It's funny how mention of Cuba leads to histrionics from the U.S. right wing much like the suggestion that someone's right to keep 50 assault rifles in their basement might be in any way limited by any law.
Yet China can repress and torture and do all the business with the U.S. it wants. Nixon, further right than many republicans, gets credit for opening that door.
Jesse Helms characterized Canada's trade with Cuba as similar to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Really? Wasn't Canada in the war against Hitler for two years before the U.S.? Wasn't it U.S. right-wingers who are the idealogical forebears of Helms who strongly opposed going to war against Hitler prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor?
Helms went so far as to suggest Canadians were holidaying there to patronize Cuban prostitution.
The Helms-Burton bill punished corporate executives of companies that did business in Cuba; there are apparently today still some Canadian business people who are not allowed into the U.S. due to this legislation.
Another area of contention is the continual application of punitive countervailing lumber import duties. Time after time these duties would go before international trade courts and each time they would be ruled against. Helms and his cohorts would then craft new legislation to reimpose the same duties.
And I haven't even mentioned his tarnished record in the area of civil rights over the years.
Some will lionize him, suggesting it fitting that he died on July 4th, apropos for a great political leader, but don't expect me to take a photograph by any memorials erected to this redneck.
(sorry--I hope my friends to the south don't take offense at this--it's probably better form to look back on a life just ended and celebrate all the public service, but I just can't share that sentiment)
2 comments:
No love for Jesse here. Have to say that I was more familiar with his "work" in the areas of civil rights than his activities as they impacted Canadians.
His views on us and on Cuba were just part of his overall modus operandi--not surprising that homophobia and xenophobia go hand in hand.
I don't know as much about his record on other civil rights issues like integration, but I'd guess he was in the George Wallace camp.
Post a Comment