Coffee vs. Tea: A political movement is brewing

Members of the Coffee Party's Seattle chapter discuss politics at a coffee shop in Bainbridge Island, Washington.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Coffee Party leaders held 350 to 400 events Saturday across the country
• "Just like in the American Revolution, we are looking for real representation," founder says
• Group's first action will be April 27, during Congress' Easter recess

Washington (CNN) -- The new Coffee Party movement deemed its official kickoff Saturday a "huge success," with dozens of talks held at coast-to-coast coffee shops as members came together to discuss the issues most important to them.
Billed by many as an answer to the conservative Tea Party movement, the Coffee Party was born on Facebook just six weeks ago. While the group has become an instant hit online -- it boasts more than 141,000 Facebook fans as of Saturday -- gauging the success of this weekend's coffee meetups was predicted to be an indicator of the group's strength.
A statement released by the party said "today's coffee houses have been a huge success -- both for Coffee Party USA and for democracy. All across the U.S., Americans from all political sides sat down for civil conversation and, of course, coffee."
At Java Monkey in Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, coordinator Stacey Hopkins said turnout far exceeded expectations, with around 60 people participating at the "very productive" meeting where health care reform was the overriding issue.
"We had kids there, we had college students, high school students, and we had retirees," she said. "It went across a very broad spectrum age wise and racially, and this is that we'd like to see."
Were you at a Coffee Party gathering? Share your images, story
In Asheville, North Carolina, about 35 people gathered at Filo Pastries and Coffee, according to CNN iReporter Rachael Jernigan, a stay-at-home mom who coordinated the meeting.
"I think the biggest thing to come out of it was people were tired of being labeled and divided," said Jernigan, who added that a Tea Party member was among the attendees. "They do agree on a lot."
About 30 people came out to a meeting at Raleigh, North Carolina's Cup A Joe, said CNN iReporter Davis Hall.
"I really liked what the Coffee movement said the foundation was -- which is to get everybody of all stripes of life to get together," Hall said.
The meetings were among about 350 the party planned to hold Saturday.
Coffee Party founder Annabel Park, who worked as a volunteer for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia's 2006 campaign, says the group is not "aligned" with any party and calls the two-party system out of date.



Video: Meet the Coffee Party



Video: Tea party: Help or hurt?



Video: Coffee Party, Tea alternative?
RELATED TOPICS

• U.S. Politics
• Government and Politics
• Tea Party Movement

Park said the bitter battle over health care is an example of how government is not working.
"We feel like the health care debate showed not only that we are a very divided country, but there's something really wrong with our political process. We kind of got to see the innards of the political process and realize there's something very broken. I think that's what we're responding to."
The party statement said the next step "is to dig into what our community discussed (and) find out what matters most to them." Park said the Coffee Party's first real national action will be March 27, when members will get together to discuss ways to engage members of Congress during the Easter recess.
"Just like in the American Revolution, we are looking for real representation right now. We don't feel represented by our government right now, and we don't really feel represented well by the media either," Park said last week on CNN's "American Morning." "It's kind of a simple call to action for people to wake up and take control over their future and demand representation. And it requires people standing up and speaking up."
Sound familiar? Tea Party activists use much of the same language in describing their year-old protest movement that's steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.
"It's a response to how they are trying to change our government," Park told CNN, referring to the Tea Party. "It's their methodology that we are against. We may want some of the same things, but their journey is so alienating to us."
So what does the Tea Party movement think of this new sensation?
"This Coffee Party looks like a weak attempt at satire or a manufactured response to a legitimate widespread grassroots movement," says Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, a nonprofit conservative organization that helps train volunteer activists and has provided much of the organizational heft behind the Tea Party movement.
"It's driven from the top down and it's not a grass-roots movement driven from the bottom up," Jim Hoft of the St. Louis Tea Party sai

 

Ok, a balance.

I can live with that.

 

The Coffee movement would be more multiracial than the homogeneous Tea Party.

 

That's what keith obierman was saying. That the tea party movement was kind of on the racist side. That they had an exclusionary agenda. The seek to divide rather than bring together. Hopefully this turns into something positive

 

Fuck tea, fuck coffee. Government stay out of my biz and just fix my country.

 

The two-party system doesn't have a thing to worry about. The Coffee Party will come to naught I'm afraid.

 

Why do you say that Karma?

 

I've seen third-party candidates come and go from LaRouche to Buchanan to Perot to Nader and not a dent. These guys have cult followings and that's it. Coffee Party is another excuse for people to run their mouths. You can work through some frustrations with like minded people, but that's it. The Tea Partiers on the Right are racist fanatics and smart people can't compete with fanatics.

I find it strange though how now that it's a Black President, people want to claim government doesn't work and reevaluate the system. Eight years of Bush 43 destroying America piece by piece, and you could hear a damn pin drop.

 

The problem is when Bush was in office everything was ok. People live under the idea that if they're ok everything is going well. The people who are up in arms about the country going under aren't well informed. They just pay attention to what's going own currently without knowledge of what came before and no insight about what needs to happen in the future. They're average hard working people who are scared and just looking for a solution to their problems no matter how off track they might be.

 

:shock: Come again? Your definition of 'ok' and mine must differ substantially Andrae. Obama inherited one hell of a mess from Bush, it was not ok in any sense of the word. Bush did more harm to the country than any President before him IMO.

 

Absolutely but the ramifications weren't felt until the middle of 2008. You gotta remember during the Bush year govenment spending was high as hell but we had the lowest unemployment rate in history during 2007

 

Please. Anybody who cared to look could see the dominoes begin to fall under Bush starting with 9/11. Then the botched response to Katrina. Then the Minneapolis bridge collapse (crumbling US infrastructure; glimpse of things to come). False intel to invade Iraq. War profiteering/Halliburton. Outright theft of billions in Iraq that could have gone to shore up health care and infrastrcture. I could go on. You call that OK?

 

Say what you will but during that time people weren't getting layed off in record numbers and hundreds of homes weren't being forclosed daily. That's what your average American sees. They're losing their homes and ways to support themselves so all they see is that this didn't start happening till the very end of the Bush years and they want relief they want to feel safe again so they turn to finger pointing and while its not fair nor accurate to blame Obama I can see where they're coming from. You're average person doesn't have your perspective fam they're thinking is very immediate very now based.

Ps please dead that new rule stuff. I got valid points fam. Btw check out the last Espisode of Real Time. Harper Hill was on point

 

Actually, America has been in mess for last thirty years.. Our country doesn't produce any goods any longer and manfacturing jobs are disappering as well.. Another problem is that both parties bought into the ideas of deregulation and free trade is good for business and free market will fix everything..

Unchosen: The gov't belongs to the people.. It is important that we the people must have imput when it comes to fixing our republic..

 

Since Reagan the US has become a debtor nation and where were those baggers during the Bush years? Nowhere. Obama is still cleaning the elephant shyt from the last administration.

 

coffee party = blatantly contrived

 

Still, its funny, nonetheless.

 

The Tea Party Rallies were planned by right wing billionaires, promoted by a major tv channel, even the signs were frequently provided along with donuts and buses to the rallies by Right Wing Corporate Front Groups.

It's astroturf, and the only people who don't recognize it are the sorry, spelling-deprived racists that show up to be pawns at the rallies.


Also, welcome back.

 

Thank you, poster formerly known as CBQ