It is the other place, Jesse...

By J. Thomas Duffy

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

Yes, there he is, the recently-departed Jesse Helms, relaxing in his big, plush condo, the extremely comfortable Barker Lounger, favorite beverage in-hand, settling in to watch some television.

Quickly, though, Helms blanches, fear and anger overtaking his body.

There, on the screen, is this:

Elizabeth Dole Tries To Name AIDS Bill After Jesse Helms

Republican Senator Dole introduced an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the recently deceased Jesse Helms. Helms, of course, was a strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment.

A guttural, anguished cry comes out of Helms.

Then, on the screen, is "Joe My God," and he begins reading off the list:

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 2002 announced that he'd changed his mind about AIDS funding for Africa, but not for American gays, because homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."

"No!, No!" a weeping Helms shouts back at the screen.

"Stop! Stop!"

Over and over, the same thing plays on this television -- for hours and hours.

He can't escape it, the television won't turn off, the volume can't be lowered.

Then his host enters.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Helms?"

Maybe it's Louis Cyphre, coming to claim his soul.

Or little, six year-old Anthony Fremont, who liked to create his own television (which Helms best learn to say, very quickly, "Real Good Anthony ... That was some real good television", otherwise, run the risk of being wished into the cornfield).

Or, is it the cornfield is where he is?

I prefer to think of it being Sebastian Cabot's "Pip", with Helms clutching at him, crying, pleading ...

"Why ... Why are you doing this to me? ... Why would you bring me here and do this? ...I'm a God-fearing man ... This could only happen in the other place and I'm a God-fearing man ... I'm a believer ..."

As in the episode, Pip retorts "Heaven? What ever gave you the idea that you were in heaven Mr.Helms? This is the other place!"

**********

Bonus Helms' Karma Riffs

So Nice ... The Very Last Moments of Jesse Helms

Wonkette: Elizabeth Dole Wants To Name AIDS Relief Bill After Heroic AIDS Goblin Jesse Helms

John Aravosis: Dead racist bigot Jesse Helms, AIDS hero? I don't think so

Eschaton: Rolling In His Grave

Pam's House Blend: The Empty Wig's flipped: proposes naming AIDS bill after Jesse Helms

Andrew Sullivan: The Jesse Helms PEPFAR Bill

Chris Johnson: Punished for being HIV-Positive?














(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Jesse Helms: "senile racist buffoon"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Generally, I'm with Capt. Fogg -- but let me add a few things:

1) Now that he's done being waterboarded (i.e., tortured), Christopher Hitchens is back to being alternately inane (e.g., when he writes about Iraq) and edifying-perceptive-funny (e.g., when he writes about pretty much anything else), and his "Farewell to a Provincial Redneck," which includes the quoted part of the title of this post, is right on the mark: "The way to mark Helms' passing is to recognize that he prolonged the life of the old segregated South and the Dixiecrat ascendancy and that in his own person, not unlike Strom Thurmond, he personified much of its absurdity and redundancy."

2) Jonathan Chait, quoting Obsidian Wings, is right on the mark, too: "Hilzoy has a lot of detail about Helms' "particular vision" of civil rights. Among other things, Helms was an avowed believer in black intellectual inferiority, an hysterical opponent of interracial marriage, called the 1964 Civil Rights Act 'the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress,' and said of civil rights demonstrators, '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.' Helm's 'vision' of civil rights for African-Americans was that there should be none."

(Update 1: Chait's TNR colleague Issac Chotiner looks at the right's racism-excusing love-in with Helms.)

(Update 2: For more, see Steve Benen's response to the National Review's love-in: "Helms' legacy is one of hate, segregation, and white supremacy. His name should be an embarrassment to the conservative movement that looks to him as a leader." It should be, but it isn't. Which says a lot about the conservative movement and its policies, positions, and priorities.)

3) Even the oft-seemingly-senile David Broder gets it. WaPo has reposted his 2001 piece, "Jesse Helms, White Racist": "What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is 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."

I wouldn't call that "unique" (there have been many others who have done the same, just as there are many who do so now), and Broder is far too soft on Helms (who didn't just "pick at the scab" but actually kept wounding the body politic), but there's something to be said for calling a racist a racist.

And Jesse Helms was, among many other reprehensible things, a racist.

And worse.

Jesse Helms -- dead at last

By Capt. Fogg

It's truly unfair that we all have to die, but I don't feel that way about Jesse Helms. It was time for his ideas and his politics to go a long, long time ago. Helms, the patron saint of the tobacco pushers, the enemy of nuclear-test-ban treaties, and a motive force in moving the American Center as far right as any Third World generalissimo has ever done has died and gone to hell.

Race baiter, bigot, and blowhard, he stood against everything I have been proud of in America. We would have been better off had he never been born and I will fly the flag more proudly today because he is finally dead.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)