Jesse Helms - dead men don't lie

Blogenfreude at Agitprop says:

"Another conservative asshole kept alive well beyond his sell-by date courtesy of your tax dollars is gone -- Jesse Helms has expired. ...

"...we'll probably wind up paying for some of the funeral too! Watch for him lying in state in the Senate and a bunch of weepy tributes by cowed Democrats afraid to tell the fucking truth. ...

"And watch for the wingnuts to make a big deal of the fact that he managed to die on July 4th (as did Adams and Jefferson)."


Speaking of wingnuts:

Former North Carolina Republican Representative Bill Cobey, now chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C.

"It's just incredible that he would die on July 4, the same day of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and he certainly is a patriot in the mold of those great men."

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican Leader:

"Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in.

Ed Fuelner, president of the Heritage Foundation:

Helms was "a dedicated, unflinching and articulate advocate of conservative policy and principle..."

The Rev. Billy Graham:

Helms was "my friend and long-time senator from my home state of North Carolina." He was "a man of consistent conviction to conservative ideals and courage to faithfully serve God and country based on principle, not popularity or politics." It is "fitting that such a patriot who fought for free markets and free people would die on Independence Day."

Graham also said that Helms was a loyal and effective leader for North Carolina and one with whom he connected during times of national crisis. Graham intends to pray for the Helms family as they honor Helms "legendary life and extraordinary legacy."


Unfortunately, the truth about Helms is something very different from those tributes. It is dark and foreboding. It is evil dressed in the cloak of a United States Senator.

Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise has done an excellent job at summarizing this nogoodnik's career and what follows next are excerpts from her article, "Race-baiting former senator Jesse Helms has died." You can read the entire article here.

"Helms wasn't just another racist politician, racism was his politics. His entire career was an extended pitch to the worst instincts of Americans. He became a conservative icon by skillfully harnessing the media of his day to stoke the country's darkest fears about race, sex, and modernity.

"Along the way, Helms played a major role in assembling what we know today as the right wing noise machine--an integrated network of media outlets, think tanks, political consultants, lobbyists, church groups, and direct-mail fundraisers dedicated to rolling back the reforms of the 1960s and 'reclaiming' America for straight white guys with money."

In 1960, Helms began a program called Viewpoint on WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Helms used the Viewpoint and other syndicated media outlets to establish his brand of race-baiting demagoguery."

Helms hated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and said that King's organization was "heavily laden at the top with leaders of proven records of communism, socialism and sex perversion, as well as other curious behavior." Helms called King a communist on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

In 1964, Helms said that the Civil Rights Act was "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress."

Helms could say something like that for he believed blacks were by nature inferior to whites. "No intelligent Negro citizen should be insulted by a reference to this very plain fact of life. It is time to face honestly and sincerely the purely scientific statistical evidence of natural racial distinction in group intellect..."

"...Jesse Helms was the father of modern racially charged political campaign ads. His fascination with race as a campaign weapon goes back at least to his work as an 'unofficial researcher' for a 1950 senate campaign. Helms' side released a doctored photo of the rival candidate's wife dancing with a black man." Although Helms denied it, "[A]t least one Helms biographer claims that Helms personally faked the picture."

When Helms ran against Harvey Gantt in 1996 for the Senate, "one of the ugliest, most racially charged contests in the history of the Senate ... the Helms camp ran the infamous White Hands ad, featuring a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter. The voice over says, 'You needed that job, but they had to give it to a minority because of racial quotas."

[Ms. Beyerstein commends to us the fact that an adviser to Jesse Helms in that 1996 campaign was none other that John McCain's senior adviser, Charlie Black.]

And, says Ms. Beyerstein, we must not forget that Helms was "a patron of right wing terrorist movements around the world including the UNITA rebels in Angola, the RENAMO guerrillas in Mozambique, not to mention the Nicaraguan Contras." He also supported "the Afghan mujahedin--the same groups that would turn on the U.S."

Helms "despised gay people as much as African Americans, intellectuals, 'sex perverts,' and leftists."


Jesse Helms reveled in being cantankerous. He was mean-spirited and devious and nasty. His nickname was "Senator No" as he so often voted no in opposition to such things as increased government spending, civil rights legislation, and support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Pam at Pam's House Blend provides some other quotes from this bigoted racist:

"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" - a reference to the University of North Carolina. -- 1950

"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>" - Fundraising mailer, 1996

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

"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 his opposition to the appointment of a woman to 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


[It is interesting to note that Helm's granddaughter, Jennifer Knox, is a lesbian and a Republican and was elected as a judge in North Carolina.]


Helms fought civil rights for blacks. He blamed blacks for the high crime rate. He launched a Senate filibuster against a bill establishing the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., as a national holiday. He said that AIDs was always caused by "people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts." In 1993 he sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African American woman elected to the Senate, while bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries."


I've heard it said one should not speak ill of the dead. I've often wondered why people believe that. Certainly they wouldn't apply it to certain folks like Hitler or Stalin.

Jesse Helms was not a nice man. He is dead. There is no reason to pretend he was a nice man. His life and his words speak for themselves. I'm just glad he won't be coming back. He can't hurt people anymore.

And he can't tell any more lies!