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the Coffee party

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RugbyFuture

Lord Logo
http://www.smh.com.au/world/tea-party-challenged--by-the-coffee-party-20101027-173iz.html
Tea Party challenged ... by the Coffee Party
October 27, 2010 - 4:39PM

A progressive infusion in US politics, the Coffee Party is seeking to brew a counter-movement to the ultra conservative Tea Party, just a week ahead of the US legislative elections.

Born in January in reaction to the bashing President Barack Obama's proposed health care reform was getting in Congress and the media, the Coffee Party first took shape on Facebook.

"It started on my personal Facebook page," said party founder Annabel Park, a small, soft spoken woman with a strong character.
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"I was so tired of the Tea Party and I wanted to say what I thought. A bunch of people responded, saying 'we should start our own party.'"

Park was reacting to the anti-government Tea Party that was launched after Obama's election in 2008 and took its name from Boston's 1773 revolt on a tea tax the British empire imposed on its US colony just before its war of independence.

"I've never created a fan page before and then within a couple of days all these people start to join it... It just kind of started to go viral," added Park, who says she is politically closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans.

An article in The Washington Post helped the Coffee Party take off, with thousands of new members signing on, some with their own local committees, she said.

With that, the Coffee Party went from a personal project to a non-partisan political movement that "gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government," as it says in its mission statement.

It stands in direct opposition to the Tea Party's professed goal of stopping "intrusive government" in favor of "common sense constitutional conservative self-governance."

Since its inception, the Coffee Party says it has attracted more than 300,000 active participants on Facebook and is now able to field its own candidate for November 2 in Missouri.

That's more than the Democratic National Committee's Facebook page, which has 150,000 followers, and the Republican National Committee's, with 186,000.

"It's definitely a reaction of ordinary people to the Tea Party, because in all the newspapers and the media you read that the Tea Party says they are the real America. But the way they're trying to make changes is dangerous," said Park.

Despite their heft, however, the Coffee Party is still far from wielding the clout of the Tea Party, which can summon tens of thousands of followers as they did last month for its Taxpayer March on Washington.

But the Coffee Party leadership insists it is still a young movement, on the verge of going from virtual to real power through a grassroots campaign that recently took Park to Woodbridge, Virginia, outside Washington.

She met there with party followers in a brightly lit cafeteria.

The Tea Party "is a rebirth of the extreme right-wing, social conservative movement... A majority of their group are white Christian activists. Basically, they support people that have the wealth and the power," said 65-year-old Gregg Reynolds.

The discussion quickly turned to how political parties are financed, the Coffee Party's main bone of contention.

"The way we finance elections makes politicians so vulnerable to basically being bribed because they need millions of dollars to run in campaigns," Park told the meeting.

"They become drug addicts and lobbyists become drug dealers and this is why lobbyists can write legislation. We have a corrupt system right now."

Gregg listens closely. He predicts the Coffee Party will one day become a political heavyweight.

However, he quickly adds with a tinge of bitterness, "I don't see that happening in my lifetime."

makes sense, especially since the tea party come across as so stupid
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
Every time I look at American politics it makes me thank fuck I'm Australian. Seriously. They are so attached to the idea of their genius 'founding fathers' that they can never take a step back and realise its a stupid fucking system that ensures that for the most part nothing ever gets done. Not to mention they are corrupt as anything- don't see any changes to campaign contribution law anytime soon, despite the fact that they all rail on lobbyists and big business.

And don't start me on the fucking Tea Party. A bunch of dimwitted hicks carrying around signs like 'Government stay out of my Medicare'. And the 'Rally to Restore Honour', I mean really. If someone proposed that here they would be laughed out of town.
 

RugbyFuture

Lord Logo
the stupid thing is, the founding fathers would have been very progressive. especially for their time, and founded america on left wing politics basically
 

Gagger

Nick Farr-Jones (63)
Staff member
The Tea party is both moronic and evil.

However, fantastic positioning from a marketing perspective. They say they don't support the Republicans to distance themselves from the Bush generation, (and then fund republican candidates). The democrats can't attack the movement because that would look unpatriotic - they can only hope the American population will see sense - and look where that will get you!

My biggest fear for the future of the world is that the yanks end up electing someone that makes Bush look like a rocket scientist - Palin would fit that bill nicely
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
the stupid thing is, the founding fathers would have been very progressive. especially for their time, and founded america on left wing politics basically

Classical liberal IMHO. That is, civil liberties and relative economic freedom. Remember that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was a influential book at that time. These days, they'd probably be called small-l libertarians.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
I think there is a lot of absolute bull written about the Tea Partiers. All this stuff about the movement being racist and only in existence because the US has a black president is very intellectually lazy. In reality, they are a pretty broad church (so to speak) and the only thing they all appear to agree on is that America is spending itself to bankruptcy. Whatever differences I have with them about other things, I agree with them on that.

I agree with BaBa though that it makes me glad to be an Aussie. Our politics are usually pretty raucus is parliament, but sedate in the general public. In the US, it's the opposite.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
GWB without question yes, but Barry's done a bang up job of spending a bunch of money since coming to power. Realistically, they will both go down as being poor presidents on the economic front. Clinton was actually pretty good at this stuff and gets little respect in his own country. Reagan ran high deficits, but not in comparison to now and not because of spending (other than military). He chose to cut taxes from the high rates of the Nixon and Carter years and the economy rocketed on in the 80's. Having Paul Volcker break the back of inflation helped too.

As for the tea party love of GWB, I'm not seeing it from what I read. They blame him just as much, which is why establishment R's are getting booted out by tea party candidates in their congressional primaries.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
It would probably be no worse than it is now. The unemployment projections of the current administration have proven to be on the low side. The problem with bailouts is when do you stop? What makes the auto industry or the banks special? It's making everyone pay for the sins of a few. The cynic in me says that the propping up of certain industries is a vote buying exercise. Lucky I'm not that cynical.
 

Blue

Andrew Slack (58)
its a stupid fucking system that ensures that for the most part nothing ever gets done.

Whilts I entirely agree with your post, we have ourselves one of those at the moment.

The two party system her is inherently flawed and if we can't see that out of this fiasco were are stupid (and I fear we will remain just so).
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
GWB without question yes, but Barry's done a bang up job of spending a bunch of money since coming to power. Realistically, they will both go down as being poor presidents on the economic front. Clinton was actually pretty good at this stuff and gets little respect in his own country. Reagan ran high deficits, but not in comparison to now and not because of spending (other than military). He chose to cut taxes from the high rates of the Nixon and Carter years and the economy rocketed on in the 80's. Having Paul Volcker break the back of inflation helped too.

As for the tea party love of GWB, I'm not seeing it from what I read. They blame him just as much, which is why establishment R's are getting booted out by tea party candidates in their congressional primaries.

The problem here is that with thier two term limit, Obama will never have time needed for the reforms he visions.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
The biggest culprits here are Reagan and George Dubya, both heroes of the Tea Party. The loony right have landed America in the shit the last 30 years, certainly not Barack Obama.

Without doubt the other two you mention, particularly Bush, were big spenders, but how you can say that 'certainly not Barack Obama' is also contributing to the problem is beyond me. I also wonder if the three that agreed with you are only agree with the first part or also don't think that Obama has been poor as far as economic management is concerned?
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
The problem here is that with thier two term limit, Obama will never have time needed for the reforms he visions.

I'm in favour of term limits. Eight years ought to be enough time to get something done (most reform is done early anyway) but not enough time to do truly permanent damage. That's the theory anyway. If I recall correctly, term limits were brought in after the FDR years. I would advocate term limits for congresspeople as well. A lot of those guys and girls are ossifying and chewing up public money in pork barrelling and their personal pensions while in congress.

I don't think Obama is a shoe-in to win in 2012 anyway, not unless the economy improves. Rightly or wrongly, people will blame him for it.
 

Scarfman

Knitter of the Scarf
American debt is insane. I reckon the whole capitalist system could get taken down. If the US can't pay it's debts ...

But are the Tea Baggers the right people to reform the American financial system? Hmm. Is my 5 year old the best person to perform emergency brain surgery, blindfolded, and using nothing but sharpened toys? I don't think so.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
Neither side of politics in the states seems to have the ability or nerve to do what is required. Mostly because they are too heavily influenced by people outside of politics.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
You don't think 8 years is enough to get anything done?

No. He will be lucky to clean the mess he inherited in 8 years. Things like his health reform are such a massive mind shift that that it will take longer. I think it should be up to the American voter to determine the length of tenure of an elected official, If they like the person they have, they should reserve the right too keep them in the job beyond 8 years.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
They are in some strife, that is for sure. They've been in trouble before (arguably worse) and got out of it though. Americans are very resilient and will generally rally together when things get really tough. The problem is, things usually have to get really tough for them to do it ;) Churchill had an apt quote: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”

I'm not sure the Tea Partiers are the ones to solve this either, but clearly there is a need for some new thinking in congress. First and foremost, I think the political class need to level with the American people and tell them that the debt party is over and that belt tightening is required.
 
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