Helms dead at 86

N&O
Helms Center

n/t (no text) should be sufficient.

It's at times like this that I feel especially sad that there's no afterlife ruled over by a just god. Heck, I'd settle for an earthly life ruled over by a just god.

-- ge

Besta é tu se você não viver nesse mundo
http://george.entenman.name

I don't care what he did later in life, it does not make up for 50+ years of being the champion of hatred, racism, homophobia and basically villifing anyone who was not like him.

Wake Forest won't play us anymore
Michigan last year
LSU - you are next
Go ASU!

Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.

My sympathies to his family, which can hold to their happy memories of him. History will not be kind to him, as he was on the wrong side of progress for the whole of his life He did leave a legacy of good constituent services, which is admirable, if cynical since he was quite willing to oppose American freedoms for many of them, that is, the non-white, non-Protestant Christian, non-straight, non-authoritarian following and non-hate/fear-based. Too bad he used his considerable influence in this state to achieve dishonorable goals.

Things will change in NC sooner or later.

Progressive Democrats of North Carolina

http://bluenc.com/bye%2C-jesse%2C-you-left-quite-a-legacy

--
Pam Spaulding
Durham, NC USA

Pam's House Blend
www.pamshouseblend.com

All I could think of when I heard the news was the line from the from the Munchkins

" Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead"

Helms attitude was inexcusable and he certainly was a product of his time. He seemed to epitomize the worst of the Democratic and Republican parties in the last century.

...and it turns out george carlin's had an entire week to await helms' arrival--hopefully followed by a sudden departure to a lower place...hopefully with carlin's recommendation to lead him on his way.

I've been through a rollercoaster of emotions about Helms's death; the Helms who brought out celebratory emotion among some LGBTs and progressives today (who couldn't see that coming) built his career on fomenting prejudice and bigotry - but what does that mean in terms of today's political landscape? I thought about how blogging about it in some sort of a celebratory manner would have done little to make anyone think deeply about how his legacy would be analyzed by the MSM and the conservative movement.

What does conservatism mean today, as people look back at Helms? Forcing conservatives to publicly own the whole of Helms's record would be the best way to expose that, even today, a shocking number of those occupying the conservative elements of the GOP would not find much fault with what Helms stood for.

How about taking a look at what the NC GOP stands for today?

I would hope more progressives pressure the media and the Democrats at the national level -- particularly those who will go on the Sunday talk shows with conservatives -- to frame any discussion of Helms from the perspective of cultural history, civil rights and where both parties have evolved on his issues -- I think it will lay bare to the public which party is ready to move forward, not romanticize and thus reinforce bigotry of the past.

Jesse was a sick old man, and my thoughts are with his family. But comments like this really piss me off.

"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," said former North Carolina GOP Rep. Bill Cobey, the chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C.

Jesse on par with Jefferson and Adams? I don't think so.

One of the 19th century's leading voices.

How did the Doctor tell the malignacy that was the cancer from the malignacy that was Helms?
As a child I can remember his afternoon rants on WRAL.
He did have an equal in the US Senate.
Sen. Furnhold Simmons from New Bern. Sen. Simmons served on the Titanic investigation.
One served in the first quarter of the 20th century and the other the last quarter of the 20th century, but of what I saw of Helms and have read about Simmons, they could have traded places and no one would have been the wiser.

A friend of mine [ a republican ]once told me that when Jesse talked it sounded like he had a mouth full of............. And with what came out of that mouth I would agree.

To act like the Dalai Lama when it comes to this guy. All I'll say is the sun was shining a little more brightly over my home in Hillsborough when I heard the announcement. It's good for the world that this guy is now worm food.

War is over if you want it.

And I wish him rest.

Let's move on.

Can we, instead, start talking about "for the good of North Carolina?" --Leslie H.
Pointing at Naked Emperors

Jesse played his part to perfection.

Exit to cheers and boos.

And even some hissssessssssssss.

The Rev Jesse Jackson had this to say:

"He was a talented man. A man of considerable power. But he used his powers to maintain the order of the Old South. It was divisive," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Friday.

"We offer condolences to his bereaved family, but the senator had a chance to move toward a more perfect union and he chose the Confederacy."

"Keep the Faith"

Was going to slide this into the BlueNCTV box but thought better of it.

Wildly, wildly offensive, and um... inappropriate.

(Listen for the Liddy Dole shout-out)

Jesse Helms was the most important NC politician in the 20th century. He has passed away. I didn't agree with hardly any of his positions on issues or things he said or did during his public life. But people the man has passed away and this is no time to talk ill of him. Stop and think. This is not your finest hour. Pay your respects, hold your tongues, and remember to conduct yourselves with some class!

Via Andrew Sullivan: But may he rest in the peace he so wanted to deny so many others - because they were different from him.

----
There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of the comfortable past which, in fact, never existed. - Robert F. Kennedy

from bettybowers.com by way of Scrutiny Hooligans:

"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

Wake Forest won't play us anymore
Michigan last year
LSU - you are next
Go ASU!

Helms could not have gotten to the Senate without the help of more than 50% of the votes! Those votes were cast by not only ignorant and malign toads of the lower orders but by his social and economic "betters" who essentially hired "Ole Jesse" and these people delighted in the conflict Helms generated unbidden and unprovoked, always in the name of "Gawd". I am glad he has been out of circulation for some time now and am unswayed or affected by his passing. He was a mean, arrogant, malicious and ugly man whose passage does not recommend any extraordinary comment other than to note that we still have a hell of a lot of racist trash of all grades in our state.

Sen. John Least
Sen.Laugh Faircloth
Sen.Liddy Drole
Sen. Saddle Burr

What a wonderful legacy.

Laying in state under the Star and Bars in front of the Confederate monument - 11 am till 3 pm

Service and burial - 4pm till 5.30 pm

Cross Burning - Dusk

In some tiny little NC town, you could pay $10 for a plate of BBQ and get in to see Jesse Helms. Find any candidate today who spends his time that way and stays in office. I know several people who thought he was the devil incarnate and, after meeting him, still didn't like his political positions but came away impressed, nevertheless.

As Obama, now that he has the nomination, continues to tack to the middle and abandon all the positions that got him the nomination in the first place, remember a politician who didn't blow in the wind (love him or hate him). Obama could learn a lesson or two about sticking to your guns regardless of what people think.

Terry Sanford
Jim Hunt
Bill Friday
Bob Scott
The UNC system as we know it.
And the warm feeling of pride in your state for the
progress it made with his help and the help of those he
was a mentor to.

I would say a better body of work. Plus his brother was
"Moonlight" Graham. How could Helms top that?

I tell you that I give my condolences to his family but I was not then and remain now, unimpressed. Jesse Helms was a very mean and surly guy. History shows that and we serve no one by acting as if he was not. This guy will stand before the Lord and give an account for all of his deeds; let's hope that he received the grace offered through Christ...

"The nation has been hypnotized by the swaying and gesturing of the watusi and the frug."
—WRAL Viewpoint, 1966

Below is from John Nichol's excellent blog at the Nation magazine:

"Jesse Helms may have started as a Democrat and finished as a Republican. But he always sang "Dixie."

And those who sang it with him are now working for John McCain. Alex Castellanos, the veteran Republican media consultant who produced the so-called "White Hands" commercial that Helms used against Gantt, has according to the Washington Post been advising McCain's campaign on media strategy.

Castellanos bluntly refers to his work with Helms as "The Cause." And That cause has attracted other key players from the late senator's campaigns.

Republican strategist Charlie Black, perhaps the most prominent member of McCain's political inner circle (especially since he suggested that a terrorist attack on the U.S. would benefit the Republican's prospects this fall), advised Helms throughout much of the senator's career and played a particularly central role in the 1990 campaign, according to contemporary media accounts."

Senator Helms may be dead, but "The Cause" lives on. Let's keep an eye on these radical right wingers.

Hopefully, we will never see his like again.

One prays that we are being transformed as a people and not just a few individuals who 'get it'. We must stand faithfully in antipication of a liberating consciousness which strengthens us never to allow ourselves to be manipulated by fear and prejudice again. Then perhaps we will see well enough to embrace the justice of prophecy. The son of man proclaims the reality of the kingdom then and now. We just haven't been humble enough to believe it, much less achieve it. Let us take up the standard of love for our neighbor and then perhaps, just perhaps mind you, we may be empowered to save this planet and plan after all.

I am saddened by the life of Jesse Helms as I am by all those who live in everlasting fear and by the ruthlessness they employ in the fruitless attempt to relieve themselves from their self created anxieties. He did harm to himself and to millions more through the pulpit he was given. He is quiet now and lost to eternity I’m afraid; - `Truly, I say... I do not know you.'

They say you should only speak good of the dead. He's dead. Good.

On his blog.

RALEIGH -- Gov. Mike Easley today ordered all North Carolina state flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms who passed away on July 4. Flags will be flown at half-staff from Monday July 7 until sunset on Tuesday July 8.

In addition, a condolence book will be available for North Carolinians to sign in memory of Helms, who represented North Carolina in the Senate from 1973 to 2003. Citizens can sign the book from Monday morning through the close of business on Tuesday. The condolence book will be sent to the Jesse Helms Center at Wingate University.

There are a lot of things I wouldn't cross the street to do, and write something Jesse's condolence book is definitely one of them.

Plus I won't be lowering my flag to half mast.

Those that speak ill of him at this time are wrong. It's not the time to do so. You are doing the same thing that the right constantly does to those that don't agree with them. It's just not right. It doesn't matter that the family and friends aren't going to read these posts. You are reading them, you know what you do and type. It lowers you to their level and allows you no room to talk when it comes back around. It doesn't matter that you are right and they are wrong. But more importantly we should show respect because there's not enough respect to one another shown in this world (especially in politics) and it needs to start somewhere. I know many of you think I'm wrong so I'll leave it at this.