Agreed that they weren't hippies- but they also weren't leftists. calling them "an anti-establishment collective" implies that the Family had a radical agenda and that the New Left as a whole somehow played a role in what they did. Manson had no genuine political agenda- all he cared about was scoring money off of celebrities through high-end drug deals. All he was was a cult-leader like bullshit artist who had the capacity to talk others into killing on command, and who never had any motivations other than egotistical self-interest.

I get it that you don't want situate them with the "flower children", but it's equally important to avoid associating them with Sixties radicals, since the acts of the Family were used as part of the establishment justification for crushing the New Left in the late Sixties and early Sixties.

Phraseology that even implicitly links the crimes of Manson to Sixties radicalism was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

The Tate-LaBianca killings did NOT happen because millions of people were questioning capitalism, fighting against racism and doing all they could to stop an illegal, immoral and unwinnable war- they happened because Charles Manson was a charismatic psychopath who accorded no value to human life.

If nothing else, could you at least add a sentence after that one indicating that the use of radical-sounding phrases by Manson was simply opportunism?