Drinking with the Enemy.

The other day I poked some double fun at the upcoming happy hour "hosted" by MN Publius and MDE.

As someone who founded his blog on the premise of figuring out how people who disagree can still build a decent world, I owe the organizers an explanation of why I look on this opportunity with little excitement.

Yes, I know there are differences between this happy hour and meeting of heads of state, but the question is still pertinent. Why would I or any progressive attend a branded event that seems calculated to create a veneer of bipartisanship for perhaps the most partisan attack blog in the state?

Mitch Berg makes one pass at a reason, reminiscing about a happy hour of yore:

[I]t was just a tiny bit harder to flame on people that I’d met in person.  That I’d actually met as humans, rather than as mere brain-damaged big-government-coddling tax-and-spend liberal drones.  And a few of them wrote as well, saying they could maybe be a little more tolerant of uncaring, selfish conservatives now that they’d actually met some of us — something they didn’t do much of in real life.

It made an impression.

Oh, it only lasted so long, of course. 

And his commenters swoop in to prove the point.

I do agree that such face-to-face contact can encourage civility, but I don't need to bike to St. Paul for a beer to learn its virtues. And I have no interest at all in fake civility that does nothing more than help Michael Brodkorb go back next week and slag more Democrats with more utter B.S.

Real community and real civility — civitas — come about when antagonists find something important they truly want in common. Something they cannot have without respecting the other's perspective, values and rights.

Jonathan Thompson, of High Country News, edits a publication that attempts to bring an environmental audience face-to-face with the complex realities of the American West. They write about inevitable collisions involving die-hard opponents. In the process, they have learned a thing or two about how people who've fought bitterly for years can move on to something better.

The magazine's current issue has a story about how native tribes and farmers along the Klamath River had one fundamental thing in common:

They rely on the river for their food and their livelihoods. While those needs have competed with one another in the past, they are also what kept these guys at the bargaining table until an agreement came together.

It wasn’t easy. Before the farmers and tribes could hold hands, they both had to endure a lot of pain — massive fish kills, dried-up fields and the tedium of the negotiations themselves.

Perhaps that’s the lesson here: Unlikely alliances don’t happen by magic, they take work. Sometimes the situation needs to become so dire that the two sides have no other choice but to get along. Then they can find a bit of common ground, and their reverence for and reliance upon the land will finally win out over age-old animosities. And then they will discover that their alliance was never that unlikely after all.

I'm conflicted about attending. What do you think?

Comments

[Jeff Rosenberg]

I'll be attending, and I'm excited to go, even if it doesn't turn out to be too civil. Personally, I like a good argument. The biggest problem I think we have nowadays is our inability to have a debate and not take it personally.

[barbara]

I met Michael Brodkorb at a DFL event he'd come to spin for MDE. Engaged in a long conversation with him. Came away thinking, "Well, maybe he's not as bad as everyone believes." Wrong. He stomped that sucker flat. Once back in his cave, Michael reverted to form, flaming, fileting, foaming in sensationalizing CAPS and scarlet letters. Do. Not. Trust. Him.

[Snuffy]

My problem with the event is that it sets up a direct parallel between the two websites. Publius is partisan and has some vitriol in the comments (and occasionally in the main postings), but it is nowhere near as vile as MDE. I think it's a mistake for the guys who run Publius to _want_ to set themselves on an "equal" level with MDE.

[Jim]

Reminds me of the cliché about those who don't vote don't get to complain about the outcome. To the extent that you agree with the cliché and want to complain, you should attend.

[Mark Gisleson]

You know this story Charlie, but it bears repeating.

My one and only meeting with Mr. Brodkorb was at Drinking Liberally when he showed up with an inebriated Publius crew.

Upon being introduced to me, Brodkorb spent the next twenty minutes regaling me with a story about a meeting he had been to. I guess he didn't know that I knew one of the other participants, and by the end of the night I had an eyewitness account in my email box that was pretty much 180° from what Brodkorb had shared.

Lay down with dogs and get fleas. Drink with Michael Brodkorb and your head will be filled with disinformation because he and his fellow righties aren't conservatives, just rightwing opportunists who evaluate each event as a unique political opportunity with no long-term consequences.

Publius, like Brodkorb, likes to think of themselves as players, but mostly I think they just take turns playing each other. This isn't Ted Kennedy and Orin Hatch arguing over soup in the Senate dining room. This is a truth-don't-fly-here zone, where people drink, lie, and then lie some more, and not something like one of Charlie's liberal-conservative exchanges with booze added.

Put another way, you never learn anything when Karl Rove's on the tube, other than what Karl Rove wants you to think. What Karl Rove wants you to think might be true, or it might be a lie, and you can waste a lot of time trying to guess which way he played it this time.

Adding booze to the mix doesn't help with the deconstruction process.

[barbara]

Mark . . . booyah!

[Mitch Berg]

"I had an eyewitness account in my email box that was pretty much 180° from what Brodkorb had shared."

And naturally, it was Brodkorb's account that was wrong, I'm going to guess.

"This is a truth-don't-fly-here zone, where people drink, lie, and then lie some more, and not something like one of Charlie's liberal-conservative exchanges with booze added."

Oh, buncombe, Wege. Speak for yourself.

[Mark Gisleson]

Mitch, the second account I received was from someone who had no idea what Brodkorb had told me, and who had no agenda that could have been served by misrepresenting the meeting. My source was apolitical: they had no dog in that fight.

Contrasting the two versions, Brodkorb's was self-aggrandizing and, frankly, not terribly plausible.

But that's not really the point. The point is that the one and only time we spoke, he devoted that entire time to telling me things that weren't true. He made zero effort to engage in conversation, and I'd guess he spoke at least 90% of the time. As you well know Mitch, it's not easy to shut me up like that.

I tell this story not to damage Brodkorb, but to share the one thing I know about him: he doesn't always tell the truth to people on the other side. Not surprising given the huge ethical issues involved in anonymously blogging about politics when you're being paid to do political work.

Michael has every right to blog whatever he likes, but I find it shocking that the local news media gives him so much credibility when he hasn't earned it. MDE is dumping ground for Republican rumors about Democrats, and for airing Democratic dirty laundry courtesy of Democrats who'd be shunned by the DFL if Brodkorb ever exposed his distaff sources.

[Flsh]

"I'm conflicted about attending. What do you think?"

I'd rather eat glass.

MikeDE is a smear merchant trying to put lipstick on the pig. He will have his little gathering with the sole purpose of cultivating new sources. Anyone who attends is either a GOoPer, a current MikeDE source, or future MIkeDE source.

[Mitch Berg]

"Anyone who attends is either a GOoPer, a current MikeDE source, or future MIkeDE source."

I do wonder what the MNPublius kids think about that?

Good lord, some of you people are scared of cognitive dissonance.

[Flash]

"I do wonder what the MNPublius kids think about that?"

They think that for them it will be different. I guess you have to be personally stabbed in the back to appreciate it.

No one is afraid of anything, but, as is your style, you project what you want regardless of how false it is.

This is about Paid By Republican Smear Merchant MikeDE trying to create some faux bipartisan credibility. I'll gladly sit down with fellow independent bloggers of any stripe, but MikeDE is NOT a fellow independent blogger. It is his career, and the purpose of this gathering is to find loose lips and to create some nice guy image. Those that have been there no better, those that haven't can either take warning, or find out for themselves.

Flash