Amanda Marcotte

I slapped together a photolog of last Saturday's panel, CAMPAIGNING, BLOGGING AND FIGHTING BACK: Netroots Activism in Presidential Politics, which brought us not only Amanda all the way from Texas, but a gaggle of the lefty blogeratti as well.

If any republican terrorists would have wanted to to take out most of the top lefty blogopshere that night, man, they could have done it in one swoop.

Re-live the evening at Lefty Blogeratti at The Tank.

Salon.com stepped up to the bat and gave Amanda an opportunity to give her side of the Edwards campaigns' blogging fiasco withWhy I had to quit the John Edwards campaign | Salon News. In the process, she gives even more reasons to start a Feminist Bloggers' PAC :

There are few things like having Bill O'Reilly work himself into a pearl-clutching fit while speaking your name over the air, or watching your in box fill to the brim with sexually violent, threatening e-mails. Young feminists certainly picked up on the message. As one wrote in a blog post tracking back to Pandagon, "I will never, ever go into any sort of actual work on any political campaign. I still might have to close off my original teenage wasteland-style blog. People will gleefully tear you apart any day of the week -- but I'd rather not have that done to me over politics."

We owe it to the younger generations of women who are reading us to get the resources we need to change the political media landscape. We need to effect if we are seriously going to fight back the self-hating Malkins and mysogynist O'Reillys of the world, who make a living out of bashing women who speak truth to power.

What is it the Testament teaches us? — to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Part II, Section 20

Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet, Common Sense that is taught to us as school children as having roused those citizens who read it to throw off the shackles of British oppression and establish these United States of America. Thomas Paine would not have been a friend of Bill Donohue, or Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell, or the Taliban, or an UltraOrthodox Rebbe.

And yet, Thomas Paine, had he lived now, would undoubtedly have been a blogger, a Rude Pundit perhaps, or anAmanda Marcotte, a Melissa McEwan, a BitchPhd, a Liza Sabater, a Caliberal. Thomas Paine saw a world, manipulated into obedience by religion(s) that told them that humans were nothing, only God's grace could redeem them. Furthermore, believers have been told repeatedly that their beliefs, their faith, was worth killing non-believers over. God willed it.

Amanda has announced her resignation from the Edwards' campaign.

Announcement at Pandagon:

I was hired by the Edwards campaign for the skills and talents I bring to the table, and my willingness to work hard for what’s right. Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics (I’m anti-theocracy, for those who were keeping track). Bill Donohue—anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics—has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.

May I say this is the most opportune moment for all bloggers, but most important feminist bloggers, to consider the importance of what's next?

I don't see any other way around it but we are now playing big leagues. The stakes are too high to drop the ball and go back to doing what we know best to do : rant at 'the man', pick blogfights, rally around other people's political interests, rinse and repeat.

We have influence.

We obviously have some power.

We need money to use it like a club.

We need a Feminist BlogPAC.

(Update by Liza Sabater, Publisher : Hello Salon Readers! Feminist bloggers are not taking the attacks against Amanda, Melissa and other feminist bloggers lightly. We are working now harder than ever to create a Feminist Bloggers PAC.)

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I have sat with this for days now, trying to bring to fruition in language the tremendous anger, sadness, and yes—fear—that flooded me last week as I watched Amanda and Melissa become the targets of Christofascists' attacks. (For tremendous work on the topic, please see Liza's posts, including a full roundup of links to the feminist blogosphere's reaction.) I choose my words carefully, and when the urge comes upon me to let loose a string of expletives—necessary language for me sometimes, the ur language that boils forth from an angry soul—I try to tamp it down. I want to be heard.

One thing I do know. Jesus did not say: "Shut Your Pie Hole."

But Paul did: In I Corinthians<.i>, 14:34-35, he writes, Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says.