"How can you work for them?"

As I watch the Blog With Integrity folks continue their steady streak of AWESOME, I sometimes think about that question. I've heard it a few times in the past 7 years. Typically it comes from someone I worked with in politics or health care and they hear me rattle off a client list.

Companies don't hire PR firms because they need help selling sunshine or puppies or high-quality free dental care. Generally speaking, people hire PR firms because they have PR problems. And while very few of them are actually bad people, a great many of them tend to do things that don't make them popular.

If you do a lot of issues management or crisis communications work, as I have, you're probably not interested in just hanging out with people who think exactly the way you do. You have to thrive on bringing different viewpoints together, cobbling diverse interests into coalitions, and finding influential people who cross social and cultural barriers.

But I've been asked how I can work for x company or y organization and still sleep at night. The truth is simple - this is one of very few jobs I can think of where it's important, even encouraged, to give an unvarnished and completely candid opinion to a client whose viewpoint is diametrically opposed to mine. Sometimes it's called "speaking truth to power." Sometimes it's called "tough love." Typically this counsel is confidential, and while it's candid it's also respectful. But if the information is accurate, it's often useful.

As communication has become more social, it's even easier. My job has become connecting clients directly to thoughtful people online. I'm still a middle-man, but I'm not a filter anymore. Yes, I'll try to connect clients with the people who find relevance in what we're discussing, and the odds are much better that the conversation will be a positive one. But there are never any guarantees online. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Health Care Reform, Democracy and Ethics

I'm trying very hard to hold my tongue on the health care "debate." I have friends - and clients - on all sides of the "debate." But this isn't a debate. This is a freak show that will have a violent end.

Today a friend told me his office received a death threat. It won't be the last. I've seen the videos of people storming these "town hall meetings" and just shouting to make sure no one else speaks. I've seen videos of fist fights, of members of Congress hung in effigy. I'm not going to link to any of it because it's seen enough activity online and it doesn't need any more help.

There can be no doubt that people in my profession are organizing this sort of thing, stirring up fear and hatred and dehumanizing an enemy, in the name of "freedom," going on television and telling outright lies. They are actively trying to suppress discussion and debate. They are telling unstable people some unstable things, then they're pointing at someone and calling them "Hitler." And they're hiding their true identities (and their funding) by setting up "non-profit" groups that have names with words like "freedom" in them.

They are undoubtedly aware that the more they do this, the more likely someone is going to commit even greater acts of violence. They know this and they do it anyway.

The blood will be on their hands. And on the hands of the people that pay them.

What they are doing is a disgrace to our profession, and more importantly, a disgrace to our democracy. We are supposed to be communicators - our livelihoods depend on freedom of speech.

I worked on Capitol Hill for one of the most passionate advocates for health care reform in our history. I don't hide my politics. But this isn't politics. This is just a fight.

There are people in politics and in our profession that want it this way. They want to appeal to the most base nature of the least stable among us.

I want nothing to do with them.