Echoes of the Manson murders: sympathy for the devil
See this comment by “sdferr,” which links to this Daily Mail article. Warning: graphic horrific content.
The description made me think of the Manson slayings that horrified America back in 1969. Many of us are old enough to remember. But if you don’t remember, this will refresh your memory:
[Tex Watson] whispered to Atkins and awoke Frykowski, who was sleeping on the living room couch. Watson kicked him in the head, and Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there. Watson replied, “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”
And Hamas has done what marauding barbarians have done since time immemorial. But it’s also what psychopathic and sadistic killers do.
[NOTE: Tex Watson, who was the main – but certainly not the only – killer in the series of Manson murders, was given a death sentence but California barred executions before his was carried out. He is still alive and incarcerated today at 77, having married and fathered four children while in prison when conjugal visits were allowed, and had converted to Christianity and become an ordained minister.]
[NOTE II: Also please see my previous post entitled, “The Klinghoffer opera: sympathy for the devil.”]
Watson “was given a death sentence but California barred executions before his was carried out.”
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the victim”. Adam Smith
The basis for my support for the death penalty is that in unilaterally denying the right to life of their victim, the perpetrator has forfeited their own claim to a right to life. In principle, a right cannot be claimed that is denied to others. Society should recognize and ‘honor’ the choice they’ve made.
yes I got that terrible vibe too, thats why the ending in once upon a time in hollywood was darkly satisfying,
From neo’s Oct 12 2014 “The Klinghoffer opera: sympathy for the devil” post:
I extracted that quote on account of a personal incident related to the event.
To wit, my friend and client (in a largish renovation of her home — she was later to become GW Bush’s Ambassador to Pakistan serving on 9/11 2001) on that day came home in the early morning elated at what had transpired just an hour before, namely, the capture of not only the terrorist crew but also their commander Abu Abas, who had not been on the Achille Lauro. My client had spent the entirety of the preceding 36 hours in the basement of the White House on the NSC team led by Ollie North tasked with coordinating this capture. Her job as the State liaise officer was securing Egyptian, Israeli and other nations’ cooperation.
And it worked! For once, we had them, the US had succeeded! Hence her jubilation as she told us her story. Now, she was weary and needed rest, so in she went. Partner and I returned to stuccoing the rear of the addition.
No more than a half-hour passed and the phone rings inside, Wendy rushes out utterly crestfallen and depressed, says she has to go back to the WH because the Italians have our Delta Force guys surrounded on the tarmac demanding the jet be allowed to leave. Standoff, not good, gotta go try to put it back together. Zoom, off she goes.
Couple or three hours later, she’s back, and devastated. The Italians sold us out, because they got a call from Yasser Arafat informing them that if the terrorists fall into American hands, Italy will be terror-bomber central, he guarantees it.
Sad fucking day in my life, watching the US and allies cave to these scum. And pretty much that’s a pattern holding steady ever since. Winning, actual winning, is out of the question.
Two related video links follow here, the first an F-14 pilot who intercepted the passenger jet, the second “The History Guy” who tells the story of the Sigonella Incident:
https://youtu.be/mwVMvEnwglQ?si=qTctbDYimZqOYp-7
https://youtu.be/YpoKpNI29kg?si=RhkKrPyK1IMWiq1N
Yes, the Manson vibe is there.
People notice and are horrified. This is not something easily to be ignored or walked back.
Things Are Different This Time.
There has to be some Palestinians and Iranians who are speaking out about this. Can anyone direct me to such posts?
huxley–RE: The source of Evil
Always glad to help.
Here are some disquieting thoughts for you.
A lot of serious UFO researchers are coming around to the idea that UFOs may have a consciousness element to them, and/or that they might actually be entities, or operated by entities, which are from another conterminous dimension, another realm.
One might also note that Lou Elizondo has said that a lot of the resistance he got from within DOD was from higher ups who believed that UFOs were “demonic,” and that we should not investigate them, or have anything to do with them.
That we should just “let sleeping dogs lie.”
(One modern day definition of a “demon” is “an evil spiritual being,” but in ancient Greek religion a “daemon” was a “supernatural power,” and the word “daemon” was used interchangeably by Homer with the word “theos,” the word for a god.)
For uncounted millennia, and up until several centuries ago, people thought the world was not only alive with all of the physical life which they saw before their eyes, but also with all sorts of incorporeal beings—various spirits, elementals, gods and goddesses, ghosts, and even the embodiment of evil, the Devil.
Then, we became more “rational” and “scientific,” and our prior, and ancient, deep-seated world-view and all of those incorporeal beings were dismissed as fantasy, nonsense, irrational, mumbo jumbo; dismissed and pushed out, into the outer darkness, beyond the fences of our consensus Reality, no longer to appear to some of us, to influence or trouble our minds, or to go bump in the night.
Well, in esoteric thought there is the concept of the “Egregore,” an incorporeal entity which can be brought into being through the very concentrated and focused thoughts and will of a group of people, and it is believed that such an entity—if strong enough–can have influence on people and events.
After all, there is the belief in the ability of prayer to influence events, and many of the training regimens of various religions include meditative practices which focus on sacred images and on animating/or, in some cases, on becoming them—for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, in the Hindu religion, and in Jesuit training.
What are all of the images in Buddhist, Hindu, or Catholic places of worship but focal points for concentration and worship?
Then, we have Jung, and his ideas about the collective unconscious, and the “shadow”—those “bad” parts and impulses we each have which we do not want to acknowledge, or to show to our society and the world; a shadow which, says Jung, though buried and repressed, “unconscious,” will still have it’s influence on our actions.
In fact, Jung believed that our conscious mind was equivalent to a little boat floating on the great, ancient, and deep ocean of both our personal and also our collective unconscious, and it was these unconscious forces which largely determined our ideas and behaviors, much more so than our conscious mind, which mistakenly thinks it is in charge.
Jung also theorized that it was possible for a nation or a whole people to have a collective shadow, and that such a shadow could take over a nation, which was one way to explain the Nazi transformation of, say, Weimar Germany into Nazi Germany; the creation and malign influence of an Egregore, a “spirit of the times.”
This is perhaps a good way to explain the evil done by Hamas terrorists; they have had their dark sides cultivated, and been taken over by them.
Perhaps these actually is such an entity as the Devil, who is an active director and participant in world events.
Perhaps when the people of the West’s religious belief and practice was far stronger than it is today we had, first, created and, then, strengthened our own good Egregore, which is now far weaker than it once was—look, for example, at the state of the world, and at your nearest big city.
Thus, it appears that the really important things may be much more in the realms of mind and Spirit, rather than in the realm of solid substance.
Ephesians 16:12 KJV
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
From the river
to the sea
what of Gaza
used to be.
Long overdue.
Feral hogs should feast on their remains, but then they would jump off cliffs or into the sea.
If you remember, there was some initial counter culture embracing of Manson. It didn’t last long, but the impulse was there.
If you remember, there was some initial counter culture embracing of Manson
jvermeer:
I recall Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground (and Bill Ayers’ long-term partner) doing so:
_________________________________________
Dohrn was criticized for comments she made about the murders of actress Sharon Tate and retail store owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by the Charles Manson clan. In a speech during the December 1969 “War Council” meeting organized by the Weathermen, attended by about 400 people in Flint, Michigan, Dohrn said, “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate’s stomach! Wild!”[ In greeting each other, delegates to the war council often spread their fingers to signify the fork.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn
_________________________________________
But the general counterculture was horrified.
If you are talking about Manson’s ability to hypnotize a harem of hippie girls and some guys into becoming followers, that’s true.
It’s also true that Manson had some talent as a musician and a freakish ability to improvise lyrics as he sang that got him an in with some of the Beach Boys. From there he got interviews with record producer Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son, which came to nothing and angered Manson. Manson sent his killers to the house where Melcher had previously lived.
However, I wouldn’t call these things a counterculture embrace of Manson.
Snow on Pine: I fear you may be right –
“Perhaps when the people of the West’s religious belief and practice was far stronger than it is today we had, first, created and, then, strengthened our own good Egregore, which is now far weaker than it once was—look, for example, at the state of the world..Thus, it appears that the really important things may be much more in the realms of mind and Spirit, rather than in the realm of solid substance.”
I don’t know why, but for some reason it made me think of the Einstein quote:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Perhaps because I see Faith as the sacred gift and atheists think they are being rational but they are actually servants to the material world.
I’ve been struck by the similarity to the Manson family massacres.
It looks like in addition to being psychotic murderers, the Manson Family was a cult that was trying to save the world (watch out for saving the world) -by sparking a race war.
Their twisted thinking was that all the white people would be killed, except them, and then they’d be the smart ones in charge.
Can there be coexistence with a state run by the Manson Family?
“conjugal visits”
Is there a more boneheaded penal policy?
– make incarceration fun
– create fatherless children who possibly have their dad’s evil or stupid genes
Statement from University of Florida president Ben Sasse:
I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother. In other grotesque cases, they express simple support for the terrorists.
This thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s sickening. It’s dehumanizing. It is beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans. I am thankful to say I haven’t seen examples of that here at UF, either from our faculty or our student body. . . .
In the coming days, it is possible that anti-Israel protests will come to UF’s campus. I have told our police chief and administration that this university always has two foundational commitments: We will protect our students and we will protect speech. This is always true: Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves. . . .
When evil raises its head, as it has in recent days, it is up to men and women of conscience and courage to draw strength from truth and commit ourselves to the work of building something better—to the work of pursuing justice and pursuing peace. That is what we aim to do through education, compassion, and truth here at the University of Florida.
Nicely done.
While the French government has announced that it is banning pro-Hamas demonstrations, they’ve allowed so many Muslims to enter France that they will have a very hard time enforcing their edict.*
A lot of these European countries which have allowed millions of Muslim to enter them have stupidly and suicidally brought the Trojan Horse within their gates.
Is some form of major civil unrest, or even civil war, in their futures?
P.S. To a lesser extent the U.S. has the same problem.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/it-begins-muslims-riot-street-france-after-hamas/
If “what decolonization looks like” is this, then the decolonization fans need to examine their premises. It seems to me that BAMN ought to come with the obligation of the apologists to hold one of the victims of “decolonization” in their arms while the “decolonizers” are doing their evil work: how many would continue to believe that these means are justified?
Snow on Pine when I was reading your comment I was thinking of the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) declared as part of the Mass, that begins, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” I also thought of the scripture you cited, St. Paul’s declaration regarding prayer. There are thousands (millions?) of us with a daily prayer life that emphatically believe what the Creed and Bible state.
Just looked at the NY Post online and there was a video / article of Israeli Navy commandos re-taking a Gaza border post in which they rescued many hostages, killed some terrorists in the process, and took other terrorists prisoner.
I do no understand why the Israelis are taking any terrorists as prisoners; they should force them – using any and all means – to provide information that could be useful , and then kill them.
These prisoners are not soldiers; they are terrorists and do not deserve to be treated with any respect to the “rules of war.” Terrorists do not abide by any rules at all; they should be treated likewise.
These prisoners will be used by future terrorists as bargaining tools. Better kill them right now.
Bucky and Owen:
Sympathy for the devil. And polishing turds. It has been demonstrated over and over that gentler means of dealing with Hamas don’t work. Fools or knaves?
“it’s also what psychopathic and sadistic killers do.”
This is why Palestine is a failed state.
Civilized societies try to remove the criminal element from society so they do not harm others. While we don’t always get it right in that sometimes we get the wrong guy or the criminal gets away, at least we try.
But, throughout history, these failed states have elevated their psychopathic and sadistic killers to “heroes.”
The Nazis did it in that guards at death camps were volunteers for that assignment and consider good men doing the work that needed to be done to “save Germany from the Jews”, Stalin’s henchmen willing killed political opponents, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rough used their sadistic murders to kill half the population of Cambodia.
The PLO, Black September, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other like them use their sadistic murders to carry out their hideous crimes all while elevating them to the status of heroes!
Failed states are just that failed! And need to be dealt with in such a way that they stop harming their civilized neighbors.
For some odd reason I am reminded of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds in which the main character ends up killing another man who is going to blow their cover hiding in the basement from the Martians.
Desperate situations call for desperate actions. Civilized people need to take uncivilized action to save themselves and their families from evil.
I was 11 years old when the Manson killings happened. My family was in L.A. at the time, and the LaBianca house was probably only a couple of miles from where we lived. Scary.
I used to be in favor of the death penalty, until it became ridiculous. Endless appeals dragging the process out so that actually being put to death is an abstraction to the convicted. If it’s about punishment then make it punishing. I’m thinking hard labor, six days a week, e.g. give the inmate a sledgehammer and have him spend 10 hours a day turning big rocks into thousands of tiny ones. It’s not the same as the death penalty, but the work, the boredom, and monotony will make anyone wish they were dead.
Let’s pause a moment for a question or two here, if I may request.
Is there a state called Palestine? Has there ever been a state called Palestine? I think not, on both counts. It’s too loose a way of talking or thinking, I believe, to pass by unremarked. That’s all.
Evil of this magnitude certainly has me thinking biblically as well, and I thought I recognized Charles’ sentiments. After a bit of searching I found Proverbs 24:20:
for the evil man has no future;
@charles
Sorry, but I can’t entirely agree.
The truth is that while we like to think our societies are functioning as intended and working, the truth is we have to try and find ways to simultaneously negate the criminal element, but also channel it in directions that aren’t terribly destructive for the society at large. Which I think brings us to the question of what is and isn’t functioning or failed.
The issue I see is that most of those regimes and especially the Nazis and Soviets had their ways of eliminating the criminal and psychopathic elements that didn’t conform to what they wanted. Paul Ogorzow is probably one of the few people the Nazis executed that isn’t mourned much. Andriy Chitalko’s impeccable party credentials helped protect him to some degree, but once they didn’t he was deleted.
Moreover, we’re kidding ourselves if our own societies in their history haven’t glorified people who at least have acted similarly. I’m not the greatest fan of Voltaire and I find it annoying how blithely his “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets” quote is cited, but it’s important to remember when he lived and what he was used to.
He lived about a century after the “Century of the Soldier” in the long, bloody 17th century, and decades after Louis XIV, which saw some truly horrifying things.
Is the Netherlands a failed state? Maybe. Was it a failed state in the 1600s? Probably not, especially since it was held to be its golden age, as one of the most prosperous, technologically and economically forward, and tolerant of societies.
But it also saw nothing at all wrong with hiring the likes of Peter Ernst Graf von Mansfeld, a particularly sadistic and treasonous mercenary lord whose sole redeeming features was his general affinity for Protestant anti-Imperial/Habsburg Factions, his sizable mercenary army, and his modicum of skill (and even then not that much) while he raped and pillaged even the places he was tasked with defending, before being given a Hero’s Burial when he eventually died. Less uniformly monstrous and certainly less backstabby was Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who helped build the Dutch Empire in the East but who had one of his key mottos be “Despair Not, Spare your Enemies Not, for God is With Us.” The Hakkepelita Light Cavalry of Sweden were and are renowned folk heroes in Finland and to some degree today (largely through the likes of Eric Flint’s 1632) but were known as being prone to atrocity against civilians.
And if anything the people they were prone to fighting were even worse, such as Wallenstein. And the Duc de Luxembourg famously burned an entire town of Dutch civilians alive and was shocked anybody found this objectionable.
For much of human history murder really wasn’t punished or at least punished rigorously or consistently if it was done to the tune of national signaling and for a “good cause” and one of the acid tests of successful societies is how it can redirect many of those people into acceptable targets (in particular the French largely solved or at least curbed the crime epidemic of 19th century and early 20th century Paris by exploiting WWI, conscripting the heavily armed gangs of the city like the “Apaches”, and sending them at the world’s first modern totalitarian dictatorship to see how many would get killed versus how many Germans would). We’d like to think we are above such things as a society, and in the all volunteer army we kind of are, but we’d be fools to think we’re past it completely or that
The big issue I see is that while Les Apaches, Coen, Wallenstein, and especially Mansfeld were plenty nasty and guilty of much, they tended not to be lionized for their atrocities against civilians (though that could depend, especially in times of widespread war and intense hatred). If you sent a murderously intolerant mofo off to the army and they killed civilians in the process, well, that was something. But for Gaza, murdering civilians not only is an intentional purpose and aim, but it is in fact MOST OF WHAT THEY DO. It is the bare basis of their strategy, and arguably their entire reason for existing.
Which also tends to mean they function worse at doing anything else. Louis XIV may have happily encouraged war crimes by his Dogs of War like the Duc de Luxembourg or at least enabled them, but he didn’t spend all of his day fantasizing about killing Jewish or Protestant children in their cribs, nor would he have tolerated his army to be rewarded primarily for it.
@ charles & turtler – Man of La Mancha, Aldonza’s signature aria.
I was spawned in a ditch
By a mother who left me there,
Naked and cold and too hungry to cry;
I never blamed her.
I’m sure she left hoping
That I’d have the good sense to die!
Then, of course, there’s my father…
I’m told that young ladies
Can point to their fathers
With maidenly pride;
Mine was some regiment
Here for an hour,
I can’t even tell you which side!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUAzljzoha0
AesopFan:
Have you ever seen the movie Two Women?
@ Neo – I have never heard of the movie, but the Wiki article is stunning. Loren played Aldonza in the La Mancha movie, so that is an interesting connection, and possibly affected her decision to take the latter role.
She was an amazing actress!
Can Bernardine Dohrn still fit into her cheerleader outfit? Asking for a bunch of barbaric murderers and sadists.