Jesse Helms died on July 4th, and his obituary in the Raleigh News & Observer (N&O) had this to say:
'he redefined politics in North Carolina, reinvigorated U.S. conservatism'
'Dole remembers Helms as genteel, generous'
'Defiant Helms drove South's GOP'
Allow me to say: WHAT!? We're being flattering about a man who was an unrepentant bigot (racist, sexist, homophobic) to the last!? We're pretending that this bastard was a good guy!?
Reasons to be glad he's dead:
- He sang the pro-slavery song 'Dixie' at Carol Moseley-Braun (1st & only black woman in the U.S. Senate)
- Opposed AIDS funding because he believed that victims had contracted it because of their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" (because they were gay)
- He referred to homosexuals as "weak, morally sick wretches"
- He supported Augusto Pinochet
- He routinely aired racially divisive campaign ads
- He called the 1964 Civil Rights Act "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the congress"
- He took the 'fun' out of 'fundamentalist'
- He didn't even have the courtesy to pretend he wasn't a bigot''
Sen. Elizabeth Dole carefully skirted the issue of what he actually stood for by talking about how nice and polite he was. Surprise, surprise: he was pleasant to a white, southern, christian woman.
What was actually surprising was in Rob Christensen's article:
...Helms was one of the key figures in the modern conservative movement-- trying to roll back the Democratic New Deals and Great Societies, seeking to stiffen the country's spine against communism, and trying to return American life to the 1950s in terms of race, gender and sexual orientation.
We all know that the right-wingers tend to be homophobic, but I think most of them would object to this characterization with regards to their ideas about race and gender... hmmm...
Anyway, here's a real obituary.
P.S. Happy Birthday President Bush.
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