However the California Department of Corrections disposes of the corpse of Charles Manson, it will also dispose of the swastika he carved in his forehead while on trial for murder a half century ago.
He called his particular swastika “the black stamp of rejection” and added, “My stamp is calling for a new government, new thought and a new world.”
Sound familiar?
ADVERTISEMENT
Compare it to some of the alt-right rhetoric such as was heard at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.
And note that there were a number of swastikas in evidence even though several alt-right groups hoping to go mainstream had replaced it with other fascist symbols, such as crossed Roman axes.
Among the more popular alt-right websites is Stormfront, where a number of postings in the wake of Manson’s demise expressed sympathy for the multiple murderer whose victims included a pregnant woman.
A poster called Freedom lover wrote:
“Manson had a troubled relationship with what he found on this planet, and I can quite understand where he was coming from.”
Freedom lover added, “The reality of his existence was, to a large extent, a result of the evil that exists in society, an evil he fought with his own evil, as someone who chooses to fight fire with fire. As I said, I totally understand where he was coming from.”
Freedom lover closed by saying, “RIP Charlie, and I hope that wherever you are, you find the peace you never found on earth.”
Another poster, speakeroftruth, wrote, “I always remember he said in one interview how his great uncle used to tell him stories about his great grandpa and how they were confederate guerrillas that hid up in the mountains of west virginia kentucky and never surrendered after the war ended.”
Freedom lover would no doubt have thought it only appropriate that there were so many Confederate battle flags as well as swastikas at the Charlottesville rally.
“He definitely knew of the zog power and he definitely was always against the government and any authority they placed on the people opted to be a rebel to the end,” Freedom lover continued.
ZOG stands for Zionist Occupation Government, which some in the alt-right believe secretly controls our democracy.
“Being born in the depression era had an affect on him as well,” Freedom lover says with empathy apparently reserved for those of his own race. “I honestly do say the system failed Charlie with what went on in the intuitions he was put in as a kid.”
Freedom lover apparently meant institutions. Manson was consigned to several of the correctional variety during his early years.
“I remember reading somewhere that he purposely killed members of the tribe?” Freedom lover continued.
The tribe meaning Jews.
“Something about coming across a house one night one of the families they were going to kill but he looked inside and saw a family with a young boy and perhaps thought of himself growing up without a father? Then the next house had a menorah in the window and he decided on that house? Not sure how true that story is.
“Anyway let us give one last shoutout to Charles Manson HELTER SKELTER ON THE WALL!”
Helter Skelter—the words lifted from a Beatles song—was the race war that Manson sought to trigger by murdering whites with the hope those murders would be blamed on blacks. He imagined aloud that he and his followers would then institute a new government, new thought, and a new world.
Before all that, what Manson initially wanted was stardom as a songwriter and musician, just as alt-right eminence Steven Bannon initially pursued success in Hollywood.
Both men subsequently sought solace in their lack of celebrity by imagining a new world order, though it would be unfair to Bannon to suggest that he would in any way support the murder of innocents such as Manson actually carried out.
And even if Bannon’s ex-wife alleged that he did not want their twin daughters to attend a school where there were too many Jewish students, he has not exhibited any particular fascination with swastikas.
In fact, after the violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlotte made being identified with the alt-right a definite political lability, Bannon distanced himself from the fringe. He is said to have expressed frustration with the swastikas and straight armed salutes that kept appearing at rallies and in press reports.
“What the f--- do we do about the Nazis?” he reportedly exclaimed at one point.
But Bannon and his pal President Trump have been shamefully slow to categorically condemn Nazism in any guise as a moral abomination.
Back when Manson carved the swastika on his forehead, he seemed to have chosen the vilest of symbols, one everyone would reject, in keeping with the depravity of his murderous deeds.
A half-century later, the primary objection among supposedly mainstream adherents of the alt-right regarding Nazism is that it is not politically expedient.
So, whatever is done with Manson’s remains, it will only mean one less swastika, when there are so many more out there and so many supposedly patriotic Americans who barely shrug at the sight of them.
