Will You Kill for Me?

It's a Sunday evening in snow bound South Bend. My wife & I are enjoying a quiet night in front of the fireplace. A little before 8:00 p.m., we start flipping through the cable channels to find something to watch. My wife's preference is to watch a movie. One of her favorite channels is Lifetime. I immediately recoil. "If you're going to watch that crap, I will retire to my upstairs cave."

So, we continue flipping around until we happen to notice an MSNBC documentary entitled, "Will You Kill for Me?" It's all about Charlie Manson and The Family.

I know a lot about this topic. When the best seller Helter Skelter came out, I read it from cover to cover (and reread it several years later). I've probably watched most of the documentaries made concerning Manson and I've read a lot more than the aforementioned book. I find the whole topic very disturbing, yet interesting. As a former social worker, I've always been interested in why people commit heinous acts.

However, as I watched this program, I grew a bit uncomfortable. The main thesis seemed to be focused on the cult aspects of the Manson family and the observation that the events that took place were from a bygone era. More importantly, the viewpoint behind the program seemed to say that killing for someone else is a societal anomaly.

People kill for others all the time! It's not an anomaly at all.

Right now the U.S. has over 100,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their underlying mission is to kill for our country -- all of us here stateside. Our opponents are bent on killing our soldiers to defend their own supporters and countrymen.

While Manson used drugs and sex to mold and manipulate his disciples, the governments and insurgent forces alike involved in the current "wars" use religion, nationalism and sentiments like patriotism to mold and manipulate soldiers, freedom fighters and terrorists to commit unthinkable atrocities. How is this so different than Manson?

And it's just not in "war" that we find this tragic circumstance. People are recruited everyday into companies that develop and peddle products that kill people and destroy the environment. Some do it solely for greed, but a lot of these people believe in what they're creating and selling. The capitalist ethos has molded and manipulated them into believing that they are each serving a higher purpose.

Remember DDT? It was supposed to revoltionize agriculture and, thereby, be beneficial to humankind. And what did it really do? It made the planet and people very sick. Yet, the people who manufactured this vile substance defended it as beneficial until there absolutely was no question that it was anything but.

DDT is but one solitary example. I'm certain each reader can think of 100 more.

If truth be known, what scares people so much about the Charlie Mansons of the world, is that these individuals are not outside of the mainstream as much as we might like to believe. Yes, their tools of manipulation tend to be beyond the norm, but the end results aren't altogether different.