The Tea Party Movement Has Competition (Or Does It?)

There is now a political movement in the United States designed to counter the Tea Party Movement. This new movement is supposed to be a gathering of engaged, poli-
tically aware citizens who don't share the goals of the Tea Party Movement and
perceive its activists to be too angry and strident. This fledgeling movement began
quite recently in a coffee house, hence its name, the Coffee Party Movement.

The brainchild of Annabel Park, a 42-year-old documentary filmmaker, this nascent
movement got started in a hippiefied washington D.C. cafe', Busboys and Poets, a
favorite hangout of young left-wing types and hipsters. Park has a strong interest
in politics and wanted to create and lead a political movement which, she hopes,
would someday come together with the Tea Party Movement to set aside their differ-
ences and create a better government and a better country --- "There's room for
debate between the two platforms", Park states.

Let's examine this "Coffee Party Movement" more closely. Now, Annabel Park set
this up with herself as its head. The Tea Party Movement was set up by many people,
all sharing a common concern, that the government has been growing out of control
with its scope and spending while ignoring the cry of the people to STOP. These
same people also share a common goal, which is to halt the runaway growth of the
government and make it responsive to the citizenry once again. No one has tried
to establish himself as the head of the movement; this is a spontaneous movement
by and for Americans fed up with an increasingly liberty-threatening government
who want to do something about it. We in the Tea Party movement aren't looking for
personal credit or accolades, we just want our country and our government back.
This is why the movement does not have, and never will have, a single person as
its leader.

Park wanted to create a movement which would embody centrist political principles,
but her choice for a site from which to launch her moderate-flavored creation
suggested something far different in tone. As a consequence, Park drew a strongly
left-of-center gathering, with attendees having other ideas rather than coming together with we Tea Party folk to hash out our differences and unite in common
cause. One woman who attended, a 26-year-old community organizer (gee, who else
in politics do we know was once a community organizer? Oh yes...), who stated
that the Coffee party would fail "unless we get someone a little more powerful
to head it," and "not someone that says we can all work together." And people
of her political persuasion accuse we Tea Partiers of being "confrontational"!

Park was quite taken aback from this, and from similar remarks from some other
attendees at her little political soiree'. "If they want to fire me, this may not
be the group for them," she said after the event. "We don't want confrontation."
But Park is getting exactly that, and from the very people that showed up at her
movement's launch. Still, park is going on with her political work; she is plan-
ning a national Coffee Party convention for August, and will hold it in a midwes-
tern city to be determined (where she is certain to have a more amiable, and less
"confrontational" gathering, she hopes). Park must have been influenced by the
Tea Party convention held earlier this year in Tennessee. There have been no
power struggles in the Tea Party Movement, by the way.

Also, Park has publicized her movement's birth on Facebook and claims to currently
have 200,000 members; from what I've been hearing about the Coffee Party it has
support that can be described as being "a mile wide and an inch deep" --- it has
supporters in many parts of the country but the numbers are few and are stretched
thin over a wide territory. But your loyal Peasant welcomes Annabel Park and her
Coffee Party Movement to the political arena, which is open to and welcoming of
all people of all political persuasions and party affiliations. Come one, come all!
But if you Coffee Partiers are serious about having a truly open, honest, and
meaningful dialogue with we Tea Partiers, you've got to rein in your more confron-
tational members who say we're too confrontational, and then behave in that very
manner. We would gladly have a dialogue with you Coffee Party people about the
direction of our country and its government if you cease from calling us "nazis",
"rednecks", "racists", "hicks", "brainless", and far worse. Also, please cease
from trying to shout us down when we present our ideas and opinions, and resist
the urge to physically assault us then strut around bragging that you're the model
of tolernace and diversity of opinion, and champions of freedom of speech. If you
can get your members to conform and comport to these standards of conduct, then
we can have that dialogue. Until that happens, there would be no chance of dialogue,
for there will be no point.


MEM