Monday, August 17, 2020

Channeling Saint

As we all know Mr. Bugliosi didn’t need to prove motive to convict the killers. But he did.  

He did because people want to know ‘why’ something happened and juries are made up of people. 

 

They also teach you this, your first year in law school: A motive makes a defendant…. ‘more, guilty’ ....and the lack of a motive makes him…. ‘less, guilty’. It is that simple. 

 

So, Bugliosi chose a motive that doesn’t sit well with many, maybe the majority and everyone spends years trying to prove a different motive, because, well, Bugliosi’s motive is…goofy. 

 

If, say, 20% of the readers of this blog accept the Healter Skelter [sic] motive (it was just repeated on TV on a recent Saturday night) the rest favor one of the other motives: drugs, copycat, revenge and now we can add the ‘deep state’ motive. 

 

[Aside: I’m somewhere out in left field, all by myself, on the motive. But this post isn’t about the motive.] 

 

Three of the alternative motives either consciously or unconsciously exonerate Manson or minimize, if not justify, what happened. At least two of them also have the tendency to ‘shift the blame’ making the victims or a third entity at least partially responsible for the deaths. In fact, that is part of the goal of some of those who support the alternative motives whether they are willing to admit it or not.

So, with the drug motive three of the victims deserve what they got. You can add Gary Hinman to that list making it four out of nine and if you dispense with reality you can make it six of nine. Shorty Shea was a snitch and thus got what he deserved. That leaves Sharon Tate and Steven Parent. I even once heard or read one proponent of this motive explain that the reason why Sharon Tate lived as long as she did was because she was not part of the drug deal and wasn’t supposed to be there. That, by the way, is an attempt to explain her murder as ‘collateral damage’ surrounding what was otherwise justifiable ‘pay back’. Think about that a moment. 

The copycat motive actually admits that seven people were murdered on purpose. It then offers perhaps the most disturbing justification for the murders. We are told, through the oft repeated refrain, that seven people were murdered to ‘get a brother out of jail’. Under this motive the ends justify the means in some truly dark Machiavellian sense. A ‘brother’ needed help and that served a higher purpose, justifying brutal murders. The lives of the victims were to be exchanged for the life of a murderer. And, of course, Manson was not involved. It was the brainchild of Watson and Kasabian and some unidentified Family member who saw a James Cagney movie I have yet to identify. Shorty was a snitch and Gary ripped them off over some drugs.

More recently we have the deep state motive. I admit I don’t quite understand this motive because it trips all over itself too much and thus has to keep adding layers and explanations offered as questions instead of answers. But I think the gist is that Manson was either groomed or brainwashed in prison to be an agent to destroy the new left and the peace movement. I think we can thank Joan Didion as the sort of 'godmother' of this motive and I guess it doesn't matter that it didn't work as both continued for several years. 


Manson's trainers are either the FBI, Esalen, the CIA or the someone else or maybe all of them. I think I am supposed to believe he used his training, then, to train the Family creating little Charlie Manchurian Candidates like Charlie was a CIA Manchurian Candidate. We are told, he had a lot of protection by someone because he never went to jail until he went to the gas chamber. After that happened Manson refused to disclose the conspiracy because Manson is a righteous dude. Or maybe it was the Black Panthers he was supposed to undermine and destroy by actually triggering a race war? 

 

In any event, everyone is exonerated from at least some moral culpability because they were not acting under free will and the real criminals are still at large wearing grey flannel suits and Florsheim shoes. Most would be dead today which seems to be the hallmark of this motive: quoting dead people. The victims, at least, in this one, remain victims but Obama or Clinton or someone is actually responsible because no one picked up Manson from his early release from prison for smoking grass with underage girls. Shorty was a snitch and Gary ripped them off over some drugs. 

 

The revenge motive is really just a motive used by Bugliosi to try to explain Atkins' early statements about the motive and why they went to Cielo Drive looking for Terry Melcher when they knew he wasn’t there. Of course the current media loves this one because celebrities are involved. Bugliosi also probably threw it in there because, like you and me, he was worried that Helter Skelter was too goofy to convince a jury. The revenge stuff is simple: anti-social/sociopath. 

Revenge, at least, doesn’t blame the victims except when the Fam discuss it then the victims get the blame because Melcher thought Manson’s music was utter crap (so do I) and paid him $50 and said ‘I’ll call you next week”. Therefore they got what they deserved. Revenge as a motive gets a little ragged night number two. In fact it falls apart. Shorty was a snitch and Gary ripped them off over some drugs. 


Regardless of which alternative motive you choose it is generally accepted in those motive-cliques that  Bugliosi is an unethical, lying, villainous worm. Was he a good guy…no. Was he unethical….that’s a tough one. I don’t know….. maybe? Do these facts and the others thrown at him have anything to do with why Manson et al rotted away in jail? Sorry….no, they do not. But, again, it draws the focus away from the killers and their charismatic, Christ-leader, Charles Man’s Son, and creates that little scintilla of evidence that the trial wasn’t ‘fair’ and that Bugliosi made it up and covered it up. 

 

Missing, of course, from all of these motives is any concern for the victims, who become like the table under my laptop where I write this crap: they become decor in horrific crime scene photos. 


The Family, meanwhile, doesn't care who the victims were. Under their favorite motive they were expendable to 'get a brother out of jail'. Alternatively, they ignore the victims completely. They simply have no feelings at all for them. I mean, none. 


One Family member wrote a book suggesting that her time in the Family was all peace, love, brotherhood, flowers and music punctuated now and again by a little group grope and a nice Indica high. The murders, to her, were ‘inexplicable’ (even though she was present while the orchestration went down). They were likely motivated, if she were pushed on the subject, 'to get a brother out of jail’. 


See, that one comes closest to exonerating Manson as long as you can get him out of the car night number two. But the available 'testimony' of the Family suggests something different than the reflections of that old Family member. There is a reason the victims don't exist. 

 

Here is the Manson Family in their own words. Some, perhaps, most, of these quotes may be familiar to some or all of you. I chose not to identify the speaker or the source but some are obvious. Read them aloud. Think about them. Notice what is missing. 

_____


“I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
 

[Aside: Wasn’t Brad Pitt’s response to that, great.]

 

“The world of sanity is a little box. The world of insanity is endless, perfect. Charles Manson is the universal mind.”

 

“You are all next!” 

"Woman, I have no mercy for you."

 

“What we did was necessary . . . to start a revolution against pollution! We made a statement and we wrote it in blood in the Tate house and in the LaBianca house: ‘This death you look at? This is your children. Tate-LaBianca is the house of the future.’ We were little kids, trying to save the sheep from the wolves—and I don’t mean, you know, to put down wolves! And where are Abbie Hoffman and Bernardine Dohrn and Jerry Rubin and all you liberal humanitarians now? Crying about Nelson Mandela? About jobs for the homeless? Jobs that destroy air, trees, water, animals? About some guy in a fur coat who left home without his rubbers . . . and got AIDS?! Excuse me, but that is just white-liberal-guilt-fear, the same that can’t forget nine little murders, and yet will ask me to lay down for a black man . . . and commit genocide?!”

 

“She was killed, that was war.”
 

“[Cutting down those trees] is worse than Tate-LaBianca.” [Reported to me by a witness.]

 

"I got no feelings for you bitch, we're doing you a favor, we're releasing you from this earth."

 

"Well it felt so good the first time that I stabbed her."

 

“I don’t even know what the word [remorse] means.”

 

“In war people die, Patty.”

 

“All those kids that did all those things in the 60’s- I never directed traffic, but I did influence a lot of people in a lot of ways- and I don’t think they were bad guys. I think they were perfect.”



Q: “Do you have any sorrow?” 

A: “No”.

 

Q: “Why did you kill her?” 

A: “It was just there to do.”

 

“Your fear is your love.” [About the fear that precedes being murdered.]

 

Q: “What did you feel after you stabbed her?” 

A: “Nothing. It was just there and like it was just right.”

 

A: “And Sharon went through a few changes, (laugh), quite a few changes.

Q: “What do you mean by changes?”

A: “Oh, her facial expressions – she said “Oh my God, no.” Miss Folger didn’t say anything, she just stood there.”

 

“By doing a murder that had no sense behind it, and by putting words that would make people scared.”

 

“Because the more fearful the people get, the more frantic it will get, and the faster it will happen.”

 

“People are being killed every day.”

 

“You know, in other words, we didn’t want to go out and actually like do somebody in, but it had, it had to be done; and we were the only ones that saw that it had to be done.”

 

Q: “Seven dead bodies are no big thing, right Sadie? 

A: “Are they? With millions of people all over the world that are having napalm dropped on them in the name of your justice, is that a big thing?  It doesn’t seem to be too big a thing to you all. If you all believes it’s right, it’s right, and what I believed was right was right.”

 

“You won’t be sending your son to war.”

 

“Q: And then the next night?

A: Well, I was feeling bad, to tell you the truth. Because Sadie — because Katie was my best friend. And to think that she was strong enough in her believing not — you know, to be able to go kill, I wanted to, too.”

 

“To get a brother out of jail, I would kill. I would have killed that night if I had gone along.”

 

“And almost it was like it would make myself stronger to know that I could kill somebody, because at the moment I’m killing them I have to be that willing to die.”

 

“Well, in order to create fear it had to be — look like an obvious, just an obvious murder; that there was no robbery, nothing behind it; just flat out to do it, to start this paranoia going.

And so, we had been told that this was the best time to use our witchcraft.”

 

Q: Was the actual stabbing of the woman — did that — was that unusual to you; did it feel different than you thought it might have felt?

A: “It felt so weird that I blew my mind behind it; if you understand what I mean by blow my mind.

I mean, I lost control. I went completely nuts that moment. It was —

Do you want me to explain?

It was hard to get it through. Like when I thought of stabbing, I didn’t really have any idea in my mind, but it’s a real feeling. It’s — it’s not even like cutting a piece of meat. It’s much tougher. And it was — I had to use both hands and all my pressure, all my strength behind it to get it in.

And so once I started, the feeling was so weird that I just kept doing it.

Like I say, I did it about ten times, I think.”

Q: “Now, when we sat down here before I actually turned on the tape recorder I asked you if you know what the word “remorse” meant; and you said “No.”

And I told you it meant feeling sorry.

Could you tell us how you feel now about what happened to the LaBiancas and all the other people that were killed?

A: “Well, I can’t really feel sorry, because I did it, and I did it with every intention of it being right.”

 

“I thought it was perfectly right, and I thought it was perfectly right.”

 

“So in other words, if the clock could be put back, if I saw that this is the way it was coming down, again, I’d do it again.”

 

“I didn’t relate to Sharon Tate as being anything but a store mannekin[sic].” 

 

“She kept begging and pleading and begging and pleading and begging and pleading, and I got sick of listening to her, so I stabbed her.”

 

“Sorry never meant anything. It is just a five-letter word people use.” 

 

“I don’t feel bad about anything that happened.”

 

Q: “She begged? 

A: “Yes. So?”

 

Q: “Why were these seven murders committed?” 

A: “It seemed like a good idea at the time. It just happened. And it was right. My brother was in jail for something that I did.”

 

“Once it [the knife] went in, it just kept going in and in and in.” 

 

“Are you willing and ready to die or kill? When you aren’t ready or willing to kill it’s because you are not

ready or willing to be killed.”

 

“We were left to die in prison because we were white, man. And where were your liberal humanitarians when we were facing the gas chamber for trying to save Earth from people . . . getting drunk on the blood of children! Even child murderers get to point the finger at Charlie, accuse us of killing children. Peck, peck, peck, peck down the order. Sharon Tate’s baby dying? A baby that would grow up to be a fat fucking hamburger-eating, Earth-destroying . . . soul-destroying piece of shit?!”

_____

 

The first thing we have to do with these statements is accept them as their truth: the group truth of The Manson Family.  When the comments were made, they believed what they said. We could spend time debating ‘why’ this was their truth. It may be, perhaps, that Manson ‘brainwashed’ them. Perhaps. I don't think so. 

 

The root of their extraordinary lack of empathy probably lies somewhere else. It may, as Charlie said, have had something to do with the ‘programming' of their parents. More accurately, whatever he did or they did to themselves, eliminated the parental 'programing'. 

 

More likely, each one had narcissistic or sociopathic aspects of their personalities that were somehow released. That may have been Manson’s work, the CIA or the impact of LSD and/or speed. Or it may have been who they were and why they were drawn to him. They became unable to feel, unable to empathize with what they experienced; what they had done or what they knew had been done. The horror they inflicted or what they saw or learned after the fact had no impact on them. They were and remained, through the years covered by these comments, devoid of human feelings for the victims. By ‘feelings’, of course, I mean they were unable to see the suffering of their victims or even recognize that they suffered at all. Or maybe that is who they really were and they were simply drawn to a 'leader' who was like them.

 

Some of these quotes date back to the time. Some are more current. These are their words.  There is no peace, love and flowers mentioned, here. There is no anger at the corporate machine or the Vietnam war (save a couple comments). There certainly are no statements in support of the environment. That is just revisionist history, created years after the events. 


They killed because they wanted to kill. That is the scary part. Motive didn't matter. 

 

All we learn from their words is that whether you are a conservative or a liberal, white, black or brown, gay or straight, man or women, rich or poor you were expendable. You didn’t matter. You and me, like Sharon Tate's unborn child, are earth destroying, soul destroying pieces of shit, especially if we like burgers. 


In the years that followed these crimes most of those not in prison ran from their past or disappeared into irrelevancy, living on the public dole in some small town, unfortunately, frequently, in my home state. They never contributed anything to society I have ever been able to find. Nothing. Not one that I am aware of ever attempted to make amends or do some good deed for the victims. I see no profits going to victims assistance or anything else for that matter including the environment. Instead they likely live on the social security checks we members of the establishment, those they were willing to kill, worked to provide. 

 

At least one hired a plastic surgeon to remove the “X” she so boldly carved in her forehead years before.

Many have changed their names and ‘disappeared’. Few want to talk about those days, unless they get a paycheck, and then they get the facts wrong, timing their books or appearances to profit from the anniversary of that horrible night. Pause and reflect on that a moment. 

Fewer still admit they did anything wrong or were friends and lovers of those who could butcher nine, innocent, people. They simply didn't see it that way. They were helping a brother or paying back a drug burn.

 I recently listened to an interview with one of those quoted above from  20+ years ago. A long time ago, I admit. In it she spent her time either denying they were responsible for anything or contradicting herself by saying they did nothing wrong. 

 

So why did I title this post “Channeling Saint”? 


Saint Circumstance used to write posts, here. He wrote from his heart, not the dry history and evidence based, crap, I used to write. His posts were filled with opinions that always made me think, especially about the victims. 


I was reminded of that just recently having read a comment by him, here. This happened a couple days after I was having a glass of wine watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.  I suddenly realized it was the anniversary of that first horrible night. I had forgotten. 


I also had one of those moments. I realized those nine people never were able to experience watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean again after August 1969. But those responsible for at least doing nothing, write books and appear on talk shows. That, and Saint's comment a couple days later, made me channel Saint. I hope I did a good job. 

 

There is a tendency among the members of this odd little hobby to worry about offending those who were there because they might, just might, give us a kernel in their latest fictional account of the Family. We support motives that blame the victims or exonerate the guilty. In our effort to prove a conspiracy we forget they were brothers, sisters, uncles, lovers and friends. 

These were people. Living, dreaming, loving people we should remember. People whose suffering we should remember.  

Many here respect that Kumbaya reminiscence and its author who still thinks Charlie was ‘love’. 

Maybe we do that because we want her and others who were there in those days to ‘share’. 


Share what, exactly? More bullshit?

 

I want her to dispense with the propaganda and share her truth. 


I want them to explain those quotes up there. Explain why you all believed that. Tell us what you heard and saw on the evening of August 8-9-10, 1969 and share why you stood by and did nothing. Explain why those words up there were your truth and why you don’t care about the murdered. Why do the victims not even merit a footnote in your story? Explain why you are so mad at them. They did nothing to you. 

 

Explain to us, please, why any of us should care about any part of a man or his ideas who taught one of

your sisters that Sharon Tate’s unborn baby, repeat 'unborn baby', “would grow up to be a fat fucking hamburger-eating, Earth-destroying . . . soul-destroying piece of shit?!” and therefore deserved to die. 

I don’t think you can explain it without revealing a very disturbing truth about who you are.

 

I don’t have any interest in hearing anymore propaganda about the halcyon days at Spahn Ranch. I want to know why you all believed the things you said. I want to know why something inside of you died. What made you do these things (or watch them happen from afar and do...... nothing) and why you laughed. 

 

Tell me what was so important that these nine people were, to you, collateral damage, nothing but objects that needed to die? Convince me this somehow furthered some grand cause and tell me what on earth that cause might have been. Tell me why you did nothing to stop it. More importantly, tell me why you felt nothing after it happened.  


Sharon Tate

Abigail Folger

Voytek Frykowski

Jay Sebring

Steven Parent

Rosemary LaBianca

Leno LaBianca

Donald Shea 

Gary Hinman 

Baby Paul


Somehow these people get lost in all the motive searching and they disappear when we listen to Family members. 


In the end, the people behind these names are all that matters. 


Pax vobiscum

 

Dreath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

61 comments:

SixtiesRockRules! said...

I don't think everybody who joined charlie's group had an inner willingness to commit acts of extreme violence, but charlie had a better than average ability to sense which of his followers possessed such a malignant character trait. I believe charlie then went to work and spent considerable time nurturing this hatred in these select few, which he then, of course, turned loose in the summer of 1969 to perpetrate the horrific acts we all know about (and perhaps a few others we DON'T know about). I agree with the main point of this excellent post, which seems to be that one of the primary motives behind the tate-labianca killings was nothing more (and nothing less) than rage at society. Charlie took the rage and resentment present within certain of his followers (again, not all of the "family" had this level of bloodlust within themselves...perhaps, to be more precise, about 9 or 10 out of the thirty-odd individuals who were in manson's "cult") and directed it outward at various targets. All of that stuff about saving the environment was made up years after the fact. One thing I might add as an afterthought...by the summer of 1969, even though only a certain number of the "family" was directly involved in the murders, it may well be that many of the others would have indeed participated to one degree or another had they been ordered to, Perhaps by mid-1969 they all (even the ones who, as far as we know, didn't actually pick up knives) shared the same outlook and philosophy as expressed in the still-shocking quotes used in the above post. Sometimes we forget how truly messed-up these people were (or became). They might have been a relatively harmless bunch in 1967 and 1968....not so by 1969. Thank you for reminding us, by your inclusion of the actual words of various "family" members, what these people were really about and why it was a good thing they were arrested and incarcerated.

Chanel said...

It was a cult!

The bug did not have to make that motive up. There is an recording made before the final Manson arrests where Brooks lays it all out to the Sheriff. It was not bugs invention.

Manson Family = BLM

BLM feels perfectly justified in killing 30 people in their peaceful protests: including the brutal murder of children. Looting, arson and murder are all excused by BLM, their followers, the Democrats and the main stream media. It is not hard to convince people to participate in despicable acts.

All you have to do is convince them there is a 'we' and an 'other' once you have that what happens to the 'other' is not a crime or unjustified.

cielodrivecom said...

Epically bad take, Chanel

St. Circumstance said...

Dreath, I basically stopped posting for two reasons and this post is an EXCELLENT example of the first, and a good summation of how I arrived at the second :)

This blog needed a strong voice of reason to advocate for the victims side early on in its development. Austin Anne was really the only other person who was willing to take on readers who supported The Family. There were also a lot of really aggressive comments and participants in those days. It could get ugly. However, that seemed to dissipate over the years. You entered the picture and brought a level of intelligence and experience that I just dont have. You were able to make the arguments I was trying to argue in opinion- in fact. Simply, you were just better at saying all the same things I wanted to say. You are smarter, and a better writer. This post is much more articulate than anything I ever could have done. They, and we, are lucky to have you here as an honest broker and source. Thank You Sir! You are a very good man with a very big heart...

Second, but just as important. Every word you wrote is true. It just started becoming more difficult for me to keep saying it out loud...

Over time. I have started to get to know people who do support the family. I like some of them personally. It gets harder to ask people to look deep at what inside them could cause them to be fans of murderers and criminals, when you really dont want to hurt or offend the person. It becomes harder and harder, as you get to know and like people more and more. I got to the point where for me it was better to just stay our of it, mind my own personal boundaries, and enjoy the interesting parts of the blog experience without the headaches, or stress of asking questions that, while very fair, put other people in the uncomfortable position of having to answer.

I read a book a few years back called Crucial Conversations that really had an impact on me and the way I try to do business. When casual conversations turn into crucial ones 3 things happen. Opinions vary. Stakes are high. Emotions run deep. At this point people make the "Fools Choice" Fight or Flight. I am learning to try another way. 3 Start from the heart questions. 1. What do I want for myself? 2. What do I want for the other person? 3. What do I want for the relationship? Then instead of telling myself all my stories, and thinking about my experiences- I consider the other person. I have no idea what their experiences and stories are. Take a deep breath. Then look for a mutual purpose to move forward based on mutual respect...

That can be very hard to do in some cases. Deb Tate is a perfect case. Almost everyone I respect on this site hates her. She is attacked viciously. I have nothing but sympathy for Deb Tate. She lost her sister and a really tough age to handle that sort of thing. How can you make excuses for the way anyone in the Family acted after the crimes, and hold any wacko things Deb may have done against her? Deb, to me, at least had a legitimate reason to act out. Who gets to judge how much another person loved their brother or sister, especially after they go through something like that?

But who wants to argue every week with people you like/respect over Deb Tate?

In this case its simple. What I want for me, you, and all of us is simple. Talk about the case, learn from each other, and have intelligent dialogue without hurting each others feelings. So I stay away from writing my opinions anymore. But, in this case- I couldn't agree with your opinion any more. This is very well said and dead on right! My Hat is off...


- Your Favorite Saint

DebS said...

A very powerful post, David. Thank you.

starviego said...

The highest respect we can pay to the victims is to find out The Truth.

IF the mind-control theory(that somehow Charlie and Family were manipulated into doing it) has some validity, than that would of necessity lesson the culpability(legally and morally) of the accused. Note I said "lesson," and not "eliminate." Anyway it would have been up to the jury to figure that part out. But they were never given the full story.

AustinAnn74 said...

The motive was simple: Charlie told them to go to do it, so they did it and they did it brutally and with not a shred of remorse and a lot of people suffered for it.

Matt said...

cielodrivecom said...
Epically bad take, Chanel


I have no words to describe how epically bad...


ColScott said...

Brother Saint
I have not read yet. As far as who gets to judge Debra, I would say her mother and father, who did so by disowning her because she is a hate filled fame monger monster

St. Circumstance said...

Lol :)

I am sorry I brought it up...

Sometimes I forget myself :)

AstroCreep said...

David said: “Aside: I’m somewhere out in left field, all by myself, on the motive. But this post isn’t about the motive”...

I’m curious what your take is on the motive.

My belief is that Charlie’s motive is payback to the man/father issues/mother issues but also that he was clever enough to brainwash the others with HS. There’s far too much evidence prior to Bugs’s involvement for that to be made up.

My first post, I remember being very cautious because I was worried one of the victims family members might read my words and out of respect for them, I combed my words again and again to make sure I didn’t say anything offensive.

I’ve always approached this blog from a lens that the victims are just that, victims. They had no choice in all of their personal life details being made public. Their family members have/had to live with that the remainder of their days- and those responsible (both killers and those who belonged to the family) made a joke out of the trial and acted like true assholes on the street corner.

The other night while watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (for the 9th or 10th time) I wondered what old Scramblehead thought about his character getting owned by Cliff Booth.... (one of the more underrated scenes)

Gorodish said...

starviego typed:

IF the mind-control theory(that somehow Charlie and Family were manipulated into doing it) has some validity,....

“Nah it was dumber than that.”

AstroCreep typed:

The other night while watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (for the 9th or 10th time) I wondered what old Scramblehead thought about his character getting owned by Cliff Booth.... (one of the more underrated scenes)

Clem getting his ass stomped by a stuntman....oh, the irony!

grimtraveller said...

AstroCreep said:

I remember being very cautious because I was worried one of the victims family members might read my words and out of respect for them, I combed my words again and again to make sure I didn’t say anything offensive

I have a similar approach. But when one continually says something like "it's about the victims" then that automatically takes things out of the realm of it being about the killers. And as such, you look at the victims. And their lives, their foibles, their weaknesses etc. Unless you just want a continuously sanitized look at people that happened to be victims of murder. And then that becomes false.
I don't really want to know too much about the victims. They are not what got me interested in the case and the more one finds out about them, the greater the risk there is in being somewhat sidetracked into discovering who they were what they were about and ∴ following some dark paths that are frankly not fair to them.
I once ruffled some feathers when I stated that they were incidental to the story. And if it was true that Peter Folger would routinely threaten reporters that were going to write about his daughter, as far as I'm concerned, more power to him. That's what I'd do. Because I don't see that one can have it both ways. If one is going to make the victims "important" to the story, one can't have it both ways; you present the entire picture. Which is why I wouldn't want the public knowing about my mother/father/sister/brother if they were a victim of a murder.
Whereas in the case of the murderer, well, to a large extent, they've forfeited the freedom to be anonymous and not talked about. And yes, we do go heavily into each one and psycoanalyse them from all kinds of angles and in this particular case look at motives and changes and backgrounds and behaviour and time served and all the rest. For a variety of reasons.
Bringing the victims more and more into the public discussion arena means that what is said and how and by whom can't be controlled.

grimtraveller said...

St. Circumstance said...

What I want for me, you, and all of us is simple. Talk about the case, learn from each other, and have intelligent dialogue without hurting each others feelings

Certainly since the time I first landed here in 2015, that has been the case. Naturally, there have been some hairy moments and there have been some people that go out of their way to be insulting. Some do it as a kind of stylistic pose, others have done so out of their own deficiencies and malice.
But when it comes to the hurting of feelings, unless you are deliberately going out to hurt, then that's not within the control of anyone that expresses their opinion. Who knows what is going to hurt someone's feelings or get them going ? I've said things in innocence and it has caused certain people to blow up and never speak to me again or be civil. On the other hand, I wouldn't want other contributors knowing I'm black or a Christian or English to prevent them from expressing a strong opinion against any of those things if it was an important part of the point they wanted to make.
It does seem to me increasingly that western human beings are losing the desire to engage in robust, informed, conversation that involves both expressing views and listening to others and being questioned about our stances on various things.

starviego said...

The highest respect we can pay to the victims is to find out The Truth

I don't agree. The highest respect you can pay the victims is to catch their perps, convict them and carry out the sentence imposed on them by a court of law. Anything else is fluff on our end.
And that respect has been accorded.

Anyway it would have been up to the jury to figure that part out. But they were never given the full story

As pertaining to the murders and who was actually responsible for them, which was their only concern, yes they were. They didn't really need to know about the scientist that had FBI or CIA connections that injected the elephant full of so much LSD that it died, who may or may not have bumped into Charlie Manson in a Haight-Ashbury corridor one day in mid 1967.

Chanel said...

The bug did not have to...
Manson Family = BLM


A good example of the various strands of public discourse. Some actually interesting, points made by Chanel, but saturated in a nuance that I don't think they realize, fused with a bias that really needs exploring, calling out where necessary and seeing exactly how it fits within the wider point that Chanel was trying to answer to.

Chanel said...


I feel so honoured!

cielodrivecom said...
Epically bad take, Chanel

Matt said...
cielodrivecom said...
Epically bad take, Chanel

I have no words to describe how epically bad...


When you are on a roll you keep digging right down to that magical underground kingdom if needed.

You can't reveal the 'actual' motive when you have a cult or if you don't like the term just use group think. Group think can quickly transform otherwise rational people into irrational criminals.

How and why does the girl next door or mamas boy become cold blooded killers? Group think explains this transformation a lot better than the CIA, mystery drug deal, failed music career, or save a brother.

So here is a nice story about two promising lawyers. Well educated, good family and great career and they fell for the group think of BLM. They could have been home coming queens.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/us/brooklyn-molotov-lawyers-protests/index.html

Now they are facing the possibility of life in prison. A few weeks and they got in the head space and swallowed the BLM pill. It is that easy.

Charlie created an 'us vs them' mentality just like BLM and Antifa and that means the actions on those nights do not need to make any sense. Healter Skelter is very much on the table or the fridge door.

Dan S said...

Charles Watson trying to impress his peer group. + Manson trying to impress his peer group on day two.

Watson was surely involved in Shorty's murder and Hinman shows the way the group was heading in general plus the catalyst Lotsapoppa event was %100 TWs screw up.

I still want the motive to be covert spy shit exposing the cruel overlords

Dan S said...

You know i forgot about shorty! the poetic justice of that scene, I like it a lot more now; i felt it was gratuitous at the time having forgotten poor shorty

David said...

AstroCreep, I would have to write a long and rather dry post to explain it. I'll try to sum it up in less than one hundred words.

Manson was a messiah-like charismatic leader of a millennial movement (and I don't mean 30 year olds).

His movement was attacked by the outside forces creating stress it could not handle.

He suffered a series of defections that called into question his position and his message creating additional stress.

His promise of a conflagration that would lead to paradise did not happen adding more stress.

His ability to project and expand his message failed (due to the collapse of his musical career) creating more stress.

He responded, due to his weaknesses, by turning his response outward (versus inward, which is the brave course).

His motive is no different than the Bolsheviks, the radical elements of the French Revolution or if you prefer a less expansive example, The Weather Underground.

The murders were inevitable given the nature of the charismatic leader and seemingly pointless.

I think that's less than 100.

Dan S said...

Oops "TW" should read "CW" (but you knew that).

Dan S said...

Way more than 100... I think Charlie set the tone but he didn't want a massacre to really happen but went with the flow/had to reassert himself after tex did his thing

brownrice said...

Pretty good summation of most of the popular alternative motives, David... but there's a couple of small points that often get missed. You don't have to blame the victims or be a Manson apologist to disbelieve HS and see other motives as more likely or believable. The drug motive is a good case in point. Just because someone deals or uses drugs, doesn't mean to say that they "deserve to die"... and surely at this point in history only the most rigidly judgemental, uptight "straight" (as we used to say back in the day) would think that they did. If (for instance) the murders were the result of a "drug burn gone wrong", I can't see how that would make the killers any less culpable or the victims even slightly responsible for their own deaths. Same for any of the other alternative theories.

On a different note... if ya wanna find the godmother of the "deep state" theory, forget Joan Didion and look to Mae Brussell (and Paul Krassner) who raised this potential back when they were first investigating the murders in the early 70s. There's very little that Tom O'Neill has recently dug up that wasn't already very well ploughed over by Mae & Paul while the trials were still happening.

grimtraveller said...

Pax Vobiscum said:

But this post isn’t about the motive

One thing that I, particularly as a non~American, find fascinating is that the search for and discussion of motive in this case pulls in quite a lot of different strands from different directions and different people. Even when you ask questions like the ones you hypothetically ask Squeaky in your piece, you're addressing motive.

There is a tendency among the members of this odd little hobby to worry about offending those who were there because they might, just might, give us a kernel in their latest fictional account of the Family

Can you elaborate on that ?

Somehow these people get lost in all the motive searching and they disappear when we listen to Family members

I sometimes find a tendency to assume that someone that is interested in this case and the situations that combined to create it, because they will often focus on the Family, somehow doesn't care about the people that died. Or casts them as not mattering. Well that is not true. But as I've pointed out before, there really are not many people who have an interest in true crime that honestly have an interest in the victims most of the time. This case is a little unusual because of who some of the victims are and who some of them were connected to. But I find there's a certain disrespect towards them even in that.
But hey. Suffice it to say that most people that are going to have an opinion that they will actually express will do so not because people with an interest are ghouls {although there may well be an element of that ~ the kind of "stop and look at a car smash" syndrome} but because we are moved in a different way by those among us that go so horribly wrong. And we want to look into what we can see of the process that enables people to go so horribly wrong. There's little room for the victims in that but that does not mean they don't matter or count.
I'm all for keeping victims of crime out of the glare of publicity and having their lives raked over the coals.

Three of the alternative motives either consciously or unconsciously exonerate Manson or minimize, if not justify, what happened. At least two of them also have the tendency to ‘shift the blame’ making the victims or a third entity at least partially responsible for the deaths

I've often noted that the Family were not in the slightest bit original in their adopting of either motives or justifications, either at the time or subsequently. They almost always picked up whole motives, ideas, themes, from someone else. In the case of shifting the blame to the victims, this is something that began almost instantaneously after the bodies were discovered and a good 4 months before the Family were identified as being connected to the murders; it came from the assorted American press. Much was being written that at least implied that some of the victims weren't blameless. And then during the trial, Irving Kanarek didn't even hide it, he openly stated that most of the Cielo victims wouldn't have died if they hadn't been involved in drugs. We know he wasn't taking instructions from Manson so from two sources outside of the Family, one can see the blame shifting.

grimtraveller said...

grimtraveller said...

In the case of shifting the blame to the victims, this is something that began almost instantaneously after the bodies were discovered and a good 4 months before the Family were identified as being connected to the murders; it came from the assorted American press. Much was being written that at least implied that some of the victims weren't blameless

Although to be fair, one could argue that in the absence of any information, especially after William Garretson was ruled out, one had to at least look into whether or not there could have been reasons emanating from any of the victims which led to their deaths. When crime bosses that haven't been averse to having others killed are found dead or prisoners that have committed murders are found dead in jail, it's a question that gets asked. When a known child molester is found dead with their genitals cut off, it's a question that gets asked. So while some might cast it as "deserved" the question at least has to be asked whether or not there is a direct correlation between the victim's death and something they might have done or been doing.

brownrice said...

Just because someone deals or uses drugs, doesn't mean to say that they "deserve to die"... and surely at this point in history only the most rigidly judgemental, uptight "straight" (as we used to say back in the day) would think that they did

On the other hand, if someone was dealing drugs to kids {I'm talking anything from 8-14} and many of those kids were living problematic lives because of their developed or developing habits, and the dealer[s] got killed by some gang in a turf war, a lot of people would say they got what they deserved. Or to put it another way, there wouldn't be much sympathy being doled out.
Would the unsympathetic be rigidly judgemental and uptight ?

On a different note... if ya wanna find the godmother of the "deep state" theory, forget Joan Didion

Good point. Didion was more nuanced than the deep state stuff. Her thing was that she believed that there had been this feeling in LA that the beautiful people were without restraint and that the kinds of lives people were living were going too far and that the Cielo murders didn't surprise anyone. Although interestingly, she said she wished she didn't remember that.

David said...

Grim said: “Can you elaborate on that ?”

What is there to elaborate on? I have read the comments here for years. I did it once myself. Then I came to my senses.


Grim said: “Even when you ask questions like the ones you hypothetically ask Squeaky in your piece, you're addressing motive.”

I’m actually asking any Family member. I just know who was standing there that night.


Grim said "Grim said"

I, for one, especially enjoy when you commit on your own comments.


Brownrice,

I didn’t mean to imply everyone who supports an alternative motive has the agenda…... I support an alternative motive.

Brussell/Kassner: I am aware.

Gorodish said...

DanS typed:

You know i forgot about shorty! the poetic justice of that scene, I like it a lot more now; i felt it was gratuitous at the time having forgotten poor shorty

The only thing that could've made it better would've been having Cliff Booth smashing Clem over the head with a pipe wrench.

Dan S said...

Charlie created a cult diminishing the grave consequence of dying. This made it easy for a dumbass tex to kill just based on rhetoric.
Then Charlie takes the sophistic logic to the extreme and coolly shows them how it's done.
I'm glad it didn't happen but logically there should have been many more home invasion murders.

Unknown said...

That was a great post David! You, Austin Ann and Cielo Drive rock!

AstroCreep said...

David said: “AstroCreep, I would have to write a long and rather dry post to explain it. I'll try to sum it up in less than one hundred words” etc etc

I concur with all you’ve written and have made many of the same points myself. The family had become reckless by the time August 1969 rolled around. The fuzz was putting the heat on, big time. That’s a very often overlooked part of the story- and oh by the way, a switch didn’t just get flipped and it was all pixies and fairies and unicorns one day and murders the next. Grand theft auto, passing bad checks, machine gun firing, creepy crawlies, underage girls, and the list goes on. Those aren’t “petty” crimes that peace and free-loving hippies commit.

I believe it escalated for all the reasons you mention and why none of the other theories about motive make any sense. Look at the totality of evidence and factual information.

I do believe that HS is the mechanism by which Charlie was able to turn otherwise ‘normal’ kids into killers. It was the ‘us versus them’ that was required. And his “go get me a coconut” crap was his way of absolving himself of any guilt- only he wasn’t a bright as what they claim or he would have walked.

David said...

AstroCreep,

I agree with you 100%. HS was the tool to reach paradise. In other iterations throughout history it could have been the steps to reach a worker's paradise or a comet.

I might disagree with you that they were 'normal kids'. I believe and the research suggests it takes a certain kind of person to fall for the con on this level and when it comes to acting out. that same research suggests that if the aggression is externalized, it requires a special kind, someone who has a flawed personality someone predisposed to be willing to kill, not solely because the Messiah said kill, a certain something-anger, rage, hurt, insecurities, mental illness- that made them prone to kill. And that same 'something' made others in their crowd feel nothing, and more importantly, do nothing, when they did.

Pax Vobiscum

Mario George Nitrini 111 said...

AstroCreep,
in your comment I am replying to, you mention
"underage girls."

Well, here is a reply to me,
via a direct message on Twitter by former Hells Angels National President George Christie
👇
The girls was a reason for many.
Feb 1, 2019, 2:54 PM

From what I have been told...and more......a lot that happened at SPAHN RANCH when The Charles Manson Family lived there has NOT gone Mainstream-Media...yet
("Business Dealings"...and More)

Mario George Nitrini 111
--------
The OJ Simpson Case

AstroCreep said...

David said: “I might disagree with you that they were 'normal kids' “

There’s a reason I put ‘normal’ in quotes. I think they were anything but normal and there’s a reason 14-18 year old kids ended up a part of the group. I’m not blaming the minor children/kids for their dysfunctional family setting pre-Charlie, just that it’s not typical for a 16 year old girl to go move to a desert shithole and starve all while getting slapped around and sexually abused by a 33 year old little creepy dirty guy who spent half his life in the clink.

Each would do almost anything to fit in but not all of them would kill... even the most hardcore followers. LVH is a perfect example of not being able to finish the deal when it was in her face- as was Susan. It was all Tex and furry Pat- but that doesn’t make the others not culpable.

Monica said...

This post...I thought it was lovely and heartbreaking at the same time. Lovely for appreciating Saint's efforts and heartbreaking for reminding us of those kids' awful will to kill. The current Epix doc series on HS, while I think is super interesting with stuff I haven't seen, focuses so much attention on the killers' narratives, I have been wanting to spew. This post was a nice reminder of the truth, IMO. Nice job, David! Always refreshing to read your little nuggests of knowledge too, MGN of the OJ Case.

Mario George Nitrini 111 said...

Thanks Ms Monica.

Mario George Nitrini 111
-----
The OJ Simpson Case

grimtraveller said...

David said...

What is there to elaborate on? I have read the comments here for years. I did it once myself. Then I came to my senses

Oh well, then I shall have to remain blissfully ignorant. I was curious as to what you meant for I don't know.

I, for one, especially enjoy when you commit on your own comments

Afterthoughts.

Chanel said...

Group think can quickly transform otherwise rational people into irrational criminals....How and why does the girl next door or mamas boy become cold blooded killers? Group think explains this transformation a lot better than the CIA, mystery drug deal, failed music career, or save a brother

I agree with that, in part, with caveats.
I think that there are numerous examples of group think all around us on a daily basis. One can observe it in politics on all sides of the equation, in the various police forces, on social media and online forums of almost every description, amongst a strand of different sports fans, within every race and culture within the races, among certain sections of females, amongst blokes, within young people, in schools, among teachers, in some housing estates/housing projects, among the affluent, in unions, in churches, among various religious groups of all persuasions, in the armed forces......the list is probably endless. And yeah, to some extent it can be observed in parts of BLM. I noticed that years ago. I noticed it long before there even was a BLM, in groupings that acted as forerunners and varying strands that eventually coalesced as BLM, in the USA and UK and other places. Arguably I was part of some of them in the early 80s.
So to point out that there is a group think element in BLM is a bit like saying there was a Wednesday last week.
And that's where your bias shows up and needs to be called out on. To make a statement like

Manson Family = BLM

and talk of swallowing the BLM pill is pretty odious and causes me to ask you, what is your point ? Because your point seems to me to be a roundabout way of taking potshots at BLM and some of the central tenets of what the movement stands for and is trying to highlight rather than talking about the Manson Family. Comparing BLM to Charlie's lot is poor form, which is what you're really doing rather than saying "oh, you can see group think happening in both places" then giving context.

So here is a nice story about two promising lawyers. Well educated, good family and great career and they fell for the group think of BLM. They could have been home coming queens

So.....having a great education and career and having a good family should disqualify a person from concluding that sometimes, someone they feel is a systematic oppressor and won't listen over many decades will start to listen if matters descend into violence ? There may be an element of group think in BLM but much of what we've seen recently is in step with the history of our world. Throughout time, countless peoples that today we take for granted as being "free" and taking part in "the democratic process" {and even those that aren't} are able to do so because they fought for it ~ violently.
Incidentally, the story you linked to doesn't exactly bear out your prognosis.


Torque said...

Appreciate your post, David. As always, well thought out, and it asks timeless questions.

On perhaps an unrelated note: I believe you were interested in the purple ribbons found at the front door of Cielo. I don't know if I asked previously, but were these found on the door knob, or perhaps laying nearby?

These ribbons are mentioned, I believe, in the blood evidence report you covered so well. If a photo of them exists, I would think it could be found in the LADA files on the case(and perhaps the purple scarf found by Voytek, too). I noticed on the Facebook page for cielodrive that the contents of many of these boxes have been posted, but did not find either the ribbons or the scarf.

David said...

Torque,

Sanders said the ribbons were draped on the inside, front door, door nob. They do, indeed, find mention in the blood report but alas they do not appear in the LAPD boxes. Many missing 'Exhibits/items' are simply labelled 'Photograph' in the boxes so if the item is not there there is no way to connect what it was unless it was used at trial and has an exhibit number. There is also no photo of a purple, scarf.

Peter said...

https://app.box.com/s/gxp5f75e1ugap1v6cdl7v2bge6xjeat4

Link to index of trial transcripts and exhibits.

Peter said...

Yellow highlight means transcript is missing from cielodrive archive.

jmenges said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jmenges said...

The field of ‘Ripperology’ over the past couple of years been under very public attack by feminist historians as being wholly comprised of researchers who have zero respect for the victims of Jack the Ripper. They’ve argued that just by having an interest in the unsolved Whitechapel murders and the era in which they took place, researchers ignore the fact that the victims were real people. That Ripperologists look at them solely as objects, gruesome corpses whose only purpose is to be picked over for clues to solving the crime. Ripperologists are accused of being no different than vultures picking at road kill. This criticism goes on to state that if anyone believes that ‘Jack the Ripper’s’ victims were casual prostitutes then they are victim-shaming and must also believe that the women deserved their fate. These critics conveniently ignore the fact that very same Ripperologists are the ones who have discovered everything that is known about the women who were murdered by 'Jack the Ripper’. Detailed genealogy, photographs of victims in life, their children, tracing the descendants, microscopically examining every detail of their lives- all of this work was done by a group of people now standing accused of disrespecting the memories of the victims and totally ignoring them.

But the fact is when there is an unsolved crime it is common practice for an investigator (or arm chair detective) to look somewhat detachedly at the victims for the clues to solving the crime. When a person is murdered, unfortunately, their life, their background, the people who they associated with, and their very bodies become useful only as evidence that will hopefully lead to the perpetrator of the crime. The murdered person is dead and in the world of crime solving the only purpose they serve is to help find their killer.

Of course, the Manson murders are not unsolved per se. Those mainly responsible were arrested and convicted for their crimes. But there are a large group of people who seek out the other possible motives that led to these horrific killings aside from Helter Skelter. The examination of other motives does tend to place the case back into a quasi-realm of an unsolved crime. And, so like in the case of an unsolved murder, it should be expected that a Manson theorist or researcher would be looking at the lives of the victims and their associates, the lives of the Family members and their associates, and the totality of the circumstances surrounding the events the same way an investigator would. It may appear to be uncomfortably detached, a bit too clinical, maybe tawdry to some, but I think one must be careful and avoid characterizing a person who is searching for clues to an additional motive as naturally falling into a state of victim blaming and shaming. One can look for the ugly truth if they think a deeper ugly trust exists and still have compassion and respect for the lives the victims lived and lost. The two are not mutually exclusive.

St. Circumstance said...

Jemenges I agree with your articulate point. It is well said.

But- there comes a time as well, when some cross the line from doing a fair and reasoned investigation of the victims to see if any of their activities/associations could have contributed to their deaths. Which I understand-

To becoming a fan/cheerleader for those who committed the crimes. Which I really don't in this case.

I personally do not see any reason or motive anyone has ever given that would lead me to believe that those who were involved in killing Sharon had reason to brag, laugh, or acquire a fan club years after. THAT is what we are talking about here.

It is o.k. to look into her past if you must, or need to. I get it. But when you have taken a good hard look, I find it hard to understand what about her life makes it cool to cheer for, or idolize the lifestyle of the people who were responsible for torturing her and killing her unborn baby. And this is NOT an unsolved crime. We know who did it. We know from years and years of testimony from those who actually committed the murders that they did and why. Some refuse to believe what they have been told directly by the actual killers, and thats o.k. Maybe a few of them really didn't know why they were doing it. I dont believe that, but I really dont know. In a large sense it no longer matters to me.

I think part of the point of this thread is that ultimately there is NO good reason why Sharon had to die at the hands of those people. Motive doesn't matter to me in that there is nothing that is going to excuse what they did to Sharon and the others. At least from ANY of the motives that have been offered by anyone outside of the one that a jury accepted. If you believe there is some other truth that the victims families are entitled to- By all means keep digging, but if you think that you are going to prove some motive that exonerates Charlie and makes the rest of them really cool for what they did well, lol, Good luck with that :)

I agree with most of what Jmenges writes, I just think it is a slightly different point than the one this post makes...

Speculator said...

Hhhh

Speculator said...

I’m usually a reader rather than a poster on here. But I do agree that there are sometimes very sympathetic posts on here regarding the Family and Manson. It’s almost like some people wish they’d been there and a part of it - “hey back in the good old days look how cool these guys were and how they lived!” kind of thinking. If you didn’t know better you’d tihink Manson was some cute, cuddly, happy go lucky drifter the way that some talk about him on here. Instead of the nasty, evil piece of filth that he and his group were.

Speculator said...

Ps my apology for the first post where my finger got stuck on h!!! Although some of you might say that made more sense than my second post !!!

Speculator said...

I don’t agree that the search for a motive, which necessarily involves examining the lives of the victims in any way blames the victims for their murders. Nothing could ever excuse what was done to them. But there could well be contributory factors from their backgrounds that may help explain or support motive and that surely has to be expkored. The O’Neill offers some very interesting nuggets of information despite a lot of it being far fetched conspiracy bunkum.

Unknown said...

The crimes were solved 50 years ago. There is nothing to explore.

David said...

Unknown said: "The crimes were solved 50 years ago. There is nothing to explore."

Then why are you reading the posts here and commenting.

Dan S said...

It's disrespectful to the ripper victims to not talk about the horrible conditions they lived in. What a nightmare existence even without the punctuation point

Dan S said...

What about an exposé on the My Lai victims? How about no real punishment for the murderers? It doesn't excuse TLB but it exposes the hypocrisy of our imperial/celebrity culture.

grimtraveller said...

Speculator said:

I do agree that there are sometimes very sympathetic posts on here regarding the Family and Manson

Other than the ones George Stimson did circa 2015~17, do you have any in mind in particular ?
When I think of people like Manson Mythos/Dennis Lacalandra, their 'sympathetic' approach often had darker undertones which said more about where they were coming from on subjects like black people, feminists, the liberal left and Vincent Bugliosi than any specific attachment to Manson or his cohorts.

It’s almost like some people wish they’d been there and a part of it - “hey back in the good old days look how cool these guys were and how they lived!” kind of thinking

Is that particularly unusual ? I mean, one can run into people that wish they'd been around during the Mafia prohibition days, those that wish they'd lived during the wild west and the way it's been fictionalized and other periods that a significant number of people don't find particularly glorious, etc.
There has been people like Fayez who spoke a lot of actually being there. But it would be interesting if anyone has come out and said that they wished they'd been at Spahn & Barker to ascertain precisely why.

Peter said...

But it is disrespectful when your "search" portrays Gary as a gay drug dealer, the Tae victims as drug dealing pornographers, and the LaBiancas as involved in organized crime

Speculator said...

Disrespectful in the absence of any evidence other than hearsay - yes I agree.

Speculator said...

There is some intriguing stuff in the first half of the O’Neill book though. But again, he reaches a dead end when trying to follow his leads through. The suspicion has to be that there really is a lot more to the story but faced with silence from those in the know it will always remain just a suspicion.

cielodrivecom said...

David, those boxes are just a small portion of whats there. There's about 75 boxes in total

Unknown said...

David. I am on your side! I agree with you!

David said...

Cielo,

Which boxes? The list? Yes, I made a list too with Deb. That is like 58 boxes +\- there are 25 more? Do you have them?

cielodrivecom said...

I'll email you David. There's a lot more. I don't have it but have the right info to get it if properly motivated and willing to take it to court. Tex tapes too, I believe there's an avenue there too, would like to get your legal opinion on it

David said...

Cielodrive said: "I'll email you David."

If you still have my other e-mail address send one there. If not send one to the blog address but for some reason I can't reply there (my e-mail security) so I'll respond with the other.

You have peaked my curiosity.

Peter said...

Now were talkin' I'm just a small town antitrust lawyer, but I'm willing to learn guys.

grimtraveller said...

cielodrivecom said...

Tex tapes too, I believe there's an avenue there too, would like to get your legal opinion on it

My illegal opinion ?
Bribe the gatekeeper !

Holly said...


the Christian church committed more atrocities against humanity than is imaginable to us today, the ultimate ‘us vs them’ mentality of “believe how we do or we will kill you.” And kill they did. (This is just history not an attack on anyone’s belief system.)

God bless America, land ripped from the natives (Christians called them savages, more us vs them) and then built on the backs of black people.

But Us vs them is alive in any person of any belief who will not look at their own shadows. Deny what is inside of you and project it out onto the dread Other. The monsters couldn’t possibly be within.

I don’t know why you chose to compare BLM in this discussion of a small band of criminals but I would ask, what monsters are you not looking at within yourself? It’s ok! We all have them but they aren’t really monsters, just unloved and ignored parts of ourselves.

Ultimately, the Manson kids were trained by the Christian white establishment of the USA in their churches, schools and homes to follow authority and to not ask questions, to see reality through the us vs them bifocals.

Sure, the kids rebelled into the arms of Manson, an older white guy who is a shadow echo of the Christian authority father figure they grew up with.
Wait till your daddy gets home.

Manson was the cherry flavored cough syrup to the uncoated horse pill their parents and church were feeding them. Both turned out to be poison.

I’m white and I’m kindly asking you to breath in your heart and ask yourself, what pills have you been swallowing?

In our hearts there is only unity.
I love you even if we don’t agree.