of them. In retrospect it seems as though this particular dick reached critical mass at just the wrong time – aimless, wandering hippies looking for a daddy figure etc during tumultuous times. And in a convenient sort of way Charlie became the scapegoat for the flaming wreck of a social ‘experiment’ that was the *shudder* 60s.

In one fell swoop we were able to lock away for life one guy who symbolized everything we feared.
“Hippie cult leader? What the hell is a hippie cult leader? Nine dead bodies. How would you play this hand? How would you play this hand here?”
Drabula

Oh, and you know who else never killed anybody?

MY MOM!
John Smith

His daughter, Marilyn, is certainly a lovely girl.