Jesse Helms has left the Plantation

Jackson Clubb | 7/04/2008 12:06 pm | Shadowboxing the Apocalypse

Former US Senator Jesse Helms, died as an immigrant in the land of his birth. He died today, July 4, 2008, at the age of 86.

Helms was a five-term senator, choosing not to to run for a sixth term in 2002. He became an icon of intolerance and fringe-right politics. As Rueters politely stated:

Helms, a blunt-talking product of the Old South, was known as "Senator No" for opposing just about anything that obstructed his conservative view of the world. Link

How fitting that the corporate media would talk code regarding his departure. Helms was a belligerent racist, possessed of the most extreme positions in the US Congress.

In the end, Helms lost his battle against civil rights and even failed to protect big tobacco from an informed public. Margret Meade said we are immigrants in the world our children inhabit. Ol' Jesse was an example. He left an America that he wasn't part of, feet first. Greatest hits from his Wiki page;

Helms was particularly vitriolic when speaking of gays and lesbians, blaming them for "the proliferation of AIDS," and stating that he disliked using the word "gay" to refer to them since, "...there's nothing gay about them."

Helms opposed the Martin Luther King Day bill in 1983 on grounds that King had two associates with communist ties, Stanley Levison and Jack O'Dell; as well, he voiced disapproval of King's alleged philandering.

Helms' referred to the University of North Carolina (UNC) as the "University of Negroes and Communists." (Charleston Gazette, 9/15/95) [2]

Helms once deeply offended a black colleague, Democratic Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, by singing part of "Dixie" on a Capitol elevator.

Jess Helms' extremeism was not contained by the borders of the US. He was a supporter of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Helms was a member of the "World Ant-Communist League (WACL), an international collection of fascists which included several former Waffen SS militia groups, the Unification Church, Philipine Dictator Marcos, American White Power organizations, South American death squads, and Asian gangsters.

2008 is the year decency wins. There was nothing decent, patriotic, or American about Jesse Helms.

Somewhere, there will be tearful eulogies around burning crosses.

The rest of us can look to a better future.