July 06, 2008
Remembering Jesse Helms
Former Senator Jesse Helms, friend of the likes of Roberto D'Aubisson (the founder of El Salvadoran death squads, murderer of Oscar Romero, spiritual inspiration for the rape-murder of the Maryknoll nuns) and Argentine junta head Leopoldo Galtieri, defender of Jim Crow and South African apartheid, and general philistine, is dead. In the Telegraph:
A fervent anti-Communist, his closest known foreign associate was Roberto d'Aubuisson, the leader of the El Salvadorean Right and the man identified by the State Department as responsible for the assassination of archbishop Oscar Romero while he was saying Mass.
Helms had also supported Pinochet in Chile and had been the only senator to back the Argentine junta against Britain during the Falklands war. He once advocated the invasion of Cuba and was one of the few American conservatives to back the white apartheid regimes in Southern Africa.
Helms was also known for his strong personal animosity towards President Clinton. He had been particularly incensed by Clinton's decision – one of his first on becoming President in 1992 – to remove the ban on homosexuals in the military.
Following his election as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Helms was asked by a journalist whether Clinton was fit to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. "No," he replied, "I don't and neither do the people of the armed forces."
Two days later he compounded the damage by saying – on the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination – that "Clinton better watch out if he comes down here (North Carolina). He'd better have his bodyguard."
Posted by Robin Varghese at 10:37 AM | Permalink
Comments
Thanks Robin,
-a fitting tribute.
Regarding (especially) Helms' connection with D'Aubuisson, the only thing that might be more fitting would be a recent snapshot of the Senator wrapped in red, white, and blue bunting looking up at sign reading, "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"
Posted by: Jim | Jul 6, 2008 2:10:13 PM
Applause to Jim! From another lover of Dante!
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | Jul 6, 2008 4:18:47 PM
D'Aubuisson was a champion among monsters. He released mental patients to torture political prisoners, and some of these acts were beyond human comprehension in cruelty and perversion. D'Aubuisson was also a conservative christian evangelical, and Jesse fit with these 'values".
Good riddance to despicable animal.
Countries like Guatemala and El Salvador would last 3 or 4 days before being taken over by a revolutionary council without US intervention, and support of the client thugs the US appoints to "protect US interests".
I spent quite a bit of time in Central America, and it is a experience not forgotten.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jul 6, 2008 4:52:53 PM
So, um, is being taken over by a revolutionary council a good thing or a bad thing?
Posted by: Sagredo | Jul 6, 2008 6:53:44 PM
It of course depends on the Revolutionary Council, and of course your social status. The 1% in Guatemala and El Salvador who control 90% of the wealth would be worse off.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jul 6, 2008 7:39:01 PM
Would any of the other 99% be better off, and for how long? Has this worked in the past?
Posted by: Sagredo | Jul 6, 2008 10:12:17 PM
Sagredo,
It probably depends upon whether it's a pick-your-poison, or drink-this poison-situation.
If 99% have been enduring a drink-your-poison existence,the idea of having an option might seem like an improvement.
Posted by: Jim | Jul 6, 2008 11:09:03 PM
Robin, thanks! When Jesse Helms is just another (late) conservative to many, many people, it's good to be reminded he was an odious and horrifying conservative, the Mouth of the South in the worst possible way, and that his harmful decisions, words and actions were hardly limited by US borders.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jul 7, 2008 12:01:21 AM
Sagredo, thanks for reminding us that the cost of not rape-murdering nuns, killing bishops, torturing peasants, throwing trade union organizers out of helicopters, etc., is re-education camps.
Posted by: Robin | Jul 7, 2008 3:20:34 AM
Robin--
Education is actually a good thing, along with health care and a safety net. These are a threat to our friend Sagredo apparently, as they often restrict flow of wealth upward. Educated, healthy people are harder to oppress.
A few months harvesting sugar cane for a elite will often give them a appreciation of manual labor, and embed them sensually in the natural world (pardon the sarcasm).
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jul 7, 2008 10:32:29 AM
I love your peripatetic, introductory list of modifiers describing Helms! You've said it all.
Posted by: Maeve Adams | Jul 7, 2008 12:52:48 PM
Dave, is a revolutionary council the only way to secure education, along with health care and a safety net? And how well has the revolutionary council worked in the past overall?
Jim, is there a non-poisonous option?
Posted by: Sagredo | Jul 8, 2008 1:01:25 AM
Sagredo--
Lose the "revolutionary council" concept-- it obviously triggers a negative response in you.
Think 'social justice" and adequate housing and food, and safety for your family and comrades.
We don't need Elite's who, after getting connection and a MBA at Harvard, learned proper electrode placement on genitalia from the School Of The Americas, and raped and scraped the resources of the county of choice, now will have to leave for the house in Miami or the Villa in Switzerland.
I'm on your side with higherarchial organized political structures-- all scum eventually rises to the top, right or left.
As Abbey pointed out "society is like a stew-- it needs to be stirred frequently, or the scum rises to the top."
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jul 8, 2008 3:24:36 AM
Sagredo,
A non-poisonous option might consist of a mutually concocted elixir of shared triumph and tribulations. But a recipe cooked up by elites to split those experiences apart eventually, but inevitably, turns toxic for the less well heeled.
We can see such a recipe being tweaked, seasoned, and perfected in the USA as we speak.
Posted by: Jim | Jul 8, 2008 7:55:46 AM
murders in the hundreds of millions by the "re-educators" of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Shining Path, Hussein and others and you lot still consider it the "better option"?
ah, as long as you "meant well" it's all good.
Posted by: bob k. mando | Jul 8, 2008 2:22:36 PM
murders in the hundreds of millions by the "re-educators" of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Shining Path, Hussein and others and you lot still consider it the "better option"?
ah, as long as you "meant well" it's all good.
Posted by: bob k. mando | Jul 8, 2008 2:23:01 PM
Jesus Bob, you may want to think about where this logic of justification get us...
...or, perhaps in keeping with your tone, you may want to step up your contribution to the rape-murder of peasant children in order to prevent gulags, since that's always been the most moral and most effective way of stopping Leninism, yeah, works wonders, doesn't create either-or's does it? nor does it drive people into the hands of the other side? nope, no siree, bob.
But in all seriousness, does the unquestioned fact that tens of millions died at the hands of Leninist regimes and movements really justify for you the brutalities against peasants, priests and nuns, who may have in point in opposing the brutalization of poor peasants, the defense of Jim Crow? (Or am I slow in not realizing that Jim Crow was obviously designed as a measure against communism?) Or does one simply have to be fighting a Leninist movement to doing anything you want?
The irony of your comment is that what is true in it--that many have and do excuse the horrors of the communist experience by appeals to the 'radiant future'--is akin to what your comment seems to be performing--excusing the crimes of death squads and brutal landlords by appeals to 'or else the gulag'.
Posted by: Robin | Jul 8, 2008 2:49:16 PM
Robin
i excused nothing.
i was merely pointing out the huge blind spot that all of those above who are in favor of / see nothing wrong with "revolutionary councils" and "re-education" / "education" camps and the rest of that ilk have.
i don't bother keeping up with 3quarks regularly so here's a question for you:
did you cover the Russian admission of responsibility for Litvinenko's murder?
Posted by: bob k. mando | Jul 9, 2008 2:19:09 AM
sigh.
never mind about Litvinenko. by know, i should know better than to trust a newspaper editor to put an accurate heading on a story.
"senior official" "off the record" means nothing.
Posted by: bob k. mando | Jul 9, 2008 2:25:28 AM
I think many on the left appreciate the "Market"--
How else, except by selling it to us, could we get the rope to hang the capitalist?
(Sarcasm off, and my apologies to Lenin)
Robin-
These people are reason based compared to the cabbages on the religion issue--
They do have the point that even Marx would not of made it through 1935 Moscow without "re-education"
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Jul 9, 2008 8:10:12 PM
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