An interesting comment I found (I’ll include the link if you want to read the whole thread https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7e6myv/comment/dq2yki9?st=JA8FU2UD&sh=07f9abf7)
I am far from a Manson apologist, but the guy was pretty doomed for a life of crime, mayhem and violence since birth.
I suggest listening to the series about him on Last Podcast On The Left. It really paints a three dimensional portrait of the guy. He was born to a 16 year old sex worker, spent his childhood in a brothel. After that, he was sent to live with an his abusive religious aunt and her sadistic uncle and was systematically abused. He was berated for being a "sissy" and forced to wear girls clothes to his first day of school.
After being passed back to his mother, she was terribly neglectful, famously selling the young boy for a pitcher of beer. He had a lonely childhood and was surrounded by crime, so naturally he began to partake in criminal activity himself, landing him in a reform school at the age of nine. He spent the next few years in and out of these types of schools, homes, and often prisions, and they were NOT healthy environments.
It was at these reform schools where he was raped and beat by the fellow children while the adults in charge turned a blind eye and often encouraged it.
When he tried to reconnect with his mother, she wanted nothing to do with him. Naturally, he started committing more serious crime such as rape, pimping, theft and fraud. This led him to spending most of his life in prison, effectively missing the free love hippie movement, and i'd speculate he was completely shocked when he was released from prison in '67 to see that the world was so much different than the 50's.
Manson was sick, and those poor people would not have been murdered if it wasn't for him. He was an insane dude who somehow had a following of loyalists who were taking way too many drugs, listening a little too intently to the White Album, and were way too susceptible to the toxic environment that Manson and others had created on that ranch out in the desert.
Manson's life was fascinating and tragic. He didn't stand a chance of being a normal person given the way he grew up, he could have tried to clean up his act, but his criminal tendencies seemed to ingrained into him as a person, so he doubled down on the evilness inside him.
Things people don't usually know about Manson.
- He was a short dude. 5'0'' if I am not mistaken.
- He was a decent songwriter. He wrote a tune for the Beach Boys and was a "friend" of Dennis Wilson. [Here is one of my favorite Manson tunes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpx4ODP35VQ).
- He was married at some point and [looked like a normal dude](https://brenfrie.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/manson28n-2-web.jpg).
- His main objective out in the desert with his cult was to manufacture dune buggies and sell them.
I wonder what could have been done to stop this man from co-opting the hippie commune movement and turning it into a dangerous cult. What do we do with people like Manson? I hope we have ways of helping children who are born into dangerous and criminal lives now.
I don't mourn the loss of Manson. I mourn the loss of the person he could have been under different circumstances. I admire his music. He was a talented songwriter. He had a way with words. Look them up, they are quite good.
What a wasted life. What a tragedy his darkness had a hand in the gruesome deaths of innocent people.
Rest in peace Sharon Tate and her unborn baby.
Rest in peace Abigail Folger.
Rest in peace Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
Rest in peace Wojciech Frykowski.
Rest in peace Steven Parent.
Rest in peace Donald Shea.
Rest in peace Gary Hinman.
Make no mistake, Manson was a monster, but it was the way we used to treat (and possibly continue to treat) the disenfranchised people on the fringes of society that had a major part in creating that monster.
The crazy motherfucker said it best:
"My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system... I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you".
I wonder if Lana has some sixth sense abilities. Think about; she’s mentioned Manson before but most recently was technically when the record came out, which was a few months ago, and now he’s gone.
It happened to Lou Reed when she was supposed to work with him on Brooklyn Baby.
It happened to David Bowie after she referenced both his brother for the name of the song and “ground control to major tom” in Terrence Loves You.
This one’s a bit of a reach, but in 2015, Lana referenced Purple Rain on the Honeymoon instagram account, and 10 months later, Prince died.
And now with Lana most recently referencing Manson in Heroin, he dies 4 months later.
