Who says you never hear any good news anymore? This is downright GREAT news. Happy 4th!

The news of Jesse Helms dying on the 4th of July has got to make everyone's celebrations just that much sweeter.

With Bozo dying yesterday and the old adage that these things happen in threes, I have to think a whole lot of clowns are shaking in their big floppy shoes.

Very appropriate topic headline. This guy was disgusting. I lived in NC when he was a Senator. The things he said about gay people were incredibly hate-mongering. We had a kiss-in on the lawn of his house. May he never rest in peace.

Wow, the guy was certainly a creep, but come on, you don't cheer someone's death, as vile as they were.

There was a day I would have been much happier about this (when he was in office). Frankly, I thought the old fart was already dead. He was vile to the gay community and I can't think of anything good to say about him. Let the grave dancing and pissing begin.

Yep. We do.

Just a quick re-cap of the late Sen. Helms who fought every AIDS funding bill with extreme vigor and was constantly & vigorously inserting anti-gay amendments in unrelated bills. He was the definition of homophobic. I'm usually hesitant to speak ill of the dead, but his demise hasn't made him a better person (just less harmless). He certainly wasn't hesitant to speak ill of people who died of AIDS, even to their bereaved parents. While it's admirable to take the high road, I just can't do it where Helms is concerned.

Just a very small sample of his quotes on gays:

"These people are intellectually dishonest in just everything they say or do. They start by pretending that it is just another form of love. It's sickening."

"The New York Times and The Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves." The Post, he charged, "caters to homosexual groups. Just about every person down there is homosexual or lesbian,".

He's also refused to apologize for making statements that homosexuals who die of AIDS deserve their fate. He wrote back to one mother that he was sad only for her son's decision "to play Russian roulette with his sexuality."

He's referred to homosexuals as "weak, morally sick wretches"

"I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine." Helms on why he was opposing the appointment of a woman to a post in Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Helms was one of only three senators to vote against Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court nomination. He stated that she was "likely to uphold the homosexual agenda."

The guy was rotten, no question, but I'm kind of disappointed at the race to the bottom of the barrel being displayed here. Have fun being classless.

Tennis Guy, the only thing you've stated on this thread specifically about Helms is that he was a creep and rotten. The rest has just been judgemental statements about other posters. You stay classy, OK?

I will, thanks.

I'm not the one cheering someone's death and saying "hey, let's piss on his grave!"

Was he vile, and a creep? Yes. He's said and done absolutely reprehensible things.

Celebrate life, that's OK. Cheering someone's death makes one just as bad as he was for saying things like gays deserved to die. And just as bad as people cheering the fact that Matthew Shepard died just because he was gay. But have fun stooping to that level, you're with good company.

Yeah, you're right. We shouldn't cheer his death. Now he doesn't have a chance to beg our forgiveness.

The reality is that society is better off with the absence of certain individuals.

That's your opinion and it's your right to state it. I disagree with your assesment completely. Will you be chastising anyone who says bad things when Osama Bin Laden croaks? Are you just as judgemental of people who speak ill of Hitler? You see, I strongly believe that Helms' stonewalling on AIDS funding for so many years cost many people their lives. He held a place of power and used it to harm others. He slowed down AIDS research & education at the height of the problem in our country because of his hate for gays. Mathew Shepherd, as far as I know, didn't help contribute to anyone's death and it's disgusting that his name has been brought into anything to do with Helms. Pardon me if I'm not in the willing to eulogize him.

I hope the road is not so high that you get nosebleeds....I truly do.

You're comparing a guy who blocked AIDS funding and legislation to Hitler, a guy who directly ordered and caused the deaths of millions of Jewish people and other Europeans and Russians? And you think mentioning Matthew Shepard is bad?

Ridiculous over-dramatizations and "analogies" like these are the same tactics many activists also use to say that gays are "a threat to national security." This seems lost on you.

But please, do continue to think and react like them, that will always be helpful.

OK, let's celebrate the life of Jesse Helms. Let's celebrate the fact that he called the University of North Carolina the "University of Negroes and Communists" shall we? Is that helpful?

HornFan, sometimes there are people who just aren't worth arguing with.

At least Jesse finally accomplished the last thing on his list of plans following retirement...

I briefly interrupt this thread for another moment of fact to celebrate the life of Jesse Helms.

In 1993 he sang “Dixie” in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, “I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries.”

What a guy, that Jesse Helms.

I'm glad the old bastard is dead. Now if Rush Limpdick would go with him...

Although this is hardly a ringing endorsement,at least you knew the old skunk was racist,sexist and homophobic.I've been working within a governmental administration for over 12 years and I found out the hard way that for every overt racist,sexist homophobe there are at least 5 that do their best to conceal their prejudice.

One should say only good things about the dead.
Jesse Helms is dead.
Good! Good! Good!

An astonished-that-few-have-mentioned-his-abhorrent-record-on-racial-issues SFD

Just Eddie good point. Helms certainly believed with all his heart and soul all the racist and bigoted things he said and did...we can't take that away from him.




SFD also good point. I mentioned his singing "Dixie" to a black female Senator trapped in an elevator with him admittedly hoping to make her cry and his cute little nickname for UNC, but there's so much more we can celebrate about his life. He opposed Martin Luther King Day. He had true convictions.

I think Dan Savage is very clear in his concept of how Helm's demise should be addressed.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/he_use...ery_effectively

Happy Day After Independence Day!

Best,

Drew

I'm sure he's got himself a primo condo with a lake-of-fire view in his new home. The only sad thing about his death is that it came about 8 decades too late.

Well I guess I'll just have to be classless cuz I'm not crying any tears that this man is dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I'm not even gonna front and take the high road and say "well now no one should be cheering a man's death" Sorry...I know ultimately its wrong but I just can't act like this isn't news that makes many happy.

It wouldn't be helpful at all. Nor is the glee and tasteless commentary about his death. I won't mourn him for even one second, but I won't lower myself to his level and engage in the same kind of pointless commentary for which he was known.

Thanks for speaking up, Tennis Guy.

I do not rejoice at this man's death. I feel nothing. In life, he was loathsome, pandered to the lowest common denominator, and demonized individuals, groups, and institutions for political gain. The only response to him and his ilk is to confront and challenge such base hatred at the ballot box, peaceful protest, free speech, and whatever other means available to citizens of a civil society. Rejoicing at Helm's death or the death of an individual who lived his/her life repugnantly may be the equivalent of stooping to that person's level. More importantly, it serves no purpose other than fleeting self-gratification.

Below is a link to his obituary in the Guardian. It does not gloss over this man's record at all.

Helm's Obit

Remember too, this man was re-elected several times to public office. Related to just eddie's statement, there are many homophobes, racists, anti-Semites, and misogynists out there. I'd rather spend my time fighting their diatribes, hatred et al, than waste any time, energy, or emotion on the death of a shameless, miserable, and old bigot.

Thanks for the Guardian link, BBC. Theirs is the perfect non-tribute:

"It is hard to think of him with charity."

Today's German lesson is the word "Schadenfreude." Schadenfreude is the joy felt when someone you dislike gets what you feel are just desserts.

I think this is hysterical from the Savage blog:

I cannot believe anyone would even begin to think such a thing yet alone say it. All we do by making comments like that is prove to the haters that we are not better than they are. Is that really the statement we wish to make? Is that really how we wish to appear?

Not me, for one. Jesse Helms, like a lot of people of the right and the left, did good for this country and bad. He was human.

I pray for his family at this difficult time.

As long as one can cheer Sen. Helms' death on "our side" then we justify people on the "other side" cheering when Sen. Kennedy dies or Larry Kramer or some poor gay kid in Oklahoma. The inability of people to see that really astounds me. It makes me think that no progress is being made. On any side.

Add me to the "classless" regarding Jesse Helms' death . It's always delightful to me when thugs and monsters meet their demise. Like Leona Helmsly, who had a similarly sounding name.

Title: Mammy's Little Coal Black Rose
Lyrics: Raymond Egan
Music: Richard A. Whiting

I heard a pickaninny crying
Down in Tennessee one night;
His little heart was nearly breaking
Just because he wasn't white;
Then his dear old Mammy kiss'd him
And she said "Chile don' you sigh
Weep no more, my baby,"
Then she sang a Dixie Lullaby:

And then I saw that dear old Mammy
Kiss those baby tears away
While in her arms the baby nestled
Happy as a child at play;
Then she whispered "Mammy loves you,
You're as sweet as 'possum pie,
Go to sleep, my honey, While your mammy sings a lullaby"

Chorus

You better dry your eyes, my little Coal Black Rose
(and don't you cry)
You better go to sleep and let those eyelids cloes
(just hush a-by)
'Cause you're dark, don't start apinin'
Your're a cloud with a silver lining;
Tho' ev'ry old crow thinks his babe am white as snow,
Your dear old Mammy knows you're mighty like a rose;
And when the angels gave those kinky curls to you
(so curly que)
They put a sunbeam in your disposition too, that's true,
The reason you're so black I 'spose
They forgot to give your Mammy a talcum powder chamois,
So don't you cry, don't you sigh,
'Cause you're mammy's little Coal Black Rose.

TRL

What I do know is that when I was in my early 20's in the mid-80's and my friends (also in their early 20's) were hopelessly & horribly dying from AIDS, Jesse Helms was on the Senate floor saying they deserved it while using his power and influence to prevent measures to deal with the crisis. So while I was being a pall bearer, he was basically cheering on their deaths.

How my expressing true feelings on an Internet discussion board possibly compares to his vile speeches and votes in Congress boggles the brain. My opinions of him are based on fact, not some ill-conceived prejudice or tactic to remain in office. I didn't kill the man, I'm just glad he's gone. I suppose judgemental self-righteous indigination helps some of you sleep better at night if indeed it's genuine. Good for you.

indeed

Huh???

What's the message you're trying to deliver with these lyrics?

I'm also getting the vapors from this offensive, inappropriate thread!

Thankfully I wasn't paying too much attention to politics when Helms was around. All fair-minded people should feel bad for his family but not for the Senate or the country.

Why should we feel bad for his family?

That's like sending a sympathy card to Ted Bundy's family. And yes, I DO make the comparison. Helms is DIRECTLY responsible for holding up research into AIDS, and most probably caused deaths that didn't need to happen.

I'm sorry, but saying that gays "got what they deserved", does not make me feel bad for his family. Families have a hell of a lot of influence, and if there were any regrets on what the father/husband said and did, it was never vocalized.

He was a racist, vile corrupt old man (read the guardian link). So he was a senator. Who gives a rat's ass. He tried to shape American policy to fit his own racist ideals. There are people in this world who's death you celebrate.

My mother and father celebrated when the news came in 1945 that Hitler was dead. They celebrated again when the news came out that Stalin was dead

Jesse Helms was NOT on the par of those 2. But it wasn't for lack of trying. What held him back was democracy.

So if you don't want to celebrate helm's death, celebrate that democracy prevented him from going as far as he wanted.

May he rot in hell

When I watched the evening News last nite, it was very interesting to listen to and to view the report of Helms' body lying in state, for mourners to visit and commiserate. But, it seemed like no body was there. Did anyone else notice this?

I stand by my 'gladness' about his demise.

Here in San Diego, the conservative Union-Tribune wrote:

The North Carolina Republican was alternately reviled and revered for his ardent anti-communism, fierce social conservatism and opposition to public funding for the arts. But far too many conservative and pro-GOP pundits chose to either whitewash or ignore what was most salient about Helms: The fact that, as Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote in 2001, he was “the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country,” someone who was “unique [in] his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African-Americans.”

But to hear National Review and other organs of the right tell it, Helms was just another veteran Southern politician – a la Alabama's George Wallace or South Carolina's Strom Thurmond – who overcame his “misguided” defense of segregation. In fact, Helms never apologized for the unabashed racism that fueled his political rise in the 1950s and 1960s, and used blatantly racial appeals in all his election campaigns. Even in the 1990s, he liked to taunt his sole African-American colleague in the Senate by whistling “Dixie.”

There is no redemption narrative here, only the story of a small-town bigot who somehow parlayed his hate into a long political career. If today's conservatives think Jesse Helms is a hero, they are sick in the head.

I've been biting my tongue for days now not joining in on the dancing and pissing. I guess it's because someone I knew who was the exact opposite of Helms just died.

But by no means do I begrudge anyone who is celebrating. Go for it. Especially those who endured the impact Helms had on this country while he had power. Anyone who wasn't alive in the '80s has no idea what he was like during the depths of the AIDS crisis.

His racism before and after that decade was as bad if not worse than his homophobia. He was fully behind the tobacco lobby to the very end. Look at one picture of his ugly, nasty face for proof that you become what you are. HornFan, tealsea, and justeddie those are some great posts.

There's a Flannery O'Connor story, "A Late Encounter With the Enemy." I've been waiting and wondering for years as to when Helms would have that encounter O'Connor writes about. He's had it. Maybe I'll re-read that story tonight in his honor.

Wonderful post.

When I was younger, I actually did say that I would dance a jig the day he died.

I also use to say, "Have a smurfy day!"


*picture from bluebuddies.com

let's also not forget his oppostion to Civil Rights (calling the Civil Rights Act "the most dangerous piece of legislation in history"), his opposition to a MLK Jr. holiday, and his refusals of divestment in Apartheid (the latter two also joined by Dick Cheney). Is it no wonder that the most high profile person to attend his funeral was Darth himself? (along w/ Cindy McClain)