Activist inspired by actor's stand on Schiavo, says his charisma needed

Inspired by Mel Gibson's strong stand against the dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, an Oregon businessman has begun a campaign to see the "Passion" director run for president as a Republican in 2008, saying he's the only potential candidate who has the star power and charisma needed to keep Democrat Hillary Clinton out of the White House.

"Mel Gibson is perhaps one of the few men in America who has shown exceptional courage in facing up to the left and the 'culture of death,'" James Welsh told WorldNetDaily. "Americans of religious conviction have been under relentless assault for at least the last 10 to 15 years. While we have been successful in achieving some gains, our defeat in the Terri Schiavo battle has made manifest the need for new generalship in this culture war." In preparation for what he hopes will be a Gibson candidacy, Welsh has purchased 12 Internet domain names relating to a presidential run, including gibson2008.com.

Welsh, who owns a grocery store in the coastal town of Manzanita, Ore., believes none of the current crop of possible GOP contenders can beat Clinton, who he says "will be" the Democratic nominee. - By Ron Strom - WorldNetDaily.com

He regrets gay labeling, but not stand against desegregation

The Associated Press - June 9, 2005 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."

"Here’s Where I Stand," to be published in September by Random House, contains Helms’ first extended comments on national affairs since the Republican retired from the Senate in 2003 after five terms. Advance proofs were described in Thursday’s editions of The News & Observer of Raleigh. Helms, 83, was one of the state’s leading voices of segregation as a TV commentator in Raleigh in the 1960s and opposed nearly every civil rights bill while in the Senate. He has never retracted his views on race or said segregation was wrong.

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.

"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."

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." - msnbc

His agenda is driven by a lifelong opposition to democracy and diversity. In his first months as Foreign Relations chair, Helms called for tougher sanctions against Cuba, accused Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide of unleashing "vigilance committees," and moved to gut support for developing nations. On the home front, he introduced a bill to eliminate all affirmative action programs, which he denounced as "reverse discrimination at the hands of ruthless bureaucrats."

How did someone so mean-spirited end up in a position to act on his divisive politics? For the most part, Helms wins political battles by keeping the spotlight on the morality plays he stages. To hear conservatives tell it, Helms is a personal friend of Jesus Christ, a populist defender of the little guy, and a bitter opponent of big government. - motherjones

The G8 represents the tyranny of the new world order against the interests of the world's poor. Self-chosen on the basis of their military might and capitalist credentials, the G8 seeks to further its hegemony of the world, amid a pretense of compassion for the developing world. (Geldof and Bono unwittingly - one assumes - helped further that pretense by the ghastly photo-opportunity in which they participated.) It represents the damaging consequences of globalization and the marginalization of the Third World. - common dreams

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The G8 meeting has ended with an agreement to boost aid for developing countries by $50bn (£28.8bn). UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said there was also a commitment to find an end date for farm subsidies and a will to find agreement on trade liberalisation. On climate change, he said an agreement had always been unlikely, but crucially the US had accepted that global warming was an issue. NGOs are critical of the deal, calling it a "vastly disappointing result". "The people have roared but the G8 has whispered," said Kumi Naidoo, chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

'Progress'

But Live 8 organiser Bob Geldof spoke of a "great day". "Never before have so many people forced a change of policy onto a global agenda. If anyone had said eight weeks ago will we get a doubling of aid, will we get a deal on debt, people would have said 'no'," Mr Geldof said. He added that he gave the G8 summit "10 out of 10 on aid, eight out of 10 on debt". Irish rock star and fellow anti-poverty campaigner Bono, praised the agreement to give universal access to Aids drugs. "600,000 Africans, mostly children, will remember this G8 submit at Gleneagles because they will be around to remember this summit, and they wouldn't have otherwise," said Bono.