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RIP Senator Helms. He was one American who stood for what he believed.
Former Senator Jesse Helms dead at age 86
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RIP Senator Helms. He was one American who stood for what he believed.
I
It's On A Slab
Guest
Condolences to his family and friends, but he and his kind will not be missed by me.
As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)
Ancient history? No. Helms remains unapologetic to this day. Forty years after the Smith campaign, Helms would win election against black opponent Harvey Gantt with another ad playing to racist white fear-- the so-called "white hands" ad, in which a white man's hands crumple a rejected job application while a voiceover intones, "You needed that job…but they had to give it to a minority."
In columns, commentaries and pronouncements from the Senate floor, Helms sowed hatred and called names: The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)
Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)
I was living in North Carolina during that election.
Helms was beatable, but Gantt ran a dreadfully incompetent campaign. Despite the allegation in the story that Helms won solely by playing the race card, in Cumberland County, I never saw the ad, so I would have been difficult for it to influence my vote one way or the other.
Which leads to the question, is is out of bounds to criticize so-called "Affirmative Action" which is both bad policy and a blatant violation of the equal protection clause of the XIV Amendment?
Last night on the Birmingham news, a story ran about local "get out the vote" campaign by a local Democrat party official.
As this local Democrat party official, who was an African-American woman, walked around a room talking to other African-Americans, she would say, "We are going to elect that brother to the White House." She did not say, "We should elect Barack Obama because his policies will be the most beneficial for the nation at large." She was interested in supporting him (seemingly) solely because of his race.
So is it out of bounds to make not of race in opposing a particular candidate, yet acceptable to make note of race in supporting one?
Supporting someone just because they are of a certain race is poor on either side. I don't care what color a politician is they are still a "politician".
However, I don't think this is the late Sen. Helm's only infraction because of his racism. There are those that will say that he was a "product of his time", but I tend to believe that the world is "shaped by us" (especially our leaders) and that it does not shape us.
However, I don't think this is the late Sen. Helm's only infraction because of his racism. There are those that will say that he was a "product of his time", but I tend to believe that the world is "shaped by us" (especially our leaders) and that it does not shape us.
I would agree completely. As I have said elsewhere, I would vote for Alan Keyes over Obama, Clinton, Dean, or Edwards. Not because of Keyes' race, but because of his positions. Keyes' race is irrelevant to me.
I did not live in Carolina during the other incidents cited in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Jesse Helms was completely within bounds, in my view, to call attention to the inequities of Affirmative Action. That is a policy that fairly demands serious scrutiny in terms of ends sought, and means to achieve them, as well as serious public debate.
Helms' ad was certainly more honest than LBJ's "vote for Goldwater and he will get your daughter nuked" ad in 1964.
I
It's On A Slab
Guest
Given that Helms had a long history of racist demagoguery (sp.), I think we all know what his true intentions were whenever he assailed affirmative action. He was an unreconstructed segregationist Dixiecrat, part of the Southern exodus to the GOP after Lyndon got the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts passed. In that regard, I give him grudging credit. He never backed down from his views. Even Strom Thurmond and Geo. Wallace lived to recant much of their previous racist political stances. I do remember the Gantt/Helms election. There were so many carpetbaggers campaigning for and bankrolling Gantt that I almost started pulling for Helms to win.
Do you hold the same feelings for Senator Byrd as you do Jessie Helms?
To go on record, I am not a fan of either.
And to further ask, I am still waiting at the liqour store. Where's that butt whooping?
Ah, yes. The Senate's senior KKK alum, (since the retirement of Senator Fritz Hollings.
But, Byrd, according to his staffers, "only joined the Klan because Senator Byrd supported their anti-Communist activities." Yeah, right.
The really crappy thing about former Klan membership is that, in order to demonstrate his change of heart, a politician is required to endorse Affirmative Action.
Both are wrong, and for the same reason: racism. One is racism against African-Americans, the other is state-mandated racism in favor of the same group.
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Tidewater,
You seem to want to get into an "affirmative action" debate on this thread. If that is the case why not just post a new thread and title "Affirmative Action: Racism or not?" However, if you do a search you can find most of our thoughts on this subject as it has been debated to "ad nauseam". Here is one for you: http://tidefans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42186&highlight=affirmative+action
Just a thought.
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Senator Helms was a great hero to many of us on the Right. He will be missed. He was one of the last of a dying breed--republicans with a spine and able to stand up to liberal democrats and their policies. Although I must say I never quite understood his 'thing' for Maddy Albright....that one will always be a mystery to me.:conf2:
I
It's On A Slab
Guest
What time you get off work? I always did say you ran a @*#^ business. Well, you don't have to get all mad and all. --- Nope. Byrd is a strange bird (no pun intended). I think he still holds those old-line Dixiecrat yearnings, but he can't voice them as loudly. Heck, Strom Thurmond even had a black daughter that he took care of for decades. A sad vestige of Jim Crow...he couldn't dare recognize her. Such a strange story all around.
Yet I'm sure you didn't eat for days at the mere thought that Ted Kennedy might finally get his comeuppance...
Not really trying to hijack the thread and get into a debate on affirmative action.
Slab had cited the Helms add along with Helms' other overtly racist ads.
While I would agree with the characterization of the earlier ads (opposition to "racing mingling" etc.), it is not racist to point out the racism of government-mandated racism. In fact, it is almost the definition of liberal, in the classic (vice modern leftist) sense of that term.
Well, it's what happens when you have centuries of government mandated "racist" policies such as Jim Crow, segregation, voter literacy testing, etc.... I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, but it is a direct result of that "wolf" that Thomas Jefferson wrote about and warned the government against.
Wait, wasn't Sen. Helms at that same meeting with Thomas Jefferson?
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I
It's On A Slab
Guest
Yep. With most of the politicians who pushed those things, nearly all of them lived to repudiate Jim Crow, segregation, literacy tests, Southern-fried apartheid. With Jesse, you always got the impression that he never saw anything wrong with those things.
Regardless of whether you agree with the late Senator Helms' position on particular issues, his steadfastness was never in doubt. You could always be assured that he would hold his ground and vote his conscience. IOW, neither he nor his vote were for sale. In that, he has held the respect of the majority of his Congressional peers. That's a lot more than I can say for many Senators and Representatives today, as most are now prone to take only the side of the highest bidder.
I saw a bumper sticker in 2000 that said, "Thurmond-Helms 2000: Don't waste 200 years of experience."
I'd like to think that, if I were an African-American, my reaction to Affirmative Action would be, "Wait, you want to undermine the Equal Protection Clause of the XIV Amendment, in order to give me hiring preference that at a later date can be taken away from me and given to some other underprivileged group? No, thank you. Just enforce the Equal Protection Clause as it is written."
The appropriate response to racism is colorblindness, not counter-racism.
I will concede the characterization of Helms' earlier ads. No honest way to look at them but racist.
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The fact that Helms' correct position on this question (IMHO) might come from a place that some may not like does not make him wrong. And, there's not much debate that affirmative action, regardless of past injustices, etc., is unconstitutional if you simply read the amendment. It pretty plainly says that Congress shall make no law . . . . It doesn't say Congress shall make no law except those that might work to redress past greivances.
Also, if Helms is at fault for driving the South toward the GOP, is LBJ not just as at "fault" for driving the vast majority of African-Americans toward the Democratic Party? That development can only be characterized as stunning in light of the many years of official injustice at the hands of the Democratic Party in the South as well as other places. I mean, the GOP is even referred to as the "Party of Lincoln," for crying out loud.
Could it be that LBJ's sudden epiphany on civil rights issues had more to do with political strategy that a real desire to help? I don't know the answer, but I do think it is a fair question in light of the last 45 years or so.
Also, if Helms is at fault for driving the South toward the GOP, is LBJ not just as at "fault" for driving the vast majority of African-Americans toward the Democratic Party? That development can only be characterized as stunning in light of the many years of official injustice at the hands of the Democratic Party in the South as well as other places. I mean, the GOP is even referred to as the "Party of Lincoln," for crying out loud.
Could it be that LBJ's sudden epiphany on civil rights issues had more to do with political strategy that a real desire to help? I don't know the answer, but I do think it is a fair question in light of the last 45 years or so.
I
It's On A Slab
Guest
So, your position is: Maybe we should have waited until Hell froze over, and then, just maybe, black people would have gotten the right to vote, or be accorded basic civil rights. Who gives a crap if it was Lyndon, or Satan, himself, or if it was pure political manuevering? As my father-in-law so prophetically said,"Hell, used to be EVERYBODY was a Democrat. Well, up until they gave blacks he right to vote."
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