The Fight to Vote

The right’s war on democracy underscores the need for a constitutionally protected right to vote.

The Editors

The Kochs’ Ground Game

Under the radar, the pseudo-grassroots group Americans for Prosperity is pulling out the stops to defeat Obama.

Lee Fang

Noted

Highlights from the Voting Rights Watch 2012 blog, from Brentin Mock, Aura Bogado and Maegan E. Ortiz

Various Contributors

A Human Rights Court Gives Torture the Green Light

In refusing to block the extradition of terror suspects to the US, the European Court for Human Rights has condoned a brutal regimen of long-term solitary confinement.

Jeanne Theoharis and Saskia Sassen

Bad Lessons From ‘Won’t Back Down’

A crude and hackneyed film, Won't Back Down peddles an improbable and deceptive message about schools and poverty.

Dana Goldstein

I’ve Got the Mitt Thinks I’m a Moocher, a Taker Not a Maker, Blues

Calvin Trillin

Blasphemy Is Good for You

What if the right to be a jerk is where freedom begins?

Katha Pollitt

Letters

May Todd Akin Rot in Hell—Legitimately New York City   Katha Pollitt has nailed it again with “Women Who Love Republicans Who Hate Them” [“Subject to Debate,” Sept. 17]. I would just add that Todd Akin’s gag-inducing belief about the spermicidal capacity of women who have been “legitimately” raped goes back a lot further than 1988. According to The Guardian: “One of the earliest British legal texts, Fleta…[says]: ‘If, however, the woman should have conceived at the time alleged in the appeal, it abates, for without a woman’s consent she could not conceive.’” Fleta dates to approximately 1290. Yes, folks, the Republican Party, working to take us back to that golden age, the thirteenth century.   NORA FREEMAN   His Nose Just Grows and Grows Madison, N.J. Pinocchio! Your ad on page 16 of the September 17 issue is the best picture of Governor Christie! I sent it to him and recommended he subscribe to The Nation. LOIS VUONO    Still a Difficult Woman Hayward, Calif. Victor Navasky’s review of a biography of Lillian Hellman by Alice Kessler-Harris [“The Antagonist,” Sept. 17] was interesting but uninformative—interesting in retelling some incidents in Hellman’s life, uninformative by avoiding others. The good: Hellman’s defiance of HUAC is still an inspiration. She stood foursquare for the “simple rules of human decency and Christian honor.” The reference to Christian honor puzzles me, though, since Hellman was not Christian and since, in light of fascism and vile McCarthyism, “Christian honor” seems to be an oxymoron. As for the bad: Mary McCarthy attacked Hellman’s autobiographical books as lies. I remember reading those books with admiration for their literary and political style. If the books were in fact a confabulation, my opinion fundamentally changes. So the question is: Were the assertions in those books true (or sort of true) or were they false? I don’t know whether Kessler-Harris gives an answer. Navasky certainly does not. I’d like to know. At least, I’d like to know the opinions of Kessler-Harris and Navasky. JOHN PLOTZ    Navasky Replies New York City Which facts is Mr. Plotz talking about? Hellman’s three memoirs were filled with thousands of facts and undoubtedly some factoids. If it helps, I’d add that I don’t agree with Mary McCarthy that “every word” Hellman wrote was a lie. VICTOR NAVASKY   The Highest Caliber Tucson Paula Findlen’s review of Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation [“Scissor Work,” Sept. 17] is excellent—learned and subtle, and she comes to the right conclusion, the same negative one as everybody else, but in a very thoughtful way. SUSAN KARANT-NUNN, director Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies University of Arizona    Corrections: August in Paris… Thomas Meaney’s “The Generalist” [Oct. 1] refers to the liberation of Paris in May 1944. Paris was liberated in August 1944. It also described de Gaulle’s laissez-faire economic policies as beginning in 1948; they began in 1945. Finally, a clarification: the piece stated that de Gaulle’s crowning economic achievement was establishing the European Economic Community in 1957. While de Gaulle was not in power in 1957, he retailored the Treaty of Rome, which established the EEC, to suit Franco-German needs in the late 1950s. Read More

Our Readers