Glenden BrownRIP Jesse Helms: An Honest Bigot
Jesse Helms died at the age of 86. He served 30 years in the US Senate. He was a shrewd manipulator of Senate rules and a fearless champion of racism in its most honest form. Helms was also a rare breed - a truly honest bigot. He didn’t dress up his hatred in pretty language or pretend it was religious. He just honestly hated black people, gay people, he was an enemy of women’s rights, of internationalism, of modernity. His retirement from the Senate in 2002 his absence from the American political stage has been a good thing.
H/t Americablog for this obit:
Senator Jesse Helms, member of the US Senate’s foreign relations committee for two decades and its chairman from 1995 to 2001, has died at the age of 86. To echo this newspaper’s memorable comment on the death of William Randolph Hearst, it is hard even now to think of him with charity. From his earliest years, Helms’s attitudes recalled those of an earlier southern bigot, Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, who so outraged his Senate colleagues, that they eventually refused even to let him take his seat . . .
He became one of the most powerful and baleful influences on American foreign policy, repeatedly preventing his country paying its UN contributions, voting against virtually all arms control measures, opposing international aid programmes as “pouring money down foreign rat holes”, and avidly supporting military juntas in Latin America and minority white regimes in Southern Africa.
In domestic politics he denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as “the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress”, voted against a supreme court justice because she was “likely to uphold the homosexual agenda”, acted for years as spokesman for the large tobacco companies, was reprimanded by the justice department and the federal election commission for electoral malpractice, and compiled a dismal personal record as a slum landlord.
. . . His allegations were often mind-numbingly bizarre. “Your tax dollars are being used,” he claimed in one letter, “to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that cannibalism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behaviour.” But his rhetoric convinced millions of Americans and, invited to save the nation by donating a dollar, they did just that. A river of cash poured into the club.
What happened to it all remained a constant mystery and, as the rules on election finances were slowly tightened, the club’s accounts grew ever fuzzier. Some cash certainly went to the Coalition of Freedom, which had Helms as its honorary chairman until federal tax authorities began investigating its illegal campaign activities . . .
. . . Helms’s principal skill, in fact, was obstruction, which he employed ruthlessly once he assumed chairmanship of the foreign relations committee in 1995, having been a member since 1981. The Senate’s arcane rule book offers virtually uncontrollable power to committee chairmen to determine their own agenda. In a private war with the state department, Helms refused to hold confirmation hearings for 18 new ambassadors, or to debate such key issues for the Clinton administration as the chemical weapons or strategic arms treaties.
There have been great men in the US Senate. Jesse Helms wasn’t one of them. In 1993, he sang “Dixie” in and elevator with Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African American women in the US Senate. He bragged he was going to sing it until he could make her cry.
If conservatives want to call him an icon, they are welcome to him. The nicest thing I can say about him is that at least he was an honest bigot.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Unlike the dis-honest bigot, Senator Robert KKK Byrd, Democrat, West Virginia.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Ken:
Now tell the truth. You listen to Hannity so much, you think KKK is actually part of Byrd’s name, don’t you?
Helms was just another one of these crazy tools that would say things that were completely over the top for the express purpose of making ridiculous comments, proposals and even laws look sane. Hopefully his death will put a nail in the coffin of such tactics used to destroy democracy.
Say hi to Falwell, dickhead!
July 6th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I hesitate to even leave a comment here because I know it will make no difference to most of you (perhaps Ken excepted). But Helms was certainly a product of his birth…1920s North Carolina…and southern environment. (And Ken is correct about Senator Byrd from WV…a former Klan member.) But when I knew Helms, 1987 to 1997, working with him and his staff when I was in the House, I never saw or heard one drop of racism or of the “good old days.”
Senator Helms was a very effective Senator and you don’t get that way if you are as how the Left describes him…at least you don’t get to stay that way for very long. Helms grew more effective as he served and was working at his best toward the end of his Senate career (bad health slowed him down right at the end). He was no Thurmond…iow, his Senate service was not based on some iconic “image” of the Old South, it was based on his effectiveness.
I think if you asked former Senator Moseley-Braun about the “Dixie” incident she would now admit it was in good fun…as hard as that sounds to some of you…and that she gave the digs as much as she ever got from Helms. Don’t be so quick to jump on someone.
At least, Helms critics shouldn’t parade the list of horribles in unprovoked judgment. It wasn’t Republicans who voted against the Civil Rights Act or the historic updating of the Immigration law in 1965…it was Democrats serving in the same party as FDR, JFK, and LBJ (and any other acronym including Robert “KKK” Byrd).
I’m not trying to pick a senseless fight here…just trying to let you know that 1) Helms certainly was no racist by the time I knew him, if he really ever was one (and neither was Senator Byrd by the time worked there), 2) Helms was even far from the “crazy uncle” in the GOP family, and 3) he was conservative and VERY effective…just ask Bill Clinton, the State Department, the gay movement, and most of the kooks on the Left who wandered the halls of the Senate for the past 30 or so years looking for ways to make the US a launch pad for nutty ideas.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:05 am
If you’re going to try to argue from history at least get your history right. It was the Democrats who championed the Civil Rights act, and a Democratic president who signed it into law, and who commented that he’d just cost the Democrats the south. And he was right - the Republicans have been using coded racial messages for decades, starting with Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” Opposition to the Civil Rights act came from racists - and at the time, most white Southerners were Democrats and and great many of them were racists - as were white northerners, midwesterners and westerners. Racism was and remains America’s “original sin.”
Helms was effective, yes - an effective obstructionist and opponent of Modernity in all its forms. And unlike Robert Byrd who has apologized for his racist past, I don’t recall hearing Helms apologize for his racist past and who has become a consistent voice in support of civil liberties. Helms spent his entire career mastering the arcane rules of the Senate and using them to stop to anything he disapproved of - like making our payments to the UN. He was not an American hero and he deserves to be honestly remembered as the bigot he was.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:22 am
In Helms defense; One must understand the south to understand Helms.
Helms didn’t hate Blacks. He like most southerners just felt they were inferior. More importantly, only a southerner can appreciate the long and delicate balance between races in the south.
While it is unforgivable, most southern whites truly believed (and still do) that Black folks “know their place” and don’t really don’t want that to change.
Non-southerners, Paul Mero included, have a great deal of difficulty understanding this. Southern racism and Northern racism are as different as they can be.
Helms believed he was simply representing his constituency…southern whites.
It is perfectly normal to be a southern racist and like or even love a black person and still believe they are inferior. Nevertheless, its still racism.
Helms was a racist and so are most southern whites still today.
I was just in Birmingham AL in April and I checked.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Thanks for both comments…Glendon and Cliff. I don’t think I am ignorant of the historical record. If you re-read my comment all I was saying is that the No votes on those bills were almost entirely from Democrats. I do know Democrats also sponsored thsoe bills (TK specifically).
I don’t think Helms ever felt the need to apologize for his “racism” as Byrd did…Helms was never a Klansman. And I am quite sure Helms never felt the need to apologize broadly in behalf of the Old South. It was what it was for him.
As I have thought about this issue of racism…an issue that we can all agree on…that it is repugnant and evil…I think one difference between what our comments are emphasizing or not here is between personal racism and institutional racism. For instance, I can look at Byrd or Helms or Thurmond (or any politician that spanned eras and grew from one era to the other) and acknowledge their sentiments then and now…call them as I see them…and forgive where forgiveness is warranted (e.g. I assume Senator Byrd is not a racist any more…despite how Hillary easily played the race card in WV against Obama, and how Byrd is still a WV senator).
But I stumble over institutional racism, such as has existed (and continues to exist) in America’s and Utah’s public school system. This sort of racism is very paternalistic…much like the Old South plantation mentality. It’s hard for me to ignore, let alone forgive, a system that can’t admit its sins.
In sum, one racist (then or now, repentant or not) is much less of a threat to the country, in my opinion, than institutional racism. I only say this, again, to share a thought about how we might be disagreeing over Helms, his impact, his legacy (or not).
Kind of like I can forgive you guys for crazy thinking!!! :)
July 7th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Don’t you think that many of Helms’ comments about African-Americans deserved an apology? He used racism in the most grotesque ways:
To argue that such things are simply a product of their time seems at best ingenuous. If we all agree that racism is offensive, shouldn’t those who have engaged in it the past offer an apology? There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I have learned the error of my ways. I’m sorry I said and did offensive things in the past.” Byrd has done that. And FWIW, a great many democratic voters were offended that Hillary played the race card in WV in the primary. I was one of them. That many white Americans still harbor racist ideas is something we as a nation need to address. The race card - played so effectively by George W. Bush in 2000 against John McCain in South Carolina - should not work in American politics. It continues to do so.
Battling institutional racism requires institutional solutions. Affirmative Action was an attempt to address that problem. However, I think it’s also important to understand the individual racists maintain institutional racism.
July 7th, 2008 at 11:02 am
How do you explain your Jewish racism towards white people of less privileged economic origins Cliff? Or as you so like to refer to them, “lazy white trash”.
Is there any chance you might focus your credentials like a laser beam onto this glaring deficiency in your own character?
July 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
[...] One Utah « RIP Jesse Helms: An Honest Bigot [...]
July 7th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Is this another example of one of your “scientific polls”?
Or did you just get your information from some buddies and a couple of yard signs again?
Care to submit your credentials in statistics, Cliff?
July 7th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I won’t defend the career of Senator Helms, whose policies and electoral tactics I did not like or support.
Nevertheless, the BBC reports in its obituary of Senator Helms:
“But there was a compassionate side to Senator Helms that few of his critics might believe.
He was, it is reported, in tears when Bono, lead singer of rock group U2 and anti-debt campaigner, told him of the suffering that debt caused in the developing world.
He campaigned for the passage of a debt relief bill though Congress.”
Do we not all hope that our good deeds will live after us while our evil ones will be interred with our bones?
July 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I think that says more about Bono than Sen. Helms, but it’s nice hear about that side.
July 11th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Jesse Helms hired his first staff member in the senate who was a black man. James Meredith also worked for Helms. Helms and his wife read in 1962, about a 10 year old orphan who had cereral pasly and for Christmas wanted a mother and father. Jesse and Dot adopted Charlie. Jesse was 41 and had two daughters but he took on Charlie and gave him the love he wanted.
Jesse Helms was a wonderful man who made enemies of those who did not know him. I have never met anyone who had met him face to face who had anything bad to say about Senator Jesse Helms.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I never met anyone face to face that didn’t think Jesse Helms was a racist (including Jesse himself).
If you understood The South, you would not argue that hiring a black person means you are not a racist. Thats the difference between the Culture of Utah and the rest of the US vs The South.
If you ain’t from there, you can’t understand Southern racism. I’ve mentioned this now three times. Its not my opinion, its reality.
But don’t take my word for it. Read some Southern literature. You will find a constant theme; middle and upper class southern whites have a long and cherished history of very intimate relationships with their slaves, caretakers, nannies, mistresses and workers….as long as they “knew their place.”
Are ya familiar with that phrase? Cause any black person raised in the South knows it real good. It is pure racism and well-entrenched STILL in the South. It is also a source of tension within the larger black community.
You can’t count the number of white children raised in the South who knew their black nannies better than their own Moms and Moms who spent more time raising their white “charges” than their own children.
I hope that helps.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Thanks for asking JD,
My credentials to speak about Southern racism are moderate to good.
Go ahead and Google my Grandfather and my grandmother.
Then imagine the circle of civil rights activist, historians and teachers I have grown up around, the reading I have done, and my own personal experiences.
Add to that (and I hate to have to say this but…) I have many “real friends” who are black and racism in its many forms is a popular topic of discussion.
And now, my favorite question for you JD:
Are there more black men in college or prison today? …careful, its not a trick question.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Cliff…I do understand what you are saying, but your point has problems on a few levels. First, it generalizes. Racism actually exists among all sorts of Americans (even among liberals, as I mentioned in my Hillary/West Virginia comment). It exists in every state of the union and in the most unlikely places, such as the “enlightened” rich, white, liberal circles of the anti-immigration movement (such as FAIR, where Paul Erlich of “Population Bomb” fame set up shop).
Second, your point tends to stereotype, which can be its own form of racism.
And lastly, by casting a broad net over the south, you are not addressing the main point of my comments, which is: I knew Helms personally, and his staff, and I never heard, saw, or felt a racist bone in his or their bodies. And you cannot respectfully dismiss my personal experience without sounding like a know-nothing.
What I think you see is the “political” Helms, where just about any idea and comment is considered fair game in its zero-sum game (and so to single Helms out in the respect is narrow-minded when this sort of gamesmanship occurs all of the time, especially on the Left…where, if it’s not “racist” allusions, it will sound like class or economic or egalitarian allusions). I saw both sides of Senator Helms, political and personal. And I stick by my personal experience: Jesse Helms was no racist.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hi Paul,
I sent you an email about registering and the comment below. My e-mail may well have been trapped in your spam folder.
Past Comment
I insist that I be given no more respect than pig tracks in mud. I host this blog at minimal expense for the reasons state here.
But Register first here.
After I make you an author (or Richard or Glenn or Larry can too) then you’ll be able to choose “site admin” at the top of the sidebar below search…and the rest is easy.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Paul, I just sent you another e-mail.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
But, if Helms wasn’t a racist, how do you explain his consistent use throughout his career of racism to advance his own politicial interests? If Helms wasn’t a racist, then isn’t his exploitation of racism damning of his Helms as a person? As recently as 1990, Helms ran offensively racist ads in his campaign (the “Hands’ commercial). If we wasn’t personally racist, such actions certainly demonstrate an utter lack of scruples on his part.
Cliff is right - the dynamics of race in the South are different than in other parts of the country. It’s a combination of history, culture, and demographics - the South is home to most of America’s African-American population. There is an inverse relationship between the political affiliation of Southern whites and blacks - something that has been a key component in the transition from a solidly democratic to a solidly republican south. White southerners were loyal democratic voters until the Civil Rights movement. That’s not accidental.
I think it’s important to note that racism is racism. That it is expressed differently north and south doesn’t make it any less distasteful.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Paul,
I certainly do respect your experience of Jesse Helms and it does not surprise me that you ” knew Helms personally, and his staff, and I never heard, saw, or felt a racist bone in his or their bodies.”
So here’s the question. Are you asking us to believe that Jesse Helms was NOT a racist as the result of your experience?
What exactly should we take from that?
Should we accept that Larry Craig is not gay because no one ever heard him acknowledge his homosexuality?
Should we accept that Bruce Bastian is not gay because he fathered children with his wife?
I’m not trying to diminish your experience in anyway, just trying to figure out what conclusions we can draw from them.
Thank you for your thoughtful clarification.
NOW. Will you please Register here?
July 11th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I am saying that my personal experience with the Senator (Helms, not Craig!) tells me he is not a racist. I think you stretch analogies a bit when you try to compare political speak with personal behavior as it relates to homosexual activity.
In fact, you actually make my previous point…there is a difference between the political and the personal. It would be one thing for a third party to claim that Senator Craig and Mr. Bastain are gay…and then another thing for themselves to announce (in word or deed) that they are.
Perhaps Helms has said he is a racist, but I am not aware of him ever doing so. I remember he once said that he is a bigot, if bigotry is defined as keeping an avowed lesbian out of running a federal agency. But, even there, I don’t think Helms was a bigot (of course, because if he is on that particular count, then so am I).
My conclusion is simple: I don’t believe Senator Helms was a racist.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Oy. Clearly you’re related to some “very important people”. Shame that gravitas isn’t genetic.
I can’t believe you pulled the “some my best friends are black” card. Heh!
There are more black men in prison, Cliff. But the question is disingenuous.
It’s on par with questions like these:
Are there more MEN in college or prison today?
Are there more WHITE MEN in college or prison today?
Are there more people in college or prison in California, today?
Not a trick question, my ass, Cliff.
By the way, Bob S. already answered your question. There are 3 (or maybe 5) times as many Black males of College Age in COLLEGE than there are in prison, Cliff.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Glendon, perhaps you can explain in more detail why the “Hands” commercial is offensively racist. Now, I’m assuming that you’re speaking as a denizen of the Southwest, not a Southerner infected with a seperate proprietary brand of racism.
Exactly what makes a campaign commercial that damns “affirmative action” so “offensively racist”?
July 12th, 2008 at 6:56 am
JD,
Thank you reviewing my “credentials”. On the question of gravitas, you should know that it was only in death my grandparents got whatever gravitas comes with being “important” as you say (whatever the hell THAT means).
No sir. When my grandparents moved back to Montgomery, their names were mud. Grandma had been rabble rousing with Eleanor for women’s rights (do you support womens’ right to vote) and they had both told Senator McCarthy to shove it up his ass and refused to testify before the House Unamerican Activities Committee ( I wonder if I would have has the balls to do that. Would you?).
When they began to help black folks, my Grandfather was fired from his law firm and they were labeled “Nigger lovers.”
Thats pretty much a death sentence in Montgomery Alabama. Crossed were burned on their lawn and people spat at them. Many of their friends disappeared and they went broke.
I can assure you I have far more gravitas today than they had back then at least from pompous, know-it-all, gun toting, white men (or women).
But they taught me about backbone and warned me about people like you. You are not really “about” anything important, and you don’t really “do” anything to improve the human condition, just your own.
And so the beat goes on and JD Bergers come along once in a while, bitch up a storm, and then eventually shrivel away into a haze of deluded angry “individual responsibility.”
I hope, should you loose your pension, health care, life insurance and get terminal cancer, you will be able to count on your individual responsibility to take care of your family.
If not, I promise, your gay son (if you are lucky enough to have one) will forgive you and sacrifice everything to take care of you.
btw: Anti-affirmative action is by itself racist because there is no such thing as reverse discrimination, just a lot of parents of lazy white kids who like to blame everybody else for their failures, and republican politicians lying to you with canards like “reverse discrimination” and the “sanctity of marriage”, and “the global war on terror..”
But I’m glad you and your buddy Bob are here (even at taxpayer expense). For whatever you might cripple swatting at flies on this blog, its less time at the gun range going bang, bang like real men.
…bang - Cliff
July 12th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Like flies before fall, the buzzing trapped at the window diminishes in power, until it becomes intermittent. Until at last the fly exhausted from its struggle of eating and spreading feces, staring into the sun, falls to the window ledge, where time and insignificance leave it to dry to a mouldering husk.
As in all things there is renewal, as the spawn maggots lie in their safe spots, waiting for any chance, to emerge and feed on the decay of society.
The life cycle is complete, all are needed, all find their way to what their nature finds important, as the puff of life spends its scant energies upon a world of ages, that turns on and on…whirling through space.
Buzz on mighty fly, there is a carcass waiting somewhere.
If you”loose” your pension Bob be sure to spend it wildly.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Cliff:
Your grandparents were amazing. It reminds me of a more recent story on 60 minutes about the poor guy who made the Abu Ghraib photos public. His “friends” and even family have rejected him just for getting the truth out. As with your grandparents, he will die with a great sense of peace, knowing he did the right thing.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Cliff,
Really, you don’t have any gravitas. Your posts are made up of pompous declarations that are proved to be completely false with just the slightest investigation. It’s a shame that you cite the impressive credentials of your grandparents to try to bolster your asinine arguments.
Trade on the credentials of your family all you like. I judge the man on what THEY have accomplished - not what their ancestors did.
And THAT is what AMERICA is about - the strength of the INDIVIDUAL - not the ROYALTY of their ancestors.
Regarding affirmative action - you didn’t bother to answer the question - your tirade regarding “reverse racism” not withstanding….