July 16, 2008
The Jesse Helms HIV/AIDS Bill?
We don't think there are many people who would consider politicians as containing much in the way of a sense of humor or any sense of irony, but in an awesome move of political satire, Republican Senator Libby Dole of North Carolina added an amendment to an AIDS bill now winding its way through the Senate that would name it after recently deceased senator Jesse Helms. The bill would give about $50 billion dollars in funding to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases around the world and with it, a possible lifting of a travel ban on people with HIV. What makes the amendment such a great bit of political satire (right up there with the New Yorker cover) is that Helms was a long time racist and homophobe who said any number of things against people (queer, straight, black, brown, etc.) with AIDS, and fought any and all funding against it. In fact, it was Helms who created the travel ban on people with HIV. (R.I.P, Helms. If that's at all possible.)
Oh wait...this just in....it's not a bit of satire. Dole is completely serious about what she's doing.
This story makes our head hurt.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
if this idea doesn't work out, perhaps libby could dedicate a sperm bank in his honor
"There's not one single case of [legislation] in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." - Jesse Helms, 5/17/88
Yay for the most NC related news on the SFist this week.
According to Helms I'm a Communist.
Anyway, Remember when Bono and Helms teamed up to fight Aids in Africa starting circa 2000?
And in a related note, you should hear Zach Galifianakis talk about Helms.
At the end of his career, he actually reconsidered his stance and joined forces with Bono to garner $600 million in AIDS relief around the world.
Of course, that was after he learned that a majority of AIDS/HIV was being spread throughout the world via heterosexual contact, not through the "sick, degenerate lifestyle" as he called it. He expressed regret for not getting involved sooner, and that's probably the rationale behind Libby's bizarre naming of this bill.
And I am in no way defending that sick, racist, homophobic f**k Helms, whom I'm sure is dancing at the business end of Satan's pitchfork as we speak (if I believed in such nonsense).
Just giving background on what her thinking probably was.
Is this their version of the George W Bush Sewage Plant? Everybody's so sarcastic these days I can't figure out what they're actually trying to get at.
Oh who cares? It's the spirit of the thing that counts, and if Helms was against anything, it was idea of inclusion.
That foul piece of scum is buried at Historic Oakwood Cemetery in NC. Someday I plan to visit. With a full bladder.
Better that he should have never been born.