Would anyone care to explain the fact that the Manson Family first took root in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district during 1967’s “Summer of Love”? What about all the orgies and long hair and LSD? Care to account for the communal living and dumpster-diving? How about the Manson Family’s rock-star aspirations and the fact that the Beach Boys covered one of Charlie’s songs? What about their vocal opposition to the Vietnam War, to “the establishment,” to “capitalist filth,” and all the inflamed rhetoric about “pigs”? What about the fact that Richard Nixon openly hated Charles Manson and vice-versa? How about Manson girl Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s failed 1975 assassination attempt on Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford?
What about when John Lennon approvingly noted that Manson “took children in when nobody else would” and claimed that “I just think a lot of the things he says are true”? How about the fact that folksinger Phil Ochs and Jerry Rubin visited Manson in jail?
