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Take On the Talking Heads

Each week, our talking heads present their views on current issues, and you have an opportunity to respond. This week: Arianna Huffington on shameless fund raising by the Republicans and Democrats, Jesse Jackson urges the international community to forgive Africa's huge debt, and Garry Wills tackles author Tom Wolfe's crusade against un-American writing activities.

Who Wants to Eat With a Millionaire?
by Arianna Huffington

It's time to throw out the record books -- at least until the people decide to throw out the record breakers. Wednesday last week was a night to remember -- and forget -- in Washington.

More money was raised than on any single night in political history: $26.5 million by the Democrats (the most ever raised by a political party in one fell swoop) and $14 million by the Republicans a few blocks away.

But it wasn't just money marks that were toppled. Complete disregard for even the appearance of propriety shattered all previous records of shamelessness. Gone are the quaint old days when access-selling was a backroom operation -- it's now carried live on C-SPAN.

The Democrats used to define themselves as the party of the common man while painting the GOP as the home to fat cats and big business. Now the only differences are cosmetic -- a matter of costume, menu and fat content.

Campaign 2000 is being defined not just by the staggering amounts of money flooding into both parties' coffers but by the increasingly varied array of vehicles through which it's being raised. The only money problem the two parties are facing these days is how to spend it all by November.

Copyright © 2000, Arianna Huffington. Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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Africa's Agony
by Jesse Jackson

Africa's leaders, fiercely independent, know that Africa is responsible for its own future. Africa's proud peoples have been ravaged by slavery, colonialism, dictators propped up as Cold War pawns and other people's wars. Africa is burdened with paying its debts to the North, while the countries that exploited it for decades acknowledge no debt in return.

What we can do is limited but vital. Mobilization against AIDS is but a first step. Africa continues to send more resources in debt repayment to the North than it receives in aid from the North. Africa spends twice as much paying debts to foreign creditors than it does on basic health care.

Pope John Paul II -- joined by religious leaders, human-rights groups, development groups and others -- has named Jubilee Year 2000 as an appropriate time for forgiveness of "international debt that is oppressing many countries of the world like a millstone."

In the biblical tradition, debt forgiveness is not charity; it is simple justice -- a cleaning of the slates, a new start, redemption of hope. It cannot solve Africa's agonies -- only Africans can do that. But even if you can't save a man suffering from a heart attack, you can at least take your thumb off his windpipe while he battles for his life.

White Suit, Self-Celebration
by Garry Wills

Harper's magazine's current issue celebrates its 150th anniversary, and suggests that historical span by putting dueling white suits on the cover. Harper's authors Mark Twain and Tom Wolfe are pictured wearing their signature vanilla-ice-cream attire.

Wolfe's contribution to the anniversary issue is an article called "In the Land of the Rococo Marxists." Wolfe says that America is not enough celebrated for the "young giant" it became in the last century.

Wolfe says the reason for this deplorable lack of self-congratulation is that a horrible sophistication arose in the 1920s when people came back from Europe with intellectual pretensions. Wolfe thinks the only real problem with America is that we do not love ourselves enough, and the reason we fail in this essential duty is that Intellectuals do not let us perform it.

If Wolfe is to keep up his crusade against un-American writing activities, he must extend his chronology backward by a century or so to include Mark Twain, the eminent Harper's author. In fact, self-criticism is just as authentic an American tradition as (and a healthier one than) self-celebration.

We can safely leave the self-gratulatory labors to Wolfe, since his words will never equal the healing fires with which Twain cauterized American folly.

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