Obituary: Jesse Helms

[JackBeck]

Harold Jackson
guardian.co.uk, Friday July 4, 2008

Senator Jesse Helms, member of the US Senate's foreign relations committee for two decades and its chairman from 1995 to 2001, has died at the age of 86. To echo this newspaper's memorable comment on the death of William Randolph Hearst, it is hard even now to think of him with charity. From his earliest years, Helms's attitudes recalled those of an earlier southern bigot, Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, who so outraged his Senate colleagues, that they eventually refused even to let him take his seat.

There was never a comparable risk for Helms, who maintained an old-world courtesy in his personal contacts. But that was only on the surface. He became one of the most powerful and baleful influences on American foreign policy, repeatedly preventing his country paying its UN contributions, voting against virtually all arms control measures, opposing international aid programmes as "pouring money down foreign rat holes", and avidly supporting military juntas in Latin America and minority white regimes in Southern Africa.

In domestic politics he denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress", voted against a supreme court justice because she was "likely to uphold the homosexual agenda", acted for years as spokesman for the large tobacco companies, was reprimanded by the justice department and the federal election commission for electoral malpractice, and compiled a dismal personal record as a slum landlord.

Much, much more at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/usa

---------------------------------------------

It's well worth the whole read and helpful when putting into context this man's passing, especially if you like to deconstruct today's current political climate. Pam Spaulding has a fantastic post over at pamshouseblend, http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6007">Conservatism in the wake of Jesse Helms, where she asks the questions,

"where does social conservatism stand today, and how different is it than it was in Helms's time? What does today's conservatism stand for in your state's GOP?"

When Jerry Falwell passed, for me, it wasn't so much a sense of joy that another hate-monger had been silenced, but more of a feeling of excitement that the marriage between the Religious Right and Conservatism was heading for a divorce. People like Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson, Matt Barber and their sycophantic ilk are like that annoying gnat that hovers around that freshly buttered warm ear of corn you're just dying to take a bite out of. Like the gnat, you wish they would just go away and stop bothering you, as you try to enjoy the good things in life.

Jesse Helms, though, was different. While Falwell, and his not-yet-dearly-departed boorish gang of thugs that still have their feet firmly planted on the soil of Mother Earth waiting to be Raptured, held sway over the hearts and minds of their follower's emotions and purse strings to fund their lavish lifestyles, Sen. Helms had the power to create legislation, but more famously, act as the primary obstructionist to Democratically proposed legislation. This man had the power to influence, interrupt, or even destroy your life. And he gleefully and maliciously did so without a blink of an eye.

I guess if there are any lessons that can be learned from Sen. Helms's passing, one would be that we have to work with every ounce of our collective strength to make sure no one like this man ever gets into Congress ever again.

[terrya]

1. Outstanding post. Recommended.

"I guess if there are any lessons that can be learned from Sen. Helms's passing, one would be that we have to work with every ounce of our collective strength to make sure no one like this man ever gets into Congress ever again."

Truer words were never posted.

[JackBeck]

3. Thanks, buddy.

As a guy who was a teenager in the late 80's and early 90's, while trying to understand what being "gay" meant in terms of my individuality, Sen. Helms has been on my radar for quite some time.

I just might even go so far as giving him credit for making me politically aware.

[terrya]

5. Well, if there WAS one good thing that vile piece of shit was good for...

was making you politically aware.

You're welcome, my friend.

[XOKCowboy]

2. I hadn't heard about the slumlord part...

but it doesn't surprise me.

Quite a contrast in this obit from the Guardian than anything I've seen or heard from the MSM. Imagine that???

[JackBeck]

7. That part sounded vaguely familiar.

This part is what stood out for me:

"His initial ambition was to secure his place on the agriculture committee, where he could push the interests of the powerful tobacco lobby for which he had worked for years. But, in a move which proved a stroke of near-genius at a time when direct-mail was in its infancy, he and two close associates organised a postal campaign for a body they named "the National Congressional Club". The repeated arrival of impressive-looking letters signed by Helms and denouncing school busing, funding for the arts, compensation for Japanese-Americans, the Red menace, and umpteen other liberal causes, sparked a stunning national response.

His allegations were often mind-numbingly bizarre. "Your tax dollars are being used," he claimed in one letter, "to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that cannibalism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behaviour." But his rhetoric convinced millions of Americans and, invited to save the nation by donating a dollar, they did just that. A river of cash poured into the club.

What happened to it all remained a constant mystery and, as the rules on election finances were slowly tightened, the club's accounts grew ever fuzzier. Some cash certainly went to the Coalition of Freedom, which had Helms as its honorary chairman until federal tax authorities began investigating its illegal campaign activities.

More than $800,000 went to a firm called Jefferson Marketing. Then the election commission established that this company was inseparable from the club, making its electoral operations unlawful. Less traceable were donations to other conservative groups and to fundamentalist religious figures like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson."

[LeftishBrit]

9. Just out of curiosity...

how could even Helms think that kids were being taught in school 'that cannibalism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable'? Where did that come from???

[JackBeck]

11. His rhetoric was always based in scaring the electorate.

Sound familiar?

[TomInTib]

4. Rest in misery, you sorry old bag of shit.

God, I hope it went down with maximum pain.

A pox on his house and his Party.

[JackBeck]

12. If it's any consolation,

I believe his health was in disrepair for many years.

http://www.arthritis.ca/types%20of%20arthritis/pagets/default.asp?s=1">Paget's Disease

[Mira]

6. Perfect Post to educate about a pathetic Piece of Work- and take a look at this

This is the FRONT page of the Winston-Salem Journal, bidding goodbye to our illustrious and venemous Senator NO.
May he be forever an example on how hatred and ignorance in the wrong hands can bring destruction to so many.

Once, when people heard "North Carolina" - they projected that mindset onto all of us.

Now, not so much later, we are about to elect Senator Obama.
I wish he could have hung on to see that happen.

[JackBeck]

15. Wow.

I'm sure there will be a lot of revisionist history spread by the MSM starting next week, in the build-up to his burial.

[followthemoney]

8. It is customary to say how nice a person is after he dies.

So here it is:

Jesse Helms is much nicer now that he is dead;

I like him much better dead;

I think death has been a major improvement for Jesse Helms.

[GreenInNC]

10. Jesse in his own words

from www.bettybowers.com

"No, I do not. And neither do the people in the armed forces. Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."
-- When asked in 1994 on CNN if he thought President Clinton was "up to the job" of serving as Commander-in-Chief

"Let me adjust my hearing aid. It could not accommodate the decibels of the Senator from Massachusetts. I can't match him in decibels or Jezebels."
-- After Ted Kennedy made an emotional speech to let foreigners with HIV become US citizens, 1993.

"The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."
-- 1995

"The University of Negroes and Communists"
-- Reference to the University of North Carolina devised by Mr. Helms when he worked for Willis Smith's 1950 U.S. Senate campaign.

"All I know is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."
-- Responding to evidence that Roberto D'Aubuisson directed Salvadoran death squads that murdered thousands of civilians.

"Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING and MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."
-- Fund raising mailer, 1996

"All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction."
-- After Mexicans protested his visit in 1986

"It's their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for the disease."
-- Justifying his refusal to give financial support to families of AIDS victims.

"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches."
-- 1995 radio broadcast

"She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
-- Explaining why he was opposing the appointment of a woman for a cabinet post.

"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."
-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968

[JackBeck]

20. It's difficult to pick which one is most offensive. n/t

[indepat]

13. Truly, one of the most despicable individuals to ever grace the landscape

imo, the epitome of hard-core conservatism. :D

[JackBeck]

22. So true.

And his death in another sign that hard-core conservatism is finally becoming a thing of the past.

Now, we just have to clean-up the mess they left.

[BrklynLiberal]

14. I guess the worst part of this is that men like Helms and Thurmond were able to get elected again

and again...and act as representatives to the world of the kind of nation we were/are.

[JackBeck]

23. Both men were an embarrassment to this nation.

Their legacies are partly responsible for why the rest of the world looks so negatively upon us.

[Raine]

16. I'm glad he lived long enough

to see that a black man is going to become the next President of the United States of America. :-)

Beyond that I'll take the old advice that says if you can't say something nice about the dead, it's best to say nothing at all .... .... .... crickets.

[sarcasmo]

17. Maybe that's what really killed him.

[Pastiche423]

18. That's a lovely obit!

Unfortunately it din't quite capture the vileness he was.


Signed,
A former North Carolian

[JackBeck]

24. He was one of a kind, that's for sure.

Let's make sure it never happens again.

[bumblebee1]

19. Let's just paraphrase one Bette Davis.

My mama always said to say good things about the dead. Jesse Helms is dead. Good!!!

[sofa king]

21. And in so passing, Jesse Helms has provided his greatest service to America.

His only other services being that of retiring, and possibly fathering a child of mixed race. I suppose we'll learn more about that last part in coming weeks.