The Coffee Party movement is an effort to challenge the idea that the Tea Party movement defines Americans, said Annabel Park, who accidentally started it. Park, 41, a filmmaker in Washington, D.C., commented on her Facebook page about a month ago that someone should start a "smoothie party. Red Bull party. Anything but tea. Geez."
The response she received prompted her to create the Join the Coffee Party page on Facebook and later a Web site, Coffee Party | Wake Up and Stand Up.
The core mission, according to the Web site, is to give "voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government.
Thousands of people have joined, with chapter requests from at least 30 states, and others waiting to be included. Kentucky's chapter is up and running.
There are plans for a meeting in Louisville or Lexington soon.
That is nowhere near the numbers that the Tea Party movement boasts, with 1,200 chapters and a recent national conference.
But the rapid growth of the Coffee Party shows just how quickly the grass-roots cry for change has grown. There are nearly 40,000 fans of the Facebook page.
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Beware the Plutocrat Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.
We have all kinds of parties here (in parliament we had several old people's parties and we now have a party for the animals for instance), but no tea or coffee ones so far.
Looks like the Tea Party types don't have the same appreciation of the Coffee Party in the comments of the video above.
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Beware the Plutocrat Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.
Government is too divided:
If this is a call for bipartisanship, fine; I don't know what people mean by this word, I also don't remember a lot of calls for bipartisanship when the Republicans were in the majority. But I don't expect any party in the minority to capitulate or agree. I also don't expect the Republicans to vote for anything the Democrats support, or the other way around, whether or not it is a tactic to stall forward motion.
Bipartisanship is what the Republicans and Democrats in Congress and Obama have continually called for, but to me this looks like code for "Let's strip this bill of the parts that our corporate donors dislike, any parts with regulation or substance." Which is what has been going on with the Health Care Bill, and what is going on now on the bill for bank reform. Because if the Democrats are waiting for the Republicans to say, "Well this bill you wrote looks fine, on revision number 6 million," they are out of their fucking minds. They aren't going to vote for it.
Here's where the government is not so divided: authoritarian measures that continue to undermine civil rights, expanding global theaters of war, expanding military spending, maintaining the interests of the powerful, and not prosecuting US torture or war crimes.
Government is unable to move forward:
Not true. Jon Stewart jokes about the Republicans having a "superminority" position, because it is clear the Democrats won't do shit about pushing through Health Care. There are means to counteract every filibuster, procedural, or other stall tactics. But that means actually doing some work. Also keep in mind that half the time these tactics are only threatened. The Democratic party backs down when the Republicans (or Lieberman) merely threaten to filibuster, and then wring their hands about how they are powerless as a majority with a Democrat in the White House. Fuck that noise. Make them filibuster or shut-up. Then every day you go out to the media and point to Senator Fuckface, who is keeping your kid from getting health care (in 2014, but whatever). You have been elected into a powerful majority, now make some changes. What you don't do -if you are actually working towards getting that bitch passed- is back down every time someone simply says they might filibuster.
Unless of course passing bills is not really what you are working on anyway, because hey, there's still some time 'til mid-term elections, and there's still lots and lots of money pouring into campaign coffers from health insurance lobbies, bank lobbies, and pharmaceutical lobbies, while Congress stutters and stumbles and shuffles papers and makes pretend drama.
Obstructionism is being used as a political tactic, and elected officials should be held accountable: Yes, and yes please. Incumbents still get reelected in the 90th percentile, so here's hoping the Coffee Party can hook up with other organizations like Accountability Now and support candidates to push out crappy elected officials.
Our representatives work for us, not for corporations:
Maybe, technically... the thing is, they will work for corporations before and after they are in government, and most likely will work for them while they are there as well. While Obama pulled in a lot of individual low-level campaign contributions, it costs a half-billion plus to make presidency, and millions for national offices, and numerous senators and reps are millionaires knee-deep in industry, and they are looking to get bankrolled for their careers, now and later.
Unless campaign funding changes, rules about the political office-industrial elite-lobbyist revolving door get tougher, or the public attitude about campaign contributions from corporate sources markedly effects electability, I am not expecting this to change.
The Tea Party doesn't represent the majority:
The Tea Party was astroturfed from go, and is not a grassroots movement. It has attracted some people with very specific or very generalized populist anger to vent, but Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, and other professional Right-Wing organizers and politicos backed by Right-Wing millionaires and FOXNews built this movement. A movement that is already being quickly shaped and co-opted into the GOP. And while the Tea Party doesn't represent the majority per se, the people who vote Right got a lot of people into power (or close enough to steal power, as it were) plenty of times in the last 12-plus years.
On the other side I don't think the Democratic Party at the national level represents the majority either; they often don't even represent the people they call their base.
Obstructionism is being used as a political tactic, and elected officials should be held accountable: Yes, and yes please. Incumbents still get reelected in the 90th percentile, so here's hoping the Coffee Party can hook up with other organizations like Accountability Now and support candidates to push out crappy elected officials.
I think at least part of the problem there is that many people actually like the very things they bitch about when their own representatives are the ones doing them. Everyone bitches when Ben Nelson holds health care reform hostage in order to secure a bigger chunk of federal money for Nebraska...except Nebraskans. Everyone cheers when Hopey and Grandpa John agree that there shouldn't be special provisions in the HCR bill for Florida...except Floridians. Everyone in Indiana bitches about pork and "earmarks"...yet when my employer mounts a "Protect Indiana Jobs" campaign to lobby for the continuation and expansion of its federal subsidy, they sign the petitions.
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
I think at least part of the problem there is that many people actually like the very things they bitch about when their own representatives are the ones doing them. Everyone bitches when Ben Nelson holds health care reform hostage in order to secure a bigger chunk of federal money for Nebraska...except Nebraskans. Everyone cheers when Hopey and Grandpa John agree that there shouldn't be special provisions in the HCR bill for Florida...except Floridians. Everyone in Indiana bitches about pork and "earmarks"...yet when my employer mounts a "Protect Indiana Jobs" campaign to lobby for the continuation and expansion of its federal subsidy, they sign the petitions.
Sure. I agree that we send politicos to Washington in part to bring home the bacon. I also understand that pork is pretty minor in the total of fed spending. But I also think there's a price to pay for blatant stick-up moves; as well Lieberman and others weren't holding up the process due to their state pork being refused.
Let's meet at a Starbucks and write our radical left-wing pamphlets on our laptops in front on everyone.
Oh I totes would, but I'm waiting by my mailbox for my Afterlife Orb Starter Kit to arrive. Plus, as a fledgling member of the Pipe-Dream Writer's Guild I am expressly verboten from writing pamphlets. Missives, screeds, manifestos, blog posts, couplets, feelings-journal entries, and Letters to Penthouse are all I'm allowed for now.
Oh, you want couplets, missie?
Know you- I am no sissy!
Missive:
Dear Opie, dude I am very sorry I've not written.
Right now I'm playing Great White backwards- Twice-Shy Once-Bitten.
Screed:
In the dialectic the workers will topple the lumpen proletariat and seize the means of production;
then the owning class will dissolve after throes of counter-revolutionary strife and civil reconstruction.
Manifesto:
First I wined and then dined her
I've wed her; now to bed her
Blog post:
ZOMG I think that is an ingrown hair
here are seven pictures please diagnose with flair
Feelings Journal Entry:
Furiously scribing my deepest emotions,
I broke my stylus and cried, like, oceans.
Letter to Penthouse:
Dear Penthouse: I did it like this and I did it like that
But I surely did not do it with the Beastie Boy's cat
Coffee Party Movement
The voting majority.
no wait, you said couplets. 
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