For those of you are leery of the Tea Party with their sometimes extremist views and death threats, but are angry at the power corporations have over the United States government and its citizens and the continual in-fighting in congress, the Coffee Party was created as another grass-roots alternative.
According to their official web-site, the Coffee Party is not an anti-government party, but instead a party that wants to be involved in the democratic process while holding office-holders accountable for their actions. Because the group is totally a grass-roots organization, they claim that they are not interested in allowing the lobbyists have their say and in fact, the main goal of the organization seems to be to bring more power back to the people and away from the corporations, but in a responsible way.
Annabel Park, the organizer of the Coffee Party Movement, says in a Washington Post interview that the main differences between the Coffee Party Movement and the Tea Party movement is that there is a lot less rhetoric involved and way less hostility, but that she is open to joining forces with them when their paths intersect if the Tea Party activists tone down their message somewhat. In addition, she contrasts the Coffee Party with Moveon.org because the new organization is more grass-roots than what she terms as a top-down structure.
As the founder of the Coffee Party said to the NY Times, “This is about recognizing that the government represents us, so we need to step to the plate and start having a voice and start acting like bosses.”
Although the Coffee Party is new on the scene, it is receiving national attention from the NYT, the Washington Post, and MSNBC and the party is planning a kick-off with Coffee Houses throughout the country on March 13th.
The Coffee Party’s Facebook page has almost 60,000 fans of the party already, with the number of hits on the web site actually blocking the server sometimes. The Coffee Party Facebook page has a letter from a Tea Party member in Los Angeles that attempts to clear up the conception of the Tea Party movement as. “obstructionist”, but might also lead to opening up some doors between the two parties.
