Liza Sabater

Okay, am going to admit it : Am a really shallow person. For years I wanted to have a baby just because of this picture.

That's me 41 years ago eating my first birthday cake.

I thought, if I can be that adorable, I obviously can spawn some cute kids. And I did : my kids are indeed indecently adorable.

I know, am shallow and self-centered, but so fucking what.

It's my birthday!

You bloggers really are becoming the 800 pound Gorilla in the room.

That is what a good friend said to me today (paraphrased), I think with some surprise behind it. He will laugh that I am using that line, but in retrospect it really set the tone for this evening.

My friend is a major player in Brooklyn politics. I'd say who because I have lots good to say and he has some ambitions, but I think he prefers to keep his name out of the blogs. But today he said that bloggers have become the 800 lb. Gorilla in the room. I laughed and let it pass as we talked about local politics. But tonight I kept coming back to that statement as I stood, among some of the biggest big wigs of the party, and realized that it was true.

Yesterday a bunch of us got invited as guests to a major DCCC dinner in Manhattan honoring Nancy Pelosi. This really was playing with the big boys, and we got invited. The venue was Cipriani, a prime ballroom on Wall Street with Corinthian columns that make everyone, even Eliot Spitzer, look short. The ceiling is dilapidated and needs major restoration, but the rest of the place was spectacular...in a way that is gaudy and I largely dislike. But this is the kind of place where the big boys play.

I got there early. The doorman sneered at me, and asked in disbelief, "Are you a guest?" I said yes and he ushered me in. Largely he was the only one to condescend. With the exception of a few snotty big shots, people were very friendly and enthusiastic. I got a glass of red wine (an excellent Merlot) and was settling into observation mode. Just as a string quartet poised way up on a balcony began playing, Eliot Spitzer walked into the still largely empty room. I should have gone up and said hello.

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.

(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.