Charles Manson’s Cultural Impact on the United States of America
...he premise made by Edward Norton. Their assertion is as follows: The Volkswagen bug was the ultimate symbol of youth culture from the sixties, or sort of the ‘democratic car,’ the car for everybody. Now that that generation has sold out all those values and all become corporate advertising executives and are repackaging the symbol of their own youth movement and reselling it to us. It’s the perfect example of our generation having sixties youth culture marketed to us as something we should aspire to instead of our own car…(Fight Club). In essence, Manson’s enlightenment, which would lead to his inciting and prediction of a race war, was prematurely factored by the fact that his culture was growing out of his control. The war envisioned by Manson is credited as being both intensely bold and mystical. Dr. David R. Williams abridged the idea: It begins with the Beatles, and with the Beatles' celebrated White Album that came out in 1968. In it, while tripping on acid, Manson heard the message that put it all together for him. There would be a war between blacks and whites; whites would lose. Manson and his followers would hide out in the desert when the slaughter took place. When it was over they would emerge from their hiding places and somehow convince the blacks that they should be made the leaders of this new world (Williams). Inevitably, this war never took place, however, the metaphorical race and ethical wars in our country and throughout the world have intensified. For example, our current President of the United States George Bush is “spreading freedom” across the globe, or more realistically, using imperialism to encompass new boundaries of the globe. It is increasingly obvious that our country is not on his side, a reference which can be traced back similarly to the efforts of our country in the country Vietnam during the sixties and seventies. Not only are political implications involved in the unsuccessful race war, but also the music industry had relevance in the Helter Skelter idea. “Helter Skelter” was a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Helter Skelter can be defined as “[British]: a spiral slide around a tower at an amusement park.” Inevitably, the Beatles were from Liverpool, England. This leads any reader to believe that Helter Skelter, taken to an extreme, is simply a slide. This is furthermore evident in the first stanza in the song: “When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide, where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride, ‘till I get to the bottom and I see you again…” Manson on the other hand, foresaw this as his eminent race war. Many artists face heat from the FCC for the messages they convey in their music today. This fundamental element in my generations’ music was never considered when the Beatles released their enormously successful “White Album.” The actual events of the murder and the accounts of what happened are that of horror movies and mythical tales of hell. Such extreme massacre-like disasters were very rare and uncommon, especially the manner in which the murders took place. Susan Atkins, one of Manson's followers, claimed to have almost enjoyed these murders, saying it gave her a sort of trip. She had wanted to cut out the baby, Susan said, but there hadn’t been time. They wanted to take out the eyes of the people, and squash them against the walls, and cut off their fingers. "We were going to mutilate them, but we didn't have a chance to" (qtd. in Bugliosi 114). The random nature of the murders is represented in such random acts as the D.C. shooter of 2003. These people targeted random victims, and at the drop of a dime committed the murders they so chose. With the snipers there was a lesser stress on brutality as compared to the total amount of victims. On the other hand, Manson’s followers commit...