🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard Childers writes (quotes not needed, I hope) that this
meeting really needed to be at a "neutral" site to avoid politics.
 
Unfortunately, here in the real world, the politics surfaced
when Austin was told that it *would* "lobby" and in general seek
to have an unfair influence if the meeting were held in Austin.
 
Since, if you'll pardon the expression, we made the offer "seeking
only to serve," we *were* in fact insulted by the demand for a
"neutral" site . . . which came over and over from one person,
with increasingly nasty "explanations" of why it was so wrong of
us to make our offer.
 
The "need" for neutrality implies an expectation of conflict, and
of attempts to take unfair advantage. You don't worry about
neutrality when you invite your friends over to talk. You worry
about neutrality when you're a politician, doing politics, and
you view somebody else as a threat to your own agenda.
 
Taken in context, the demand for a neutral site was itself a very
political piece of behavior. At BEST, it will shadow the whole
meeting.