"Were not in Wonderland anymore, Alice"

"You made your children what they are.... These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.... You can project it back at me, but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you. My father is your system.... I am only what you made me. I am a reflection of you.”

If Charles Manson had hypnotic or cult leader- type powers over his circle, then why are his former associates still in prison? Wouldn't they have 'diminished capacity' and have had less legal responsibility? They are almost entering their 40th year of incarceration.

Charlie has never been able 'influence' his jailors into giving him any special treatement- just the opposite- he has been singled out for unusual and harsh punishments- proof that he never could have strongly 'influenced' anyone to commit any serious crime.

We are suppose to believe that a man who had spent most of his life in jails and prisons, who had no real history of violence, who had previously always been in trouble before for crimes such as grand theft auto and check forgery....suddenly gets out of prison, develops numerous friendships and seems to have life going his way... then he becomes a rabidly dangerous killer?

If Charles Manson never killed anyone, nor was able to directly command anyone to kill for him- why is he still in prison? (He was never convicted of personally commiting any murders; he was convicted only of conspiracy, or ordering, the killings, which I just showed in the previous paragraphs to be a logical absurdity).

If he is really only guilty of being an 'accessory after the fact'...why did he get the death penalty or life without any real chance of parole? Can you name any other case where an 'accessory after the fact' got as harsh a punishment?

Isn't it true that Charles Manson did not get a fair trial? Didn't he demand to represent himself, as allowed by our laws, and wasn't this request denied?

If the establishment (in 1969) needed a scapegoat to dramatically end the anti-materialistic hippie, flower- power era... they could not have come up with a better scenario.

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays, everybody's crazy."

Imagine: if you visited and interviewed Manson every day over a period of six months....Is there ANYTHING that he could EVER say or do that would make you kill anyone?

Charles Manson is, for the most part, innocent of the crimes that he has been charged with.