I hope this “Coffee Party Movement” catches on…
The Washington Post had a story up today about a sane response to the TeaBagger movement: The Coffee Party Movement.
As I pour yet another cup this morning I found myself nodding in agreement to this post on the Coffee Party blog:
Our focus is on the democratic process. We want to encourage everyone—no matter their positions on issues—to participate in the process in a civil and responsible way.We want the political process broken down into three steps:
1) open and respectful dialogue
2) thoughtful and informed deliberation
3) competent and decisive execution.
A grassroots populist movement that seeks to channel frustration, anger and the energy of engaged Citizens in a useful direction—now that’s unusual in our politics and worth supporting. I’m going to an eye on this because statements like this make sense. It is an invitation to the sane among us (so I guess that means it will be a small movement).
Even if a group of Citizens having reasonable conversations to try and solve problems and improve our Government can’t compete with the teevee ready craziness of the astro-turf corporate funded TeaBaggers of Wingnutopia, it is still an effort at real Citizenship that is worthy of support (IMHO).
Cheers
dengre
and yes, feel free to use this as an Open Thread…
February 26, 2010 12:26 pm
Posted in: Excellent Links, Open Thread, Politics
74 Comments
74 Responses
norbizness - February 26, 2010 | 12:29 pm · Link
Just… no.
whiskey - February 26, 2010 | 12:29 pm · Link
fuck the police
jeffreyw - February 26, 2010 | 12:32 pm · Link
Let’s go fishin!
jenniebee - February 26, 2010 | 12:33 pm · Link
I’m all for it if they add a final bullet point:
4. And if you ignore us or fuck with us, we will burn your shit down.
FormerSwingVoter - February 26, 2010 | 12:35 pm · Link
I’m not sure I understand… why would anyone join a movement not based around hysterical xenophobia?
Moonbatting Average - February 26, 2010 | 12:36 pm · Link
Hmmm… Why not Scotch Party Movement?
geg6 - February 26, 2010 | 12:37 pm · Link
Think I’ll wait. Went to the website and saw that the second or third comment on the forums page was about abolishing the IRS and the Fed.
This could be a buncha libertards. And they are often even worse than the GOP. Considering how pissed they are about the Teabaggers being overrun with GOPers, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where those idiots end up.
Perhaps, though, I’m wrong. But since I refuse to ever click on the WaPo for any reason whatsoever (and it’s actually been about 6 months now and I feel like a former smoker), I can’t read about who is responsible for this or why.
PeakVT - February 26, 2010 | 12:38 pm · Link
2) thoughtful and informed deliberation based on facts
Fixited. Nobody is entitled to an alternate reality.
artem1s - February 26, 2010 | 12:39 pm · Link
i think “thoughtful and informed deliberation” is where this is likely to break down. teabaggers think they are informed and wouldn’t know thoughtful if it shoved them in Boston Harbor. while the teabaggers are extreme in there behavior, a good deal of the populous fails the test as well. we have way too much marketing and media that encourages us to feed our impulses and go with our gut. i’m not sure the average american knows how to identify factual information or act in a deliberate manner. they just think they do.
valdivia - February 26, 2010 | 12:39 pm · Link
Hey I am all for it. I am for anything coffee really so yes, sign me up!
decitect - February 26, 2010 | 12:44 pm · Link
isn’t the Coffee Party really ? likely to be small – hard to get fired up when you’re deliberate… jus sayin
freelancer - February 26, 2010 | 12:44 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average:
Or Pork Belly Revolution as long as we’re going with the whole commoditties thing. I mean, this is America we’re talking about
Trinity - February 26, 2010 | 12:45 pm · Link
From the article:
I am intrigued, to say the least. There are a couple of DC groups that meet. I’ll go check one out and report back.
Sue - February 26, 2010 | 12:46 pm · Link
Sounds suspiciously hippie-ish to me, all “reasonable” and “let’s get along in harmony”. And, where’s the profit? You’re not going to get a corporate bus or important speakers if there’s no money in it.
SGEW - February 26, 2010 | 12:47 pm · Link
From the linked blog:
Doomed.
/cynic
Martin - February 26, 2010 | 12:47 pm · Link
Respectful, informed, competent? What fucking country do you think this is?
Matt - February 26, 2010 | 12:50 pm · Link
Just what we need, more “latte drinking” comments.
J.W. Hamner - February 26, 2010 | 12:53 pm · Link
I think political movements should have to use nonsense words to name themselves… there’s really no reason they should be able to pollute the connotations of perfectly good beverages with their vile lameness.
Captain Haddock - February 26, 2010 | 12:53 pm · Link
I prefer more rage and incompetence from my movements.
Dennis G. - February 26, 2010 | 12:54 pm · Link
@Martin:
Yeah, as I said, if it is an appeal to sanity it will be a small movement in America. We don’t do that very well.
Cheers
Kryptik - February 26, 2010 | 12:57 pm · Link
@SGEW:
Fixed. I mean…lovely thought, but that reasonableness is exactly why it’s doomed to failure in these insane times.
Kirk Spencer - February 26, 2010 | 1:01 pm · Link
@geg6: That line is my personal sanity touchstone for any political organization. If “get rid of the IRS” (or even the lesser ‘get it under control’) is part of the party mission, it’s pandering to the unthinking.
If there is no IRS, some other agency will still have to:
a) collect revenues;
b) pursue and prosecute those who do not pay their share of the revenues;
c) provide regulatory guidance, forms, and assistance for determining the share of individuals and organizations;
d) report to the government how much has been collected and estimated due but not yet collected.
The IRS is the US Government’s Accounts Receivable office. Doesn’t matter what you call it; since people don’t want to pay up front somebody has to do it.
JJ - February 26, 2010 | 1:03 pm · Link
Seems like a lame rip off of Drinking Liberally...
freelancer - February 26, 2010 | 1:03 pm · Link
OT-
They’re getting it! They’re really getting it!
#UPORDOWNVOTE
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Mike Kay - February 26, 2010 | 1:04 pm · Link
@Sue:
I don’t think so. Today’s hippies have gone Emo, with their “daddy doesn’t spend enough time with me and he didn’t buy me a pony so I’m gonna cut myself badly to get attention and hurt him” blubbering.
BongCrosby - February 26, 2010 | 1:04 pm · Link
I’m waiting for the THC Party. :-D
jenniebee - February 26, 2010 | 1:05 pm · Link
@valdivia: I, for one, welcome our new beverage overlords.
Mike Furlan - February 26, 2010 | 1:06 pm · Link
A “Tea Party” type of person will find this sort of behavior to be “Passive Aggressive.”
Joey Maloney - February 26, 2010 | 1:06 pm · Link
This is not a comment on the coffee party in particular, but I challenge the rapidly-spreading use of this Twitter widget, where you get a realtime scroll of tweets that match some search criteria.
You go to the coffee party’s website and literally the very first thing you see – top left of the home page – is that widget, mostly scrolling illiterate Teabaggers cussing and slagging off the idea.
You can’t get much of either “open and respectful dialogue” or “thoughtful and informed deliberation” in 140 characters, especially on contentious topics. So the first impression of the site is a continual scroll of Stupid, which is not much of a selling point.
It doesn’t make me think, “gee, I want to spend more time on this website and get involved.” It makes me want to start drinking heavily.
Martian Buddy - February 26, 2010 | 1:09 pm · Link
Combating the tea parties with a kaffeeklatsch will never work. What we need is a Keg Party.
Morbo - February 26, 2010 | 1:10 pm · Link
CIVILITY NOW!
Zifnab - February 26, 2010 | 1:11 pm · Link
I think it can.
All those milling aimless Tea Baggers still aren’t sure what they stand for. They’re leaderless and confused and more interested in screaming and crying than working or thinking.
A coffee party is the perfect antidote. I’m on board.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - February 26, 2010 | 1:14 pm · Link
@SGEW:
Ditto on the doomed part.
I used to think nice polite circa 1980 John Anderson Republican thoughts like that, until I read Kevin Phillips’ books and realized that US politics is a sporadically violent contest between two irreconcilable cultural factions that have been at war with each other continuously for the last 400 years. And which will still be going at each other long after I’ve gone 6 ft. under. We are all shia and sunnis here so to speak, we just don’t know it.
licensed to kill time - February 26, 2010 | 1:14 pm · Link
I think a Ganja Party movement would be interesting – there would be lots of signs in pretty colors and people standing around going “Oh yeah, what was I saying?” and group hugs aplenty. The bake sales would raise tons of moolah, too.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 1:15 pm · Link
Well, at least join the Facebook group. It’ll piss off wingers you went to high school with.
Mike E - February 26, 2010 | 1:17 pm · Link
Add frangelico to that and I’m there with bags on.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 1:17 pm · Link
Ugh.
Can we all just admit that D.C. is the only place in America taxed without representation, and that the rest of you yahoos just don’t like being taxed because you’re antisocial paranoid weirdos who reject the basic idea of the social contract? kthxbye.
valdivia - February 26, 2010 | 1:17 pm · Link
@jenniebee:
:) I am happy to add anything alcoholic to my coffee too. no need to be puritanical right?
and yes up or down vote. come on people spread the message!
Fergus Wooster - February 26, 2010 | 1:21 pm · Link
@licensed to kill time: Ganja-plus-coffee party – no fights, but just enough edge from the caffeine to keep everyone marginally focused.
And lots of thinking “outside the box”, although hopefully not of the “the universe might be an atom in the thumbnail of God” way.
Morbo - February 26, 2010 | 1:21 pm · Link
Also, since it’s an open thread… the soundboard app banner ads (now that there are two of them at once) make me want to put my fist through my monitor. That was one benefit of glass monitors; they strongly dissuaded such action. Does anyone else have this problem?
Jamey - February 26, 2010 | 1:22 pm · Link
I think the only movement fit to represent the state of our government is The Bowel Movement.
Amirite?
Fergus Wooster - February 26, 2010 | 1:25 pm · Link
OT, but someone mentioned pork bellies – does anyone here have experience buchering hogs? (Butchering, not slaughtering, for the DFH’s. . . )
eastriver - February 26, 2010 | 1:26 pm · Link
A lovely idea. But so’s healthcare for all. And no taxes. And free Peet’s for all progs.
But I like the balance of the brewers versus the baggers.
Time for another cup of man juice. (Coffee.)
Martian Buddy - February 26, 2010 | 1:26 pm · Link
OT: Bill Frist has a concern-troll piece in the WSJ today talking about how unprecedented and horrible it would be if the Democrats used the reconciliation process to bypass the GOP roadblock. Maybe a latte would perk him up.
Violet - February 26, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link
Dang it, I prefer tea over coffee and I’m ticked off that those teabaggers have ruined the good name of tea.
Coffee Party sounds like a Coffee Klatch – a bunch of old biddies sitting around gossiping over a cup of Folgers. Doesn’t sound appealing.
gnomedad - February 26, 2010 | 1:27 pm · Link
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Which book would you recommend first vis a vis that thesis?
slag - February 26, 2010 | 1:30 pm · Link
@Matt:
You know, I’m kind of tired of liberals being cowed by Republican slander. I have no problem being called a “latte liberal” by a freakin’ teabagger.
Even though I don’t drink much coffee, I think this thing is a great idea. Sanity is a good gimmick.
licensed to kill time - February 26, 2010 | 1:32 pm · Link
@Fergus Wooster:
Everybody would be singing “We are the world, in a soap bubble, a soap bubble in the dishwater of God…”
Fergus Wooster - February 26, 2010 | 1:32 pm · Link
@Martian Buddy:
Or a latte enema.
Liberty60 - February 26, 2010 | 1:34 pm · Link
Add me to the list of “intrigued and hopeful”
I registered, and will chime in with my thoughts.
What I really liked was this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVwVlvVYlwk
Mostly because the people sounded sane and hopeful, the opposite of the deranged haters of the Tea Party.
Someone mentioned that the libertarians made a post there- thats to be expected, in any new movement, lots of people with wildly disparate agendas try to turn it to their point of view.
But I think the answer is to join, and add our voices to create a critical mass of reason viewpoints. That’s what democracy is, int he final analysis- the will and opinion of the consensus.
Anything’s better than passively sitting at a pc and handwringing or being snarky.
drunken hausfrau - February 26, 2010 | 1:37 pm · Link
I’d like a Cocktail Party Movement.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 1:39 pm · Link
are being involved and being snarky binary choices now? ‘Cause, being a pragmatist above most else, I don’t want to make that one.
jenniebee - February 26, 2010 | 1:41 pm · Link
@slag: You’d think from the way they cling to that epithet they’d be picketing Starbucks.
What always gets me about this is that the most radical liberals I know absolutely turn their noses up at what they refer to as “$5 coffee.” If there is such a thing as a “latte liberal,” the definition must be: mid-career cubicle dweller who wants more funding for public schools because that pushes up property values.
Martian Buddy - February 26, 2010 | 1:43 pm · Link
@Fergus Wooster: If the piece I read was any indication, he would probably prefer a sherry enema.
Fergus Wooster - February 26, 2010 | 1:44 pm · Link
@Martian Buddy: Port. Extra tawny.
I think I’ll pass on lunch now.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 1:46 pm · Link
@Fergus Wooster:
Maybe part of the Republican plan to control costs is more diagnoses via videotape from Bill Frist and he’s sad no one mentioned it? We could cheer him up with some footage of interesting boils, I’m sure.
Gus - February 26, 2010 | 1:49 pm · Link
@jeffreyw: That’s a nice looking stringer!
Fergus Wooster - February 26, 2010 | 1:52 pm · Link
@jibeaux: Only if he’ll diagnose Jim “Tough Shit” Bunning as mentally incapacitated and unfit to serve.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - February 26, 2010 | 1:54 pm · Link
@gnomedad:
First, The Cousin’s Wars, by Kevin Phillips.
After that, one of Phillips’s more recent books on economics and politics would make a good read. Wealth and Democracy, American Theocracy, and Bad Money are all of them at root the same book covering the same subjects rewritten in succession to bring his material up to date on contemporary events since the last published version. Unfortunately the best written and researched one of the three IMHO is Wealth and Democracy, which is also the oldest of the 3, whereas the most recent one Bad Money is probably the worst – it feels like a rush job which was shoved out the door to try to catch the wave of books about the financial markets collapse of 2007/2008, without adding much value compared with the other two books.
After finishing The Cousin’s Wars, you might also want to read the book Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer, which presents a much more complex and multivalent view of the competing cultures in US history. Phillips presents a binary Red vs. Blue view of the world in The Cousin’s Wars, whereas in Albion’s Seed it is more complicated. Unfortunately Albion’s Seed is IMHO very dry reading compared with Phillips’ work.
Phillips is an interesting guy, you might want to check out his wiki bio. He has gone thru a right to left political evolution in some ways similar to John’s but spanning a much longer time frame, from the 1960s till today. Imagine say somebody like Karl Rove over the course of several decades turing into somebody whose politics are closer to say those of Yves Smith of the econ/finance blog NakedCapitalism.
Speaking of which, Yves has a book of her own coming out in March, titled: ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism . Judging from the quality of discussion on her blog, this could be really good.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 1:56 pm · Link
@Fergus Wooster:
Given that he diagnosed Terri Schiavo as being a couple weeks away from teaching salsa dance, I doubts it.
Joel - February 26, 2010 | 2:02 pm · Link
The reality is that teabaggers are vile and need to be marginalized.
Sentient Puddle - February 26, 2010 | 2:05 pm · Link
I’m starting up the beer party. We shall stand for dealing in facts, no bullshit in process, and awesomeness in the government.
And if we can’t get any of that, we shall stand for drinking awesome craft brew. So we got that going for us, at least.
jibeaux - February 26, 2010 | 2:09 pm · Link
@Sentient Puddle:
And thus was a new FB group born. I will totally join.
slag - February 26, 2010 | 2:12 pm · Link
@jenniebee:
If I ever found this person, even I would make fun of him.
This video by a Coffee Party guy really works for me. If “bipartisanship” were ever going to be more than a figment of Richard Cohen’s wet dream, this kind of person is where the bipartisan rubber would meet the road (to mix a really unfortunate metaphor). Smart. Fairly substantive. Obviously empirically-minded and not wholly ideological. More like this.
We can complain all we want about how narrow the spectrum of discourse is in this country, but as we’ve observed, complaining about it doesn’t make it better. Our best hope is to get more and more people to at least start concerning themselves with the basic substance of an issue—no matter where on the political spectrum they start investigating it from. If we get more people doing that, we’ll inevitably get more people on our side. That’s where we have to begin. Although that’s kind of the hard part.
Ed Drone - February 26, 2010 | 2:13 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average:
We want to be able to walk a straight line afterwards, dummy! Of course, we could take our scotch sitting down after the marching, I suppose—use it as a reward.
I prefer single-malts, but not too peaty! One of my favorites is Knockando, but there are lots of others that are good, too.
Ed
Brick Oven Bill - February 26, 2010 | 2:23 pm · Link
Sounds like a bunch of pansies.
b-psycho - February 26, 2010 | 2:54 pm · Link
This assumes that there isn’t an inherent symbiotic relationship between the political elite & business interests…
Have fun accomplishing jack shit. I’ll be over here drinking beer, waiting for people to figure out that “representative democracy” is a joke.
Evinfuilt - February 26, 2010 | 3:12 pm · Link
I’m sorry, but I’m a Tea drinker, I can’t socialize with coffee people, maybe we could find common ground with the “Not Starbucks Party.”
TDE - February 26, 2010 | 3:12 pm · Link
Lot of jaded fucks on this blog… lol.
How this group (Coffee Party) falls into anything you all view as negative I have no idea.
Maybe the problem is you lot sitting around doing fuck all?
gnomedad - February 26, 2010 | 3:22 pm · Link
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Thanks for the expansive response!
Toast - February 26, 2010 | 3:28 pm · Link
I am not interested in being “respectful” towards the teabaggers or the majority of Republicans. They can go fuck themselves. At this point, the burden of proof is on any conservative to prove they’re worthy of respect or consideration of any kind.
asiangrrlMN - February 26, 2010 | 4:54 pm · Link
@Violet: Agreed. I mean, I love a good cup of joe, but there’s nothing like tea when I need to calm the fuck down! Or something. Still, I’m done for some civility in our political discussions—as long as I can still curse from time to time.
mclaren - February 27, 2010 | 1:13 am · Link
You SCUM.
That’s sedition.
It’s treason.
This would destroy the American system of governance as we know it!
Nancy Irving - February 27, 2010 | 11:46 pm · Link
Did you notice that WaPo put the piece about this sane and reasonable movement on the “Style” page?
Is coverage of the Tea Parties relegated to the “Arts and Living” section?
The Village will never take sane and reasonable seriously. It’s time to get out the tumbrels and guillotine.