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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I like how the pro-Helms comments on here have quickly devolved to ad hominem cursing. (See below.)
This blog is horribly written. It reads like a 3rd grader who read a single wikipedia article on Gandhi and Helms each and wrote some half-assed smear at the guy. If this is seriously all you have to bash the guy with, perhaps you should save yourself the embarrassment and not write such a crappy blog. If you actually thought this blog was good, I suggest you seriously quit following politics and stay away from the polls. People like you should have your voting rights stripped from you because you are pathetic.
Aaron, if you read this would you please tell me where you found that info on MLK.
Hey Aaron,
What's your source for the MLK comment? Debunked on snopes.com:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/mlking.asp
Thats it??? Did high schoolers in journalism class write this? Very bad taste. Go write for cracked.com.
1) Complete Jesse Helms's 1965 observation: "It's all very well and good to talk about 'uplifting society,' but somewhere along the line we must face the fact that from the beginning of time a lot of human beings have been born bums, but most of them – until fairly recently – were kept from behaving like bums because work was necessary for all who wished to eat. The more we remove the penalties for being a bum, the more _________ is going to blossom."
Finish the quiz at:http://www.236.com/news/2008/07/08/quick_quiz_jesse_helms_part_3_7609.php
Uh, Joe? Take a look again at your own piece of work here and THEN why don't you reconsider your assertion that anyone who writes a published blog on a well trafficked site with less than Miltonesque aptitude should have their voting rights stripped?
"It reads like a 3rd grader who read a single wikipedia article on Gandhi and Helms each and wrote some half-assed smear at the guy." FYI, 3rd graders are human beings, not shoddy blog entries.
I highly doubt the MLK orgy took place, primarily because the bigot who posted it says a tape recording exist of MLK fucking WHITE girls. Did they speak their ethnicity into the speaker? You fucking ass…
That's some amazing pillow talk:
Girl 1 "Oh, Martin Luther King Jr. You feel so good! Also, I'm white."
Girl 2 "I, too, am white."
Girl 1 "What a great orgy party this is. Good thing we are tape recording it so we can listen to it later."
Why is it that these right wing nut jobs think that the worst thing a person can do is to have sex?