Shorter Jesse Helms

I guess straight people do get AIDS every once in a while, but we were right about keeping the darkies in their place.

There. Now you don't have to read his book. You're welcome. (Bolds mine)

RALEIGH, N.C. - In his upcoming memoir, former Sen. Jesse Helms acknowledges he was wrong about the AIDS epidemic but believes integration was forced before its time by "outside agitators who had their own agendas."

News Flash: Jesse Helms is still a huge fucking bigot. Film at eleven.

In the book, Helms suggests he believed voluntary racial integration would come about without pressure from the federal government or from civil rights protests that he said sharpened racial antagonisms.

Yeah... it had nothing to do with those friendly lynchings. It was those damn people fighting for equality! And I'm sure all of your segregationist buddies across the land would have just suddenly had a change of heart and welcomed integration. "Voluntary racial integration..." is he kidding?

"We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance," according to the uncorrected proof. "We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust."

Yeah, because INTEGRATION caused that, not SEGREGATION.

Jesus, what balls.

Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cited friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

"Until then," Helms writes, "it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high risk populations. I was wrong."

Tell it to them.



That photo, by the way, is from 1992. I'd imagine it's a wee bit bigger now, thanks to you and your buddies denying the existence of AIDS and all but eliminating research.

This so-called "apology" isn't good enough. Nothing could be.

Oh, and I'm sure all of the proceeds he'll make off this book will go straight to AIDS research and charities for people with AIDS.

Just watch me hold my breath.



(Sometimes I feel I've got to *cross-post* run away...)