chlamor
03-14-2010, 08:37 AM
The L______ Answer to Tea Parties? A Cup of Joe
by Sean J. Miller
A burgeoning netroots movement has emerged from what its founder characterized as "ranting on my Facebook page."
Several weeks ago, filmmaker Annabel Park posted a note on her Facebook profile expressing "frustration ... listening to news coverage that made it seem like the Tea Party was representative of America."
That grew into the liberal Coffee Party movement, a play off the conservative Tea Party movement. The Coffee Party consists of people who believe that government can play an active role in resolving the country's major issues.
Park, a resident of Silver Spring, Md., founded the Coffee Party Movement with a mission to be non-partisan and promote civil discourse on important issues.
"If you don't believe that the government has any role [in healthcare], then yeah, you should join the Tea Party," said Park in a Coffee Party introduction video. "But there are many of us who that believe we have to have the government addressing these things, representing our interests."
Since February, the Coffee Party has gathered some 120,000 fans on Facebook. And it's set to bring its virtual community together in public for the first time this Saturday. The group has close to 350 kickoff parties scheduled around the country, with thousands of supporters expected to attend, according to Chris Rigopulos, a Boston-based organizer for the group.
"The movement will migrate from a pure online endeavor to in-person meet-ups all over the country," said Rigopulos, who got involved out of frustration with the harsh partisan atmosphere in the country. "These are not designed to be mass demonstrations of any kind. They are designed to begin the process of discussing critical issues."
He added: "People did not sign onto the Coffee Party as a referendum on healthcare reform."
Rigopulos said the group, which is working to incorporate as a non-profit, will decide what direction to take after Saturday's meetings. He said that no elected officials have reached out to the group and that it would be "premature" to say if it planned to get involved in any races this cycle.
"It's not agenda driven," Rigopulos, a business consultant, said. "It's about frustration at the political culture. And the fact that the politicians that we observe seem to be really ineffective at getting anything done."
The group's goal, Rigopulos said, is to promote "more collaborative decision making."
He said the thinking goes, if a diverse group of people can get together over, say, coffee and discuss in a civil manner controversial political issues, then so should the country's elected officials. Essentially, the Coffee Party is calling for a trickle up of civility in politics.
Michael Slaby, a Democratic consultant experienced in online organizing, said the Internet can't replace the old fashioned machinations of politics. "It's a myth that you can have a well-organizing political entity and just be an online thing," he said. "At some point, you need to be able to translate your online organization to offline results."
Meanwhile, an official with the Democratic National Convention (DNC) said there has been no attempt to court the so-called Coffee Partiers. Instead the DNC is pushing ahead with marshalling volunteers through its Organizing for America arm, the official said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/13#comment-1450779
akw March 14th, 2010 5:24 am
The so-called "grassroots" Coffee Party Movement, isn't so "grassroots".
The coffee party is partnered with democracyinaction, a 501(c)(3) organization, (meaning contributions to the latter are tax-deductible) whose motto is "wiring the progressive movement" for "social justice".
Democracyinaction gets its funding from the Open Society Institute (funded by GEORGE SOROS!). Democracyinaction is also linked to wiredforchange whose clients include the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the DEMOCRATIC Congressional Campaign Committee.
http://salsalabs.com/democracyinaction
And, here is Annabel, herself, urging Coffee Partiers to go to this website .........
http://swampbubbles.com/person/annabel-park
The bottom line is that Annabel Park is a seasoned political activist who got frustrated with the fact that the Tea Parties were getting their message heard, and the liberals who support Obama were not.
So, she co-opted the Tea Party's format and told everyone that the intention is to promote "civility in discourse". The fact is, her intention was to amass enough people to get attention in order to promote Obama and his agenda, and get him reelected. She didn't care about civility when she was trashing the Tea Parties, though, and she originally said that her intention was to render the Tea Party obsolete.
If people want the same things Annabel Park wants, that's great - but, everyone who doesn't want to promote and support Obama and his reelection should know that they're being used.
From a different article Struggle sez:
This experience with the Obama presidency just indicates what a stranglehold big business and the global capitalist elite have on our world today. In the heart of the beast the stranglehold is the greatest.
One just has to look at South Africa. If you feel "betrayed" in the US, imagine what the great majority of people in South Africa feel like. They struggled for generations against apartheid and went as far as an armed insurrection to gain their "freedom". Under the tremendous pressure that international capitalism brought to bear on that nation even the ANC (a revolutionary organization) caved in and adopted the marching orders of the "free market capitalist" system. The majority of blacks are economically worse off now then they were under apartheid.
All this points to how difficult the struggle for justice is today, not only in the USA, but throughout the world. In our consumer economy citizens look at politics like they look at other consumer choices. Choose: Obama, McCain, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader ... and your problems will be solved.
This is so much bullshit and shows that a great political maturing is required by everyone, including those who consider themselves progressive or part of the left.
Marx summed it up quite nicely .... Workers of the World unite! This is a class struggle on a global scale. The system will only be changed by a great effort and sacrifice by workers throughout the world working together to change this damned system. Shitting on Obama, or your next consumer mouthwash candidate isn't going to do it. It's just blowing in the wind and delaying the real initiative that is going to be necessary if you really want to get rid of this rotten system.
ORGANIZE - build a revolutionary movement that is prepared to wage the class struggle against big business with the view of overthrowing their domination. Stop wasting time playing the game of being simple consumers of what big business offers in so-called "democracy". It is their democracy, implemented specifically to divert your attention from class consciousness and the epic struggle of over-throwing the system itself.
Cheers.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/13-2
by Sean J. Miller
A burgeoning netroots movement has emerged from what its founder characterized as "ranting on my Facebook page."
Several weeks ago, filmmaker Annabel Park posted a note on her Facebook profile expressing "frustration ... listening to news coverage that made it seem like the Tea Party was representative of America."
That grew into the liberal Coffee Party movement, a play off the conservative Tea Party movement. The Coffee Party consists of people who believe that government can play an active role in resolving the country's major issues.
Park, a resident of Silver Spring, Md., founded the Coffee Party Movement with a mission to be non-partisan and promote civil discourse on important issues.
"If you don't believe that the government has any role [in healthcare], then yeah, you should join the Tea Party," said Park in a Coffee Party introduction video. "But there are many of us who that believe we have to have the government addressing these things, representing our interests."
Since February, the Coffee Party has gathered some 120,000 fans on Facebook. And it's set to bring its virtual community together in public for the first time this Saturday. The group has close to 350 kickoff parties scheduled around the country, with thousands of supporters expected to attend, according to Chris Rigopulos, a Boston-based organizer for the group.
"The movement will migrate from a pure online endeavor to in-person meet-ups all over the country," said Rigopulos, who got involved out of frustration with the harsh partisan atmosphere in the country. "These are not designed to be mass demonstrations of any kind. They are designed to begin the process of discussing critical issues."
He added: "People did not sign onto the Coffee Party as a referendum on healthcare reform."
Rigopulos said the group, which is working to incorporate as a non-profit, will decide what direction to take after Saturday's meetings. He said that no elected officials have reached out to the group and that it would be "premature" to say if it planned to get involved in any races this cycle.
"It's not agenda driven," Rigopulos, a business consultant, said. "It's about frustration at the political culture. And the fact that the politicians that we observe seem to be really ineffective at getting anything done."
The group's goal, Rigopulos said, is to promote "more collaborative decision making."
He said the thinking goes, if a diverse group of people can get together over, say, coffee and discuss in a civil manner controversial political issues, then so should the country's elected officials. Essentially, the Coffee Party is calling for a trickle up of civility in politics.
Michael Slaby, a Democratic consultant experienced in online organizing, said the Internet can't replace the old fashioned machinations of politics. "It's a myth that you can have a well-organizing political entity and just be an online thing," he said. "At some point, you need to be able to translate your online organization to offline results."
Meanwhile, an official with the Democratic National Convention (DNC) said there has been no attempt to court the so-called Coffee Partiers. Instead the DNC is pushing ahead with marshalling volunteers through its Organizing for America arm, the official said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/13#comment-1450779
akw March 14th, 2010 5:24 am
The so-called "grassroots" Coffee Party Movement, isn't so "grassroots".
The coffee party is partnered with democracyinaction, a 501(c)(3) organization, (meaning contributions to the latter are tax-deductible) whose motto is "wiring the progressive movement" for "social justice".
Democracyinaction gets its funding from the Open Society Institute (funded by GEORGE SOROS!). Democracyinaction is also linked to wiredforchange whose clients include the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the DEMOCRATIC Congressional Campaign Committee.
http://salsalabs.com/democracyinaction
And, here is Annabel, herself, urging Coffee Partiers to go to this website .........
http://swampbubbles.com/person/annabel-park
The bottom line is that Annabel Park is a seasoned political activist who got frustrated with the fact that the Tea Parties were getting their message heard, and the liberals who support Obama were not.
So, she co-opted the Tea Party's format and told everyone that the intention is to promote "civility in discourse". The fact is, her intention was to amass enough people to get attention in order to promote Obama and his agenda, and get him reelected. She didn't care about civility when she was trashing the Tea Parties, though, and she originally said that her intention was to render the Tea Party obsolete.
If people want the same things Annabel Park wants, that's great - but, everyone who doesn't want to promote and support Obama and his reelection should know that they're being used.
From a different article Struggle sez:
This experience with the Obama presidency just indicates what a stranglehold big business and the global capitalist elite have on our world today. In the heart of the beast the stranglehold is the greatest.
One just has to look at South Africa. If you feel "betrayed" in the US, imagine what the great majority of people in South Africa feel like. They struggled for generations against apartheid and went as far as an armed insurrection to gain their "freedom". Under the tremendous pressure that international capitalism brought to bear on that nation even the ANC (a revolutionary organization) caved in and adopted the marching orders of the "free market capitalist" system. The majority of blacks are economically worse off now then they were under apartheid.
All this points to how difficult the struggle for justice is today, not only in the USA, but throughout the world. In our consumer economy citizens look at politics like they look at other consumer choices. Choose: Obama, McCain, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader ... and your problems will be solved.
This is so much bullshit and shows that a great political maturing is required by everyone, including those who consider themselves progressive or part of the left.
Marx summed it up quite nicely .... Workers of the World unite! This is a class struggle on a global scale. The system will only be changed by a great effort and sacrifice by workers throughout the world working together to change this damned system. Shitting on Obama, or your next consumer mouthwash candidate isn't going to do it. It's just blowing in the wind and delaying the real initiative that is going to be necessary if you really want to get rid of this rotten system.
ORGANIZE - build a revolutionary movement that is prepared to wage the class struggle against big business with the view of overthrowing their domination. Stop wasting time playing the game of being simple consumers of what big business offers in so-called "democracy". It is their democracy, implemented specifically to divert your attention from class consciousness and the epic struggle of over-throwing the system itself.
Cheers.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/13-2