1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 No, these jealous snake that's on top of me are lacking in manhood. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:11,000 So they don't want nobody like me to live. 3 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000 They do their damnedest to kill me every day they get the chance. 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,000 They say that I was a leader in a family of people which is bull. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000 That's bunk. I had a lot of friends because I played a lot of music. 6 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,000 A lot of people liked my music. And we were all friends. 7 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:30,000 There was no such thing as follower, leader. There was no leaders or followers. 8 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,000 There was just people. Intellect, intelligence. 9 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:39,000 Well, okay, and if one follows your story through the times on the ranch down in Southern California, 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,000 it was important for Charles Manson to be a leader, to have people follow him. 11 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000 Come on, district attorney. See, you can put a brainwash. 12 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,000 That's a district attorney. I'm nobody's follower. 13 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:56,000 Who were working out their problems for that particular time in that particular space. 14 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:02,000 And each had to do what they felt they had to do for the problems that they were working on. 15 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Which really had nothing basically to do with me. I'm not of the 60s. 16 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:12,000 I'm not a generation of the 60s. The 60s were little kids to me. 17 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000 The Beatles were like punk rock is to you. That's what the Beatles was to me. 18 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:22,000 They were a thing, you know. That's not my era. My era was Bing Crosby. 19 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,000 I'm 53 years old. I'm not a teeny popper. 20 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:29,000 But all the kids, they would come to me and say, we got no place to go. 21 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:33,000 And I'd say, well, I got no place to go. You know, so they were throwaway kids. 22 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,000 And I was a throwaway kid. 23 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Tell me a little bit about your background. 24 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:42,000 Tell me if you could describe your childhood in a couple of sentences, how would you describe it? 25 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,000 I didn't have a childhood. 26 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,000 Tell me a little bit more. Tell me more. 27 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:55,000 I went to reform school in 43. And I've been flattered. 28 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:59,000 If you got out of here, there are a lot of people who think you'd go start killing people again. 29 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,000 Again? Well, you guys are misinformed. I haven't killed anyone. 30 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:07,000 He gets little information from other people. 31 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:14,000 And anybody that wants to tell him something and what he wants to believe and what he feels will sell to the public. 32 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,000 I go from Vacaville and I carry Vacaville in my back for 18 years. 33 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:24,000 And they promised me a mainland. Three doctors took me off category J and took me off high violent potential. 34 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:31,000 I go back to San Juan and need me for high violence so they can sell this thing to the public that they're selling to the public. 35 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:42,000 Publics have more income taxes, build more prisons, and convict the public in their eyes as if they're doing the right thing in protecting the public. 36 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:51,000 They're creating more crime. We're creating the crime. It's eaten us up. We're creating it with our media. 37 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:57,000 We're creating. Criminals are our children. We don't want to face that, but the criminals are our children. 38 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:03,000 So the public can feel safe against this monster. We're going to charge you $200 million to build another center. 39 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:07,000 Why don't you tell the public what's really going on? Why don't you tell them the water is so bad the fish can't live in it? 40 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:12,000 Why don't you tell them that the polar caps are melting because you're creating so much heat with this machine? 41 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:14,000 You see what I'm saying? Why don't you tell them the truth? 42 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:21,000 That we were going to blow the world up in the 60s, but a handful of kids jumped up and said, no, give the other children a chance. 43 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:23,000 And they saved it from being blown. 44 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,000 You don't have a lousy childhood then. 45 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:30,000 Yeah, I had a terrible childhood. But I'm from here. 46 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,000 In other words, it didn't get to you? 47 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:40,000 No, I've never sold out. They've never beat me. I haven't been beaten. And yeah, I run an underworld. 48 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000 You run an underworld, then, Jim. Tell me about that. 49 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:49,000 You don't see it? 50 00:03:49,000 --> 00:04:02,000 I fly birds. I look out for wildlife. I'm trying to redeem my trees. 51 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:17,000 I have an organization called Atwa rolling now, trying to redeem life on the planet Earth from the people that destroy it. 52 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me interrupt your first sentence. 53 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,000 Yeah, well then we're gone with that. 54 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 No, no, no, no, because you're getting on the stuff. 55 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:35,000 Then we'll go to another one and then you make me look crazy. 56 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:40,000 No, no, no, you can make yourself look crazy, Charles. I can't make you look crazy. And please believe me. 57 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:44,000 All right. I'll believe you and I'll put it in my left-hand pocket for later. 58 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,000 Let me take you back to... 59 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:50,000 Who's destroying the Earth and why? 60 00:04:51,000 --> 00:05:07,000 The things that we do as human beings that are accepted and called right a hundred years ago have changed. 61 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:14,000 Years ago we could cut down trees and we could afford an exuberant lifestyle. 62 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,000 We can't afford that no more. We're running out of atmosphere. We're running out of water. 63 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:23,000 Our water's becoming so poisoned and so polluted we're not going to be able to drink it. 64 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:29,000 The trees are being cut down so fast. Lumber companies are just... 65 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 The United States is owned by foreign corporations. Nixon opened it up for foreign trade. 66 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:43,000 And when Nixon opened up for foreign trade, the people of Europe and the common market and Spain and different places, 67 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:48,000 they don't care about the United States forest. 68 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:59,000 And in short, the United States has been sold to the companies and to the tax loopholes and the people that live on that level. 69 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:07,000 They don't care about the average honest mule that just goes back and forth to work. 70 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:15,000 They don't care about the children that are in the streets that are thrown out of this upper echelon of existence. 71 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:27,000 And then when all the children fall down into me on my level, I pretty much identify with them because I was a throwaway also. 72 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:36,000 So it goes to the point of, do you really care? And who does care? 73 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:39,000 And if anybody cares, they're considered crazy. 74 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:46,000 I've been 15 years in the nut ward for trying to stop the trees from being cut down, 75 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:52,000 from trying to rearrange a lifestyle of a bunch of people who don't want to change. 76 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,000 But they're going to change because the cold is blowing. 77 00:06:54,000 --> 00:07:01,000 Yeah, it would reflect if you hold the negative up to the light. You don't see the light, you just see the negative. 78 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:05,000 So I'm a reflection of your negative. There's no doubt about that. And I can handle that also. 79 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:06,000 I can handle that also. 80 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:11,000 The queen wears those three stripes on her hat. And I know why she goes to Kentucky to get her horses. 81 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:14,000 There isn't anything I don't know from here to the IRA. 82 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000 I know who gets bombed and why those 17 people starve themselves. 83 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:19,000 You don't. 84 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:21,000 Do you make friends in prison? Is that possible? 85 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:22,000 Friends. 86 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:27,000 Do you have friends? How do you define friendship? 87 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:34,000 I live by law. I treat everyone just like I would myself. 88 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:41,000 If you treat me right, I'll treat you right. If you spit on me, then I'm not a workaholic. 89 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:50,000 Prison is the mind. Most of the people that work in the prison are more in prison than the people they've got in prison. 90 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:56,000 They've just got their kids in prison. They've got the poor people in prison. They've got people that have no money in prison. 91 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:00,000 I broke no laws. Not God's law, nor man's law. 92 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:04,000 I'm going to survive in a world that you guys don't even have any idea what's going on. 93 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:06,000 I'm the man in here. 94 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,000 And that's a fact. 95 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:14,000 Have you never felt remorse for the crimes you committed? 96 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,000 What crimes? I told you I hadn't committed any crimes. 97 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:22,000 Prison was originally started as a farm. 98 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:33,000 And if you liked the person that came in your courtroom, you gave them another chance to be reborn and enter into a right way of life. 99 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Prison was not built to punish people. It was built to help people. 100 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:42,000 That's why they're called peace officers. 101 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:49,000 But sadistic ding-dongs got in there and wanted to make it into the shadows of what they thought. 102 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:54,000 And the incompetent and the inadequate need to punish someone so they feel better. 103 00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:00,000 So it's like in reform school. They used to lay me down and beat me with leather straps so I couldn't walk. 104 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,000 And I used to think, what did I do wrong? 105 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:06,000 And for years I would think that I was wrong, that I did something wrong. 106 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,000 And then I seen it wasn't that I did anything wrong. 107 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:12,000 They beat me so they show the next kids now what not to be. 108 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,000 This confusion belongs to you. It's your confusion. 109 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:19,000 I don't have any confusion. I don't have any guilt. I know what I've done. 110 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:23,000 I didn't kill nobody. I didn't tell nobody to get killed. I didn't get no trial. 111 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:24,000 Okay, Mr. Bates. 112 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,000 We don't want to hear from that. We don't want to mix anything up with the truth. 113 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:36,000 I told the judge, can't you see what you're doing here? He didn't care. Nobody cared. 114 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:46,000 When he was finally given the right to testify in court, prosecutor Vincent Bouliosi argued that Manson's hypnotic powers might be too persuasive. 115 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:52,000 And all you comedians who get up there and tell jokes about Charlie Manson, what would you do? 116 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,000 I thought I was in the same room. 117 00:09:54,000 --> 00:10:00,000 I know more about the economy, more about money, more about the government than any ten presidents you got. 118 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:05,000 You know, in other words, I've said in Solitude confinement and I watched everything you guys do. 119 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:08,000 And the truth is you're all lying to yourselves. 120 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:14,000 I have empathy for your children. I have understanding for your children and compassion for your children. 121 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:17,000 And I love those kids with my heart and my soul. 122 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:23,000 And I've seen the struggle that they were struggling through being thrown out of their houses, no place to go. 123 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 Daddy's a rocket scientist. Mama's always drunk. 124 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:32,000 So did I put the kids in the garbage can? Your society puts your kids in the garbage can. 125 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:37,000 I picked them out of the garbage can and said, all you got to do, tell the truth and be honest. 126 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:39,000 I go in the vision room and all the kids run over. 127 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,000 So they won't let me in the vision room because all the kids come over to play, man. 128 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:47,000 And they get up in my lap and the little five year old get up in my lap and he'll say, I'm Charlie Manson. 129 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:52,000 Give me your money. He takes their money away from them and he laughs. 130 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:58,000 He's only five. But that would make me a bad guy because you would say I was influencing him. 131 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,000 But how about him? Is he influencing me? 132 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:05,000 You come and draw a line and you say, you can't get out of there. And I say, out of where? 133 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,000 You say, you're locked up. I say, locked up in what? 134 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,000 You say, well, you're locked up and we're free. And I say, oh yeah. 135 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:16,000 And then you walk back and forth and you play important with my life as if you got something that I want. 136 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:21,000 Hey, how you doing? You still in there? Is anybody there? 137 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:27,000 They run out and demonstrate for a nuclear power plant and go home and turn electricity on. 138 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:31,000 If you want to demonstrate for a nuclear power plant, don't use electricity. 139 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:34,000 Does it make sense? You know what I'm saying? 140 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:39,000 They want to demonstrate for something on one hand and get their faces up in the camera and like, look at me. 141 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:42,000 I'm different, you know, or pay me to be somebody. You dig? 142 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:49,000 And then on the other hand, they can't be somebody because they go home and turn the fucking electricity on and use the same fucking pollution. 143 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,000 You dig what I'm saying? In other words, you can't protest cutting down trees with paperwork. 144 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:57,000 All the people that want to live, stop cutting down trees and stop polluting the ground. 145 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:06,000 I am nobody. I'm nothing. I'm now. I've been now all my life. 146 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:12,000 My mother went to prison and left me. And everybody's lied to me. 147 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:19,000 My principle is not locked up in a bank. And my soul is not locked up in a government. 148 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:23,000 And my life is not locked up in a penitentiary. 149 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:32,000 You got my body in a cell, but that's only a day. You know, that don't count for no eternity. I'm walking in forever. 150 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:37,000 You've medicated me. You've burnt me. You've beat me. You've stabbed me. You've done everything you can do to me. 151 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:41,000 And I'm still here. And you're still going to have to face the truth about this case sooner or later.