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Coffee Party Activists say Their Civic Brew's a Tastier Choice than Tea Party's
Furious at the tempest over the Tea Party -- the scattershot citizen uprising against big government and wild spending -- Annabel Park did what any American does when she feels her voice has been drowned out: She squeezed her anger into a Facebook status update.
The Coffee Party is not so much a party or movement as a slow-drip ripple through online nano-politics. Within the past 10 days, its Facebook fans rose from 3,500 to more than 9,200, which is far more than the 5,900 fans of the central page of Organizing for America, the DNC-funded group supporting President Obama's agenda. (Bigstockphoto.com)
let's start a coffee party . . . smoothie party. red bull party.
anything but tea. geez. ooh how about cappuccino party? that would
really piss 'em off bec it sounds elitist . . . let's get together and
drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and
compassion.
Friends replied, and more friends replied. So last month, in her Silver Spring apartment, Park started a fan page called "Join the Coffee Party Movement." Within weeks, her inbox and page wall were swamped by thousands of comments from strangers in diverse locales, such as the oil fields of west Texas and the suburbs of Chicago.
I have been searching for a place of refuge like this for a long while. . . . It is not Us against the Govt. It is democracy vs corporatocracy . . . I just can't believe that the Tea Party speaks for all patriotic Americans. . . . Just sent suggestions to 50 friends . . . I think it's time we start a chapter right here in Tucson . . .
The snowballing response made her the de facto coordinator of Coffee Party USA, with goals far loftier than its oopsy-daisy origin: promote civility and inclusiveness in political discourse, engage the government not as an enemy but as the collective will of the people, push leaders to enact the progressive change for which 52.9 percent of the country voted in 2008.
Read the full story, here.Comments
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47 Comments so far
Show AllGod, I love anarchy.
Right you are. Sign me up for the Twenty Year Old Single Malt Scotch Party Movement.
See... there you go being a "divider" again... ;)
How about just bringing the scotch to the coffee party and making "Scottish Coffee"? Bet it make the discussions more fun!
I'm holding out for the Pot Party.
Or maybe Kratom tea party. ;-)
I read this last night. I wish them luck...our political discourse is anything but civilized right now.
What is this? "Attack of the Clones"?
I love how divided they are over a very simple issue. We all have a common enemy, and they reside in DC. It's not about big government, small government, or no government, its about the haves and the have nots, always has been, always will be.
There's no middle, no compromise, there's the effective way, and the ineffective way.
O well, if people choose to be slaves, that's their own prerogative.
I feel exactly the same way. It would be nice if their choice only affected themselves. It doesn't. By letting themselves be slaves, they make us all slaves as long as there are so many of them.
While I agree with your observation that "there's no middle" I whole heartedly disagree with this notion of slavery as being a "choice." Your tropification of slavery as choice is somewhat banal. As a matter of fact, one is not given a choice in surviving by having to sell one's labor-power for SURVIVAL! The illusion of choice is in fact just an illusion. It's either do or be damned.
On another note: The tropes of commodification for these "grass-roots" organizations are laughable and I find extremely Fractional. Thus the breakdown of right and left into the debate over whether you drink "tea" or "coffee" which posits the discourse into warring camps of all binary oppositions (which are as some argue "effects of class" (see Class in Culture by Ebert & Zavarzedah) is sadly misguided critique. We should be working to expose the ideological illusions which support conciliatory reformism and factionalism. It is as my comrade MBK states that it is about access to resources between "the haves and the have nots, always has been, always will be" until we decide to move past this ideological haze of commodified teas and coffees. Wake up and smell the mystification!
Blind consumerism is modern day slavery, fighting among each other for the scraps of the upper-class is slavery. You can choose to do either of the too, or you can choose to refuse to be part of either. Slavery is a choice, there's always a choice.
And speaking of survival...Maybe it's just me, there's no way I'd spend my entire existence serving another.
"On a long enough timeline, everyones rate of survival drops to zero"
"Blind consumerism" as opposed to eyes wide OPEN consumerism? I'm not sure what you're suggesting here...This idea of choice is somewhat vague, perhaps you should make more lucid what you mean when you say "Slavery is a choice."
By the way, Your existence is spent "serving another" as I presume you work for a wage. The appropriation of your surplus labor (see Marx's labor value theory) is, at its fundamental root, "slave" labor. You're producing "commodities" be it goods or information for profit for the owners of the means of production for a wage to subsist. Now if you think having a choice means having the ability to sell your labor-power to the next highest bidder then I digress, you have a "choice." What you "produce" in a days work, be it 8 or more hours, is over and above what you earn in a wage. It's called surplus value.
There are some who argue labor has become "immaterial" though I must put forward that the way in which labor has taken on a new "form" through the technological achievements, capital, fundamentally, has not changed; for it still extracts profit from the exploitation of the worker be it "informational" (mental) or "manual" (physical)labor. Further more this notion of "immaterial" labor is rather absurd as most of the products we buy in America come from places like Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, where commodities are produced in a Fordist style of production. Just because the social relations have shifted in America itself, doesn't mean capital still does not need cheap laborers to increase it's profits.
I actually work for myself, and I enjoy what I do, I don't serve anyone but myself.
I'm really trying to get at the (majority of people I know) people in this country that attempt to live beyond their means, over-work themselves for material items that don't increase the joy of life, just attempt to mask insecurities. I'm not saying forced labor slaves, or people just trying to feed their families. Sorry if I was vague.
I actually work for myself, and I enjoy what I do, I don't serve anyone but myself.
I'm really trying to get at the (majority of people I know) people in this country that attempt to live beyond their means, over-work themselves for material items that don't increase the joy of life, just attempt to mask insecurities. I'm not saying forced labor slaves, or people just trying to feed their families. Sorry if I was vague.
>>Slavery is a choice, there's always a choice.<<
Is there really? If one is completely surrounded by masters and their vassals -- one cannot (in ant real numbers) successfully run. If one has a family one cannot (or should not pull a "Stack") choose to die. So what is left? Refusing to work as hard as massah wants is about it. And for wage-slaves who HAVE to have a job for their families to survive, even that is limited.
Nice slogan but not much more.
Gary
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
-- Abraham Lincoln
I'm really referencing people who go out and buy things they don't need/can't afford and spend years paying just the interest, work countless hours every day to buy things they don't need, economic slaves.
And yes, there is always a choice, even if that means sacrificing everything. All it takes is one person to start a movement, one sacrifice, many people died to "end" slavery here in the US, and those deaths made life better for an entire race. It's not ment to be a slogan, its the truth.
I love it!
I can see the bumper stickers now:
"I am a latte liberal!"
Actually, I am more of a fair-trade, organic, vegan, leftist. I guess that makes me a "Chai, Chai, Chai"?
Zak sez: "The (Manassas) quartet ... discusses Coffee Party talking points, staying positive and coming up with a marketable phrase. Maybe "What does America really think?"
***
Maybe "Bulldoze K Street"
Tea Partiers could start at one end; Coffee partiers at the other. Where they come together, drive a golden spike and commemorate the opening of a new public park on the site.
as long as we are fighting each other we will never look at what the source of the problems are
blame the middle who blames the up who blames the down etc etc etc
while all the time the class war going on is being won by the corporate class
who by disinformation in the main stream media is keeping well out of sight in this fight
it dose not matter who we think is in power
the real power is in the hands of the corporate class
democrat republican both have been bought out from under we the people
both are owned by the same money
It's about time someone stated the obvious, that" the the teaparty types have things confused... thinking that the government is the problem... not understanding that corporations have us and the government by the balls... of course there is a degree of choice and responsibility as to how much influence one lets those corps have in their lives and work. It's not much of a degree of choice and I am inclined to think that those in governement have much more choice than most. They are put in their positions to use truth to serve the people.
I have tried to explain to many I know that It's the corporations, stupid." But most of the time this falls on deaf ears. Why? Because I have done the READING AND LISTENING and they have not. I can try and explain in the little time I may have... but they have not taken the time to (or cannot)understand the issues, the logic and the long histories involved in much of the current issues. Hell, I still have a lot to read and listen to.
So, what I try to do is get others to read, listen and learn. This is the only way, someone will truly come to understand FOR THEMSELVES what is happening in this world. I tell them they should not take it from me,(or Fox News) but go out and find it for themselves.
"the the teaparty types have things confused... thinking that the government is the problem... not understanding that corporations have us and the government by the balls."
Sorry initiate, there is virtually no difference between the government and the corporations. Generic government is not the problem but "The US Federal Government" definitely is the problem and so is O'Bomber. He's a war mongering corporate fink.
Thank you Joe,
We don't have government anymore. We have a mafia ruled by wall street kings. The gangsters and hoods in fancy suits do nothing but provide protection for any illegal activity the boardroom chooses to engage in.
The corruption is so complete, there's just no way to reform it, except by busting it up.
It's beyond repair. It's rotten to the core. We need to pare it down by 90 percent and start over. We need to return to a weak central government to disarm Wall Street. Then we must break Wall Street up into a million little local pieces.
The Tea Baggers are right, albeit for all the wrong reasons....
TJ
If you join an anarchist party do you have to split the party if someone else joins?
Yes of course, and if everyone joined there would be no need for countries, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too, no heaven, no hell below us, only the sky above, and no need for greed or hunger. Imagine that.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Only if at least two of the splitters reproduce at least two more anarchists to later join one or more of the other splitters. That way it avoids parthenogenesis, preserves meiosis and homologous recombination AND acts as a virus throughout exponential splitting cycles.
In the Church of the Subgenius the logo-deity promises triple the salvation (of any other cult) or your money back
and encourages schisms within the Church. I used to be a member of the Clench of God the Preoccupied. Our motto: Better sex through doctrinal strife.
Ask a capitalist or a free marketeer!
Some of the analysis below about how and why *left* and *right* have-nots are kept fighting each other by the machinations of the Haves, isnt completely accurate.
The core of the regressive-tea-bagger faction is a christian fundamentalism that has blatantly stated that it considers progressives to be The Enemy and has a take-no-prisoners fanaticism behind their march off to what they consider to be a final war between good and evil in the fight to turn this country into what amounts to a christian fascist state.
Would these tea-bagger-regressives be willing to jettison their fundamentalist-authoritarian beliefs and support a truly Open Society in which all belief-systems are open to debate and critique with no holds barred, and christianity is no longer given a priviliged status as being beyond the kind of questioning we would pose about, say, Greek mythology?
The reason WHY these regressives are so easily brainwashed into supporting war and empire is because psychologically they are still children who dont dare question Daddy's Authority, especially the christian god-given authority, within "the monotheistic model of God-As-Abusive-Father," as John Perry Barlow puts it.
The corporate-plutocracy will try to use them like they always have. All they have to do is join with the teabaggers and proclaim, in one form or another, "Progressives are the source of all that's going wrong and all that is wrong with this country." If they play on the teabagger's religious beliefs, it goes something like, "Progressives are in league with evil, they are bringing God's (Daddy's) wrath upon our nation."
It wouldnt take much to push the teabaggers off the deep end to the point where they will declare Open Season on, say, the kind of people who post at this website. They may get there soon without even needing any more prompting than the kind they get from Glen Beck (hence, I often call them *Beckoids*).
Progressives are waiting with open arms to embrace all who want to create true democracy, or a democratic republic. But the teabaggers dont want real democracy, they want a theocracy in which their belief-system reigns supreme over all others.
The elites obviously exploit hot-button issues, but if the regressive teabaggers were truly capable of understanding how deeply brainwashed they (and we all) are because of the social indoctrination in a patriarchal-authoritarian culture we were subjected to, and learning to transcend it, they would be immune to the kind of manipulation practiced upon them for eight years under cheney/bush, of which they were completely unconscious of because they considered bush one of their own.
And that gentle readers is the story about why there is no democratic unity of the people in this country.
Something you neglected in your condemnation (rightfully) of the Sky-father culture is just what percentage of the people fall into the extreme you describe and what percentage either are free of the patriarchal authoritarianism, or are only partly under the domination of rightwing Christianity. All key issues.
I'd guess 20% for the extreme fundamentalists; 50% for those partly under sway of father-fixation; and 30% (including the young) not under its sway (to greater and lesser degrees and splintered into both left and right). So the situation is not quite as bleak as you portray, though you are right on the button on how unlikely it would be for a fundamentalist to listen to a progressive. Tried before and got looks of bewilderment, pity and some (little) hatred.
Gary
“The fundamentalist mind, running in a single rut for fifty years, is now quite unable to comprehend dissent from its basic superstitions, or to grant any common honesty, or even any decency, to those who reject them”
-- Henry Louis Mencken
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The description of this "Coffee Party" sounds like the original language used to organize MoveOn.org. All touchy-feely, reasonable, class-insulated, lacking in cross-class or cross-race solidarity and the ability to put feet in the street.
The Democratic Party needs to die a swift death for the same reasons that General Motors deserves to die. The Republican Party will always be a Party of fascists and their whacko hangers-on who cannot be reasoned with because they are an economic conspiracy not based on either logic or morality. They must be overwhelmed by sheer numbers and persistently publicly humiliated, ridiculed and exposed for the dangerous charletons and immoral predators they are.
We need an entirely new, baggage-free, umbrella movement and/or Party to unite all authentic Progressives, social democrats, socialists, pareconomists and the roughly 80 million mostly poor and minority eligible voters who routinely do not vote because they have been abandoned by both the Democrats and Republicans for over 30 years.
You forgot the far left dissidents, but they probably wouldn't join; see koalaburger post earlier.
And let's keep the message simple and clear and not try to, as the Green Party does, cover the entire spectrum of desires.
~ Corporate Personhood and election corruption.
~ End the wars and cut the war budget.
` Restore right to privacy and habeas corpus.
` Medicare for all.
` Regulate the banks and Wall Street.
and maybe:
~ Green jobs and subsidies.
And leave it for that, for now. That's plenty, maybe even too much.
Gary
PS BTW I am suggesting the name "The People" ("The People Party") for a new unity party to bring together the dozen or so "third-parties" that better represent the actual positions of the American people than the present duopoly. Imagine campaigning for "The People."
“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.”
-- Sydney J. Harris
dreamjoehill
you're, right, generic democracy... the purest we could get- would be free of the corp influence... that's my point... the concept or the gov by the people, for the people is fine... but yes, corps have infiltrated. Take care of the corporate worms and decay and you get back your democracy... at least as close to it as we can get... but I like the interpretation I've heard a few times, about how democracy is a work in progress... the problem is we have gone back ward or something, losing what ever ground we had made...
and Kitjah
You're right about the religious fanatics in the group... that's a big driver in the movement and their dislike and distrust of progressives or liberal.
It's kinda scary when you take a person aaaaaalllll the way on the right and one aaaaaaallllllll the way on the left. With this great divide in between, how do we work things out? Some how we must, even if it's in a way where each gets to live his/her life pretty much the way they need to. But it's also true that we all need to grow and understand something that we are missing. I'm hoping that somehow we find it. Time is running short. It matters because it is affecting our very existance.
I get extremely exasperated at times, wondering why the far right or even closer to the middle and the middle, why don't they get it. But I know that on some level, I can't look at them as so seperate from my self. I have spent plenty of time with people like that. My own father is like that. So, we can't just close off our groups and live seperate lives... it won't work.
so- all of this is a work in progress... let's keep working- working to come together somehow someway and take care of our world and each other...
There's a meeting for the DC chapter of this tomorrow. I'm going to go and check it out...Potter's House in Adams Morgan from 1-4 PM if any of you are around DC.
on a former link on common dreams someone came up with PROGRESSIVE UNITY PARTY.(pup-i'm working on a pitbull logo) i agree with metal, we need an umbrella party (convention): the commies, the pinkos, hippies, socialists, greens, labor, the usual suspects that believe in thinking. if that succeeds then you have the seed (grain of sand to make a pearl, whatever). there are plenty of so called centrists who can't stand the fibrillating stupidity of current affairs who are desperate for an intelligent choice. i'm not sanguine about this succeeding...but what choice is there?
I like the idea of the " Flubber Party." Good ideas just bounce until they take flight! Now if
we could just figure out what energy source bounced those little flubber balls, then the
sky would be the limit for the GREENS!
Why not infiltrate the Libertarian Party the way corps infiltrated the dem party?
The Libertarian Party is the third biggest party and it is a huge tent. Abolishing the Patriot Act and returning Civil Liberty and Democracy is absolutely essential if we are to build a responsible government later.
Most citizens, once properly informed of issues not spin-doctored to death by the corporate media, would want cheap subsidized residential solar power, which is all we need in the southern states to shut down all the coal plants slowly killing us. Most informed citizens would want all the wars shut down if they had that option at the ballot booth. Most would want bankers strung up from the highest tree for what they did to the USA and the world.
No it's not perfect. But the Libertarian Party is neither left nor right. It could appeal to tea beggers and libs alike.
Think about it.
TJ
I agree. If Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Ralph Nader joined forces, who knows what could happen. I know Kucinich and Nader may not like the idea of joining the LP but times are desperate and require desperate measures. All three are committed antiwar, anti corporate, pro civil libertarians, so why not?
Have you actually read through Paul's, and Kucinich's policies?
The idea of Paul and Kucinich joining together is hilariously idiotic. The idea of Kucinich joining the Libertarian party is equally hilarious.
rfloh: I think you're right, Kucinich wouldn't join the Libertarian Party. Also, that party has been co-opted by neocons like Neal Bortz. Compare Bob Barr/Wayne Root to Harry Browne or Ron Paul and you will see a world of difference.
During the '08 primaries I read an interview with Paul. He was asked about Kucinich, as they are, apparently, friends. Paul was clear his goal at the time was to get the budget back to 1998 levels, restore civil liberties and to bring all troops home from everywhere. He stated that he would not be opposed to some of DK's ideas as long as we could get the budget under control. His basic premise is that overseas military adventure is the main enemy of liberty and limited gov't. Can't speak, however, for his followers or other libertarians but I can't see how anyone, Progressive, Green, libertarian or just plain everyday citizens (excluding neocons and neolibs) would oppose those three goals. This is a big mess. We have to be practical and reality focused. We all have to be willing to work with those whose ideologies may even upset us.
I have a good friend who is a right-wing libertarian. We disagree on the role of CO2 in climate change but we agree that we should have begun shifting from polluting sources of energy to clean, sustainable ones many decades ago. I've introduced her to this website. A few weeks ago she said that a cousin had asked her about good websites for political info--she recommended lewrockwell.com and CD. It's a start.
Paul has actually complimented Kucinich on his antiwar stance and convictions in the face of heavy DP criticism. There is a preconceived notion that the LP is far right, it's not, the neocon right that has taken over the US is. There is a common enemy of left socialist's, liberals, moderate republicans, and libertarians, and it is the Corporate State. It's not idiotic to try to come up with solutions that seem out of the ordinary. These are not ordinary times. Unless you like the way things are and want to stay entrenched in your petty ideologies then fine, have more of the same. This site seems dominated by socialist ideologues who throw mud on every attempt at finding solutions unless it fits a socialist agenda.
The Libertarian Party as currently constituted is right wing. Right libertarian.
Why infiltrate? The Libertarian Party has already been infiltrated and mostly taken over by neocons. The small l libertarians are the ones to forge alliances with. The agenda should be areas of consensus--civil liberties, dismantling the Empire, fiscal sanity, limiting the power of the Fed and big banks. To me, these are the most important things and nothing like national health care is going to happen until we (the people) have restored our republic. It seems to me that something like dismantling the empire would not happen overnight. These are long projects that will require collaboration not competition.
We'll never again have the Jeffersonian world but local and regional economies are more resilient and should be the goal. The first thing to do is start a dialogue.
I do not think hard-hearted fundamentalist recessives will ever unite with truly good hearted people. Many are sadomasochistic at their core. Unless it's in their selfish interest, or self-righteous point of view, they don't want anything to do with it. That said, likely not everyone who identifies with that movement is quite that extreme, but follow in ignorance. They can still be reached. Let's just hope that they are in the majority.
How about the Peasants' Party. Calling things like it is.
More like the Serf or Vassal Party would be more accurate.
(Or as I suggest below/above The People Party?)
Gary
“In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.”
-- Aristotle
I went to the DC chapter meeting of this movement today. Good group of people, about 30 or more, diverse in age, color, professions, and ideology...ranging from former Obama campaigners to someone from the DC Green Party. They were all pretty eager to expand and show the country that the tea partiers don't represent mainstream America.
Very friendly folks too...you guys might want to get involved. I'm sure they'll be receptive to ideas that many people talk about on here.
thanks for the update zman. tell me, how many hours were spent arguing about the name? (joking, i think)...for anyone not quite sure about what a LIBERTARIAN is, please go to Alternet and read Mark Ames article on Ayn Rand, (the libertarian goddess!)...if a third party ever forms i want no part of it if can't call a Sociopath a SOCIOPATH!...we already have a party that can't do that, the democrats! (i have the domain: progressiveunityparty...pup...vdb came up with this...if anyone is computer literate, maybe we could conspire to get this pup up and running on weebly (vdb?)...ray.prk@gmail.com....just pushing the rock...peace...