MetaFilter posts tagged with Helms

In the name of Defense.

zarq — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:32:55 -0800

In December 1974, New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh's front-page account (paywall) of the CIA's MK-ULTRA program documented their illegal domestic intelligence operations against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States. The article eventually prompted investigations by the Rockefeller Commission and the Church and Pike committees. "There have been other reports on the CIA's doping of civilians, but they have mostly dished about activities in New York City. Accounts of what actually occurred in San Francisco have been sparse and sporadic. But newly declassified CIA records, recent interviews, and a personal diary of [George H. White,] an operative at Stanford Special Collections shed more light on the breadth of the San Francisco operation." SF Weekly: "Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA doped San Francisco citizens with LSD." MK-ULTRA: Previously on Metafilter. (Via)

How the Daddy of Jesse Helms Gave Birth to Black Power

jonp72 — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:03:04 -0800

In 1936 in the Jim Crow South, Robert F. Williams was an 11-year-old black boy in Monroe, North Carolina, who watched helplessly as Jesse Helms Sr. (father and namesake of the former senator) beat an African-American woman to the ground and "dragged her off to the nearby jailhouse, her dress up over her head, the same way that a cave man would club and drag his sexual prey." Years later, after a stint in the segregated military, Williams returned home to Monroe and worked as an NAACP organizer, where he brought international attention to the Kissing Case, a 1958 incident in which two black boys under the age of 10 were sentenced to a reformatory for kissing a white girl. By then, Williams had also attracted controversy for his advocacy of armed self-defense, a position he outlined in the book Negroes with Guns. But it would all change overnight in 1961, when Williams landed on FBI's Most Wanted list, after being charged with kidnapping a white couple that Williams claimed he was trying to save from an angry black crowd. Williams became a fugitive, accepting asylum in Cuba, where he would broadcast the program Radio Free Dixie. Then, after having a falling out with the American Communist Party, Williams relocated to China, where Chairman Mao himself issued the Statement Supporting the Afro-Americans in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Imperialism at Williams' behest. Then, in 1969, Williams successfully bargained with the Nixon Administration to ensure his safe passage back to America, trading inside knowledge of the Cultural Revolution for amnesty from kidnapping charges, which were later dropped by the state of North Carolina in the 1970s. A Chinese propaganda poster inspired by Robert F. Williams The documentary Negroes with Guns: Robert Williams and Black Power (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) A letter from Robert F. Williams to Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations So Long Patrick Henry, the pilot episode of the TV show I Spy, which features Ivan Dixon as a fictionalized version of Robert F. Williams and Muhammad Ali

Don Helms, steel guitar master, passes on.

flapjax at midnite — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:56:42 -0800

Don Helms, the steel guitarist in Hank Williams' Drifting Cowboys band, died on August 11. He was 81. Don provided the smooth-as-silk string stylings for over 100 of Hank's tunes, including Hey Good Lookin' and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. See Don demonstrate some of that steel guitar goodness in a snazzy version of Blues Stay Away From Me, or this instrumental rendition of Hank's Cold Cold Heart, or this sprightly little number, Fireball Mail. Also, don't miss this dusty old relic from the early days of TV, the Kate Smith Evening Hour, presented by new Wonder-Sudsing BAB-O! There's a great live version of Cold Cold Heart, and the duet with Hank Williams and Anita Carter that closes the clip is lovely: a rare chance to see Hank in duet with a female singer. Check it out. And just for good measure, let's give the bass player some, eh? Drifting Cowboy Lum York.

Former United States Senator Jesse Helms, 1921 - 2008.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:22:18 -0800

Fmr. US Senator Jesse Helms, 1921 - 2008. Wikipedia | Wikiquote | Collection of attributed quotes (unsourced)

RIP Chet

arse_hat — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:43:31 -0800

Chet Helms has been dead for a few days. He was not mentioned here and I somehow missed all this. He was a player in the music biz in his day and kinda looks like me if I stopped trimming my beard for a week or two. RIP.

Shudder...

GriffX — Thu, 06 Sep 2001 11:37:23 -0800

Shudder... At least Helms tries to pretend he's offended... Warning: Quicktime file, may put you off your feed.

Sen. Helms Takes in U2 Concert

dwivian — Sun, 17 Jun 2001 13:25:01 -0800

Sen. Helms Takes in U2 Concert It seems that Jesse and Bono are pretty good friends. I just didn't imagine that -- I thought Bono liked Strom Thurmond much better. Show's how politically savvy I am. At least Jesse took his grandkids; I'm sure they would have given him hell for a while for leaving them out!