Mar 16 2010
Coffee, Tea, Democracy?
After dumping tea into the Boston Harbor in July of 1773, the Continental Congress decided to declare coffee the national drink of the United States. On January 26th of 2010, a movement called the Coffee Party called for a return to the democratic ideals that had sprung from rebellion. Coffee Party USA began with a Facebook post by documentary-filmmaker Annabel Park. Frustrated by the Tea Party movement’s rabble-rousing antics, Park ranted, “let’s start a coffee party…a smoothie party, red bull party, anything but tea…let’s get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.” Before even she could fathom what had happened, Park was the de facto coordinator of a grassroots movement that “aims to reinvigorate the public sphere, drawing from diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives … to transform our disappointment in our current political system into a force that will return our nation to a course of popular governance, of the People, by the people, and for the people.” However, Park says that she doesn’t want the Coffee Party to be seen as the “anti-Tea Party,” noting that both movements have shared goals. Above all, the movement appears to promote deliberation and dialogue–among community members, with political leaders, and among people of all political stripes. Even some Tea-Partiers joined discussions that took place this past Saturday, March 13th which was declared National Coffee Party Day. Thousands of Americans met in more than 350 coffee shops to express themselves and discuss the local, state, and national issues important to them.
To help understand this very fast growing movement are three organizers from Southern California’s Coffee Party USA:
GUESTS: Eileen Cabiling, writer and producer, Kim Ly, film maker, Will Scoles, student of social work
Find out more at www.coffeepartyusa.org.
2 Responses to “Coffee, Tea, Democracy?”
Well, good on them, better late than never (to become politically involved and engaged), I guess. I don’t see that it’ll do much. “Civility” is a class weapon as much as ideology can be a division-instrument of politics. I think the coffee partiers are naive and a little too “new” but if it empowers participation, I’ll take it and be happy to educate them. Who knows if any of ’em will actually want to be educated on the issues the guests were woefully uninformed about. We will see, won’t we?
Oh, I re-listened and wanted to give props to “Liz from Mt. Washington”, a caller who had a brilliant idea that the coffee party concept could serve to replace lobbyists. THAT is an amazing idea progressives should very much pursue. Imagine a grassroots civic input functioning as lobbying… we’d need a total ban on corporate funded lobbying and professional lobbyists as we know it. The possibilities are energizing!