Farewell, Jesse Helms
Join former United States Senate Pages Dylan and Ethan Ris as they bring you the dish on not just the presidential race but all the exciting triumphs and disgraces inside, outside, and below the Beltway!
Dead and Bloated! Sons and daughters of the Confederacy, the final curtain has fallen on the minstrel show that was the life of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC)! Before he died last Friday, the fiery Southerner was a legend of social conservatism and race-baiting, wielding great power from the Senate seat he won by making fun of his opponent's name in 1972.
It would be too difficult to sum up Helms in just one word — Roget's Thesaurus alone lists eight synonyms for "bigot" — so instead let's look back at highlights from Helms' life and career:
* Practiced nonviolent resistance as an advocate for immigrants' rights in South Africa.
* Staged public fasts to protest political injustice.
* Chaired the Indian National Congress, urging acts of civil disobedience as means of gaining freedom from Britain.
Oh wait. Those were highlights from Gandhi's life and career! Here are Helms':
* Said of Civil Rights protests: "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."
* Forged personal alliances with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson.
* Tried repeatedly to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts.
* Attempted to make African-American Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) cry by singing "Dixie" repeatedly while in an elevator with her.
* Led a failed filibuster against the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
* Announced in 1994 that if then-President Bill Clinton were to visit North Carolina, "He better have a bodyguard."
The Wall Street Journal declared "Jesse Helms himself was no racist," in their tearful eulogy last Saturday, which was the equivalent of Playboy magazine claiming Wilt Chamberlain was a virgin. Still, the Pages will miss Helms' presence in the U.S. Capitol, cruising the halls in a motorized wheelchair, scowling at the doodles and Chinamen along the way.
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Helms was a great American! We need more like him. Only homos and communists write blogs like this. You castigate him for being friends with Pinochet? What about the left's love affair with Castro and Chavez? Know what? At least Pinochet got rid of communists in Chile. Of course, leftists are basically communists anyway and beyond reason.
Oh, I'll take Dixie over any of the rap songs you typical people (to use a Obama term) listen to.
Helms was an a–hole who kept his black love-child daughter secret for 60 years. A bigot who visited the dark side, had a dark child & STILL spouted about separation & denigration of African Americans. A stain on the Senate.
I kind of agree with a statement Nicole made earlier… there's a time and a place, and right after a person dies, no matter how much you hate them (or how much they might deserve to be hated), you ought to have a little respect for the feelings of his or her family, at the very least. I remember how disgruntled many of us were at Fox's treatment of the death of Kurt Vonnegut, and while that was dismissive and full of backhanded compliments, this blog and many comments here have been simply vicious.
No, what we should focus on instead are the appalling comments left here by people who support everything this man stood for. While I'd prefer to not grace their bigotry and asinine partisanship with a response, I nonetheless think they ought to be made unwelcome enough to go elsewhere to spew their hate. Seriously, the epithet of "homos and communists" is a compliment if they come from these folks.
Disgusting post. Have you no shame!? Personally, I would never stoop to such a vicious attack on a dead man. For example, I didn't care much for George Carlin and his brand of humor — but I felt for his family and for the man himself when he passed away. I could never bring myself to denigrate a man in such a way. But then again — what a glorious country we live in that the right to spew such garbage is protected by the Constitution. Long Live the Constitution of the United States!
great blog entry! Good for you for writing the truth about Jesse Helms.
Yes, you right wing trolls. "Piss" Helms did speak his mind and believed in what he said. His was the mind of a twisted, hateful, manipulative evil fuck who thought nothing of throwing his own shit around to try and get his own way. To the detriment of the United States. His divisive, polarizing methods were the blueprint for the Republicans ascention to power and their destruction of all that the United States holds so near and dear. Karl Rove is Helms' bastard political child.
Good riddance to you, "Piss" Helms. May you be ass raped in the seventh circle of Hell for all eternity.
I'm giving a limp wristed wave goodbye.
rot in hell, jesse helms! your bigotry helped shock millions into action.
Um… I'm not a "right wing troll." I just think that using virulent hate-speech against Jesse Helms because he used virulent hate-speech against other human beings is a little… ironic?
This blog would have been better, I believe, if it had focused entirely on the idiocy of the Wall Street Journal's historical redaction of Jesse Helms' legacy. There's being respectful of the recently-dead, and then there's white-washing a racist into a conservative saint.
Conservatives, you don't want Jesse Helms as your emblem.
"Oh, I'll take Dixie over any of the rap songs you typical people (to use a Obama term) listen to." from angrywhitedude
But will you take a white metal rock song that leads to suicide from typically white teenagers? Or whatever white serial killers and pedophiles listen to….country right?