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29 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Listen To What You Hear About Senator Helms..., August 30, 2005
This review is from: Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir (Hardcover)
...let him tell you himself.
I got this 300-page book this morning and finished it this afternoon. It's not a complicated read, which is actually something of a rarity among politician reminiscences. Now I think I'll pass it on to my dad and raise his blood pressure a little.
U2's Bono, campaigning at the time for amnesty for Third World debt, was on record as saying he genuinely liked Jesse Helms, then head of the Foreign Relations Committee, a fact that stunned me since I cannot imagine two more unlikely bedfellows. I thought if a leftist icon like Bono could have something good to say about a Senator so far to the right he makes most conservatives look moderate, then maybe he is worth a second consideration. And really, Helms was worthy of one. I admit I now think he is slightly funny, always candid, more "down home" than polished, and I no longer revile him with quite the same unfettered passion I did in the Clinton years during the William Weld nomination, when I lived in New England and Helms was public enemy number one up there.
Conservatives are sure to like this admittedly plain-spoken, honest memoir by one of America's most reviled Senators, but for most Americans, especially those left of center or in possession of a conscience centered around secular morality, this is going to be seen as a case of a man having been given enough rope to hang himself. "Senator No" who voted against the creation of a day honoring Martin Luther King, who unfalteringly challenged appointments of those candidates for office who did not agree with his own views, who explained he opposed the Civil Rights Act because southern society would have eventually corrected its own segregation issues without the Federal Government's intervention, is forthright in his explanations for his conduct. He makes the claim that Martin Luther King's unreleased FBI files show he was in fact a Marxist sympathizer during the Cold War, and Helms counters the growing iconic stature of that civil rights leader, by saying the US public deserves to know the whole truth behind this nearly-universally lauded individual. A valid point.
Helms also gives his views in this book on the US Presidents who were in office during his thirty-plus years in the Senate. He is strong in his praise of Ronald Reagan, generous toward both Presidents Bush, the latter of whom must surely rate as something of a political soul mate, and had less rancor toward President Clinton than I would have expected. Alas Helms does also write endlessly and monotonously on the subject of abortion, which he likens to the Jewish Holocaust, and challenges the rights of homosexuals (a group Helms more than opposes...he somehow seems to fear...) to any legal recognition whatsoever.
Helms stood outside the views of the US majority on most of the issues which he championed, and never won any of his re-election bids even in ultra-conservative North Carolina, by more than a slim majority. Still, this man does take a forthright stand on those matters he believes in, and despite being the target of so much ridicule and disapprobation by those in opposition to him, no scandal ever arose during all his years in office to lend weight to claims that he was personally dishonest or hypocritical in the fundamentalist Christian morality on which he based his campaigns.
I guess the bottom line on this memoir is this venerable Republican has earned the right to speak his mind in this his retired life, and he does it with more candor and vigor than most career politicians would have dared.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Standing firm for what he believes in., June 29, 2010
This review is from: Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir (Hardcover)
Jesse Helms was the first Republican 'since reconstruction' to win a senate seat in North Carolina. In Here's Where I Stand, he writes that among Republicans, very few were really conservative (more Rockefeller republicans) - and that Republicans were a long time minority in congress. Helms tried to change the way things were done by pushing for votes to become part of the public record. He says that conservative bills would be lost in committee and votes were cast by show of hands so folks back home wouldn't know how liberal their 'conservative' representatives really were. Helms shows he's not immune from doing this too, however. He writes that he, along with Kay Bailey Hutchison, ended university Pell grants to prison inmates. They had previously been competing for them. How is this different from what his colleagues had been doing? Right or wrong, aren't more inmates than ever attending college while incarcerated? Isn't the public still paying? Here in North Carolina, we now have a state lottery (North Carolina being one of the last states to institute one - possibly because of the influence of Helms). It's called (and always must be called) 'The Education Lottery' (you don't win an education the proceeds go to education). Same thing with traffic light cameras. All proceeds go toward 'education'. Obviously 'The Education Lottery' just frees up money for other programs. There's a total collected and a total spent. Is the final legacy of Jesse Helms merely that the public in North Carolina must be lied to in order to accept a liberal agenda? Or are we being 'oppressed' or intimidated by the Orwellian misnomer? Or is it just meant to unsettle us? Sometimes 'a cigar is just a cigar'.
Helms writes about his battles with the National Endowment for the Arts. Artists were being paid to produce art Helms couldn't even send through the mail (and newspapers who criticized Helms opposition, couldn't print, or even describe). He claims the media was defrauding the public (by not at all describing what the NEA was paying for); claiming the issue was about censorship. Artworks such as 'piss christ' and 'dung christ' and exhibits where, for just one example, photos show a bull whip sticking out of a man's rear. He brings up the spectacle of artists fleecing the government while promoting filth. What he doesn't bring up, is artists profiting from filth, that gets Jesse Helms re-elected to the senate?
Helms claims the issue was not about censorship. He does not say, 'what's so bad about censorship'? One can be to the right of Jesse Helms. Or is that the left? By Helms own admission, we have censorship. He really goes off on the media starting on page 127. Helms claims the media is engaged in "psychological warfare against the American people". This is the Helms we know and love. He repeats a line he's used in the past, "these TV shows are being produced by those who, if they do not hate America first, then they certainly have a smug contempt for American principle and values". In the 1950's, campaigning for a conservative Democrat, Helms is alleged to have called UNC, "the university of negroes and communists".
Helms claims there's a new sort of bigotry aimed at conservatives, or whites, or simply white men. I'd read the media report Helms saying this before, and more eloquently than he repeats it here. A lady who worked for Helms was on TV recently saying, "Helms was more about presenting a certain viewpoint" with a smile. Not sure if she was saying Helms was contributing to Democracy. . . or that Helms really wasn't a 'bigot' and 'racist' in real life. . . I suspect the later. I read this book keeping her statement in mind. It's hard to tell, but at times it seems as if maybe he is trying to represent people who feel the way he does - or who feel a certain way. In his memoir, Helms reverses this idea, writing, "Senator Kennedy played to win, and that made us work harder and dig deeper for every victory we gained. Without his opposition, we conservatives very likely would not have done so well in the past thirty years". Helms devotes a chapter to each president from Nixon to Clinton. He seems to like Hillary Clinton, presenting her as a bit of a flirt, and seems to dislike John Kerry. The way Helms characterizes these public figures and the interesting stories he tells deserves a review of it's own.
He saves his best accolades for Reagan, and to a lessor extent, Bush II, W, who he seems to see as more the intellectual heir to Reagan than his kinder father.
Helms was a Reagan Democrat. He often smiles and seems slightly 'pompous', perhaps. Genuinely, it seems, he's a very nice and honest guy. He lived in an age, where, women and minorities were 'suffering', yet Helms yields not at all (or not that much) to guilt tactics. So, Helms has reason to smile? He even claims Martin Luther King was a communist sympathizer (which I would have to agree with, after reading him). And I would add myself, that for whatever reason, MLK was a good part of the blame-'America' first movement. Helms talks briefly about a confrontation he had with rep Carol Moseley Braun, saying it was mischaracterized. Perhaps the two sides can never reconcile. Helms doesn't bring it up here, but other scholars have. . . The more the 'civil rights' and 'tolerance' movement advanced - the more women and minorities 'suffered', exponentially, and the weaker America became.
Much of the book is about foreign policy, Helm's pet interest. He would go on to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The chapter on the SFRC is perhaps the most interesting. Helms admits he took a hard line against Cuba, after the cold war ended. Helms insists that democracy is the only way. Just a thought. . . what happens when communists win elections? Do we count on the courts? What happens if one were to step down from power after their term is up? Hypothetically, of course. To step outside of the review for a moment. . . Jesse Helms really is my hero, but I do wonder if this is where the country went wrong. . . After winning the death struggle of the cold war (with their promise of a military victory put in writing as official policy) the US could have been more gracious in victory. Somewhere between nice and handsome guy, Bush senior, presiding over the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and Bill Clinton, perhaps having to appear tough, and yes Jesse Helms in the senate, the world missed a great opportunity. Reagan himself might not have missed this opportunity. Helms describes him not only as the great communicator but as the great compromiser as well, writing, "the very agreeableness and positive attitude that made Ronald Reagan so likeable made him susceptible to arguments in favor of compromise". I remember a story of Reagan at an arms control summit in iceland with Gorbachev, with the two delegations being unable to reach agreement. Reagan and Gorbachev went off alone with just their translators and came back with a specific arms reduction treaty - taking these things seriously and not as a stage to sell the respective leaders to the public back home. Ignoring these world events as conspiracy - might there have been a new Century of peace if the US had been more generous in victory, or more forgiving?
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8 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jesse Helms explains himself, October 22, 2005
This review is from: Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir (Hardcover)
The only other political figure as divisive as former Senator Jesse Helms is former President Bill Clinton. That's saying something considering the endless number of scandals both big and small that plagued Clinton's presidency. Jesse Helms had no comparable problems during his thirty years in office, but derision and controversy followed him nonetheless. Why? Because the very presence of Helms, an archconservative of the first order, vexed to no end the hopeless liberals in the mainstream media. The primary way journalism hacks dealt with Helms was to not deal with him, i.e. try to ignore his presence in the Senate. When it became absolutely necessary to mention his name, like during the failed William Weld nomination as ambassador to Mexico in which Helms played a major role, the tactic switched to good old-fashioned tar and feathering. The media mavens, barely containing their scornful smirks, heaped derision on the venerable senator from North Carolina. "Obstructionist" and "extremist" were the least harmful labels applied to Helms. We were much more likely to hear insinuations about racism (a favorite smear employed by the left to reframe debates near and dear to their hearts) and hardheaded cold heartedness. The Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief when Helms retired a few years ago.
Now Jesse Helms has reemerged, albeit briefly, with a single volume memoir entitled, "Here's Where I Stand." The book serves as his opportunity to clear the air, so to speak, by providing interested readers with information on his upbringing and how his life informed the decisions he made as a senator. I knew that Helms was born and raised in North Carolina, but I didn't know the particulars until I read this engaging book. He grew up poor in a small town called Monroe, the son of man who served the village as head of both the police and fire departments. Helms recalls his childhood as a golden time in his life despite the fact that the country was wading through the worst of the Great Depression. Through tenacity and a willingness to take a number of different jobs, Helms managed to impress the sort of people who could help a serious young man secure a slot in college. The future senator worked hard at his studies, joined the Navy when World War II broke out, married his wife at roughly the same time, and began a career in journalism all within the space of a few years. What comes across in these sections most strongly is the fact that Jesse Helms knew how to create opportunities and then take advantage of them, a trait largely lost to most of the populace today.
I had no idea about Helms's journalistic background, let alone the fact that he came to statewide prominence thanks to his daily editorials on WRAL during the early days of television. His experience as a media personality likely prepared him for the derision he faced when he ran for his first term as senator in the early 1970s. Largely written off by the national journalism outlets when he initially captured his seat, the same people spent the next thirty years trying to marginalize his influence and force him out of office. Helms eventually chaired the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a body that oversees everything from the confirmation of ambassadors to treaty relationships with various countries. The author highlights several important events that confronted him while he sat on this committee, including the Weld controversy, the Panama Canal giveaway imbroglio, and the tensions between China and Taiwan. He makes no apologies for taking tough stands on issues. In fact, he takes pleasure in the fact that his opposition dumped so much scorn upon him! A man knows he's being faithful to his principles, claims Helms, when his enemies go nuts trying to stop him. That's a fairly refreshing position to take in an age when most politicians twist like the wind to avoid the slightest whiff of controversy.
Helms's book doesn't feel like a typical political memoir. It's short, for one thing, and he moves over material quite fast. He sums up his various political campaigns in as few pages as possible because he never liked the process candidates go through to raise lots of money. Again, this feels alien to the typical political autobiography wherein the author relates every minute detail describing their run for office. The best thing going for "Here's Where I Stand" is Helms's sense of humor, both about others (that anecdote about Strom Thurmond is hilarious) and about himself. It's difficult to think of Helms without recalling the images of him glowering on television, or making "statements" that supposedly confirmed his intractable brand of conservatism. All of that was obviously a media invention. The Jesse Helms in this book is a man who likes all sorts of people, even liberals who opposed him, and a man who likes to laugh. Check out the picture of him with Madeleine Albright! Funny stuff, I say, and a picture that does much to dispel the myths propagated by the media for far too long. Heck, even Bono of U2 fame likes Jesse Helms. According to the author, they still keep in touch today.
I did have a few problems with the book, mainly centering on Helms's unabashed support of President George W. Bush. He calls our current president a conservative, and I'm not sure that label is appropriate. After all, Bush obviously doesn't believe in many bread and butter issues precious to the conservative mindset. His reckless spending policies and his fear of the veto pen doesn't make a lot of sense to most card-carrying members of the GOP. This disagreement aside, "Here's Where I stand" should find a place on every the reading list of every Republican. I wish Jesse Helms the best in his retirement and thank him for his years of public service.
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