Jesse Helms: He Hated.

The first thing I thought of when I heard Jesse Helms had died today was an American Experience documentary relating the story of Lyndon Johnson using his considerable persuasive talents to try and convince George Wallace to allow blacks to vote in Alabama.

From the transcript:

Johnson: "George, you and I shouldn't be thinking about 1964. We should be thinking about 1984. We'll both be dead and gone then. Now, you've got a lot of poor people down there in Alabama, a lot of ignorant people. A lot of people need jobs. A lot of people need a future. You could do a lot for them. Now, in 1984, George, what do you want left behind?

You want a great big marble monument that says, 'George Wallace: He Built', or do you want a little piece of scrawny pine laying there along that hot Caliche soil that says, 'George Wallace: He Hated'?"

That's what Jesse Helms is left with: His monument of Hate.

I'm sure it would have driven him crazy to know he died on the nation's birthday, the country that crushed his beloved Confederacy. I'm sure he would have prefered to have died on April 12th.

Anyway, I don't want to waste too much time on this racist piece of crap. Basically, here's all you need to know about Jesse Helms; "White Hands," one of the most outrageous campaign ads in American history from his race against Harvey Gantt (gasp, a black man running for the Senate in North Carolina!) in 1996. Playing on the primal fears of the decendants of the southern yoeman farmer, always the preferred patsy for the agents of the southern aristocracy, Helms won the election 54% to Gantt's 46% (which just goes to show why I will never live in NC again).