Low-key java drinkers in Washington kick off Coffee Parties
If Tea Partiers are more comfortable waving signs at a health-care protest, these activists seem much more at ease with a cup of java inside the calm confines of a coffee shop.
This weekend marks the kick-off of the Coffee Parties across the country— which has been billed as the liberal response to the Tea Party movement — and I stopped by one of the Washington D.C. area gatherings Saturday morning at Peregrine Espresso in the Eastern Market area — only to find a small gathering of five activists huddled at a small table.
Kathleen Frydl, a professor on sabbatical from Berkeley, led the discussion on topics ranging from Tea Partiers to the media. Frydl said that even though she finds parts of the Tea Party movement to be “nuts,” there are a couple of things she agrees with the conservative activists on, like adopting a simpler tax code. She took issue with a recent Tea Party document of legislative demands called the “Contract from America” as an example of how Tea Partiers are trying to “speak for America.”
“There’s a certain amount of demagoguery in the Tea Party,” Frydl said.
One participant, a younger man who brought along a college buddy with him, said the biggest difference between the Coffee Party and the Tea Party is that they believe the federal government is not something that should necessarily be demonized.
They spoke mostly in generalities — not diving into the specifics of policy or really asserting positions on any topic — about health care, energy, poverty and climate change, though one participant said he feels strongly about immigration reform, explaining “everyone should live where they want to live.”
Frydl said she volunteered to lead the smaller, low-key Eastern Market coffee party after reading about the groups in the New York Times. The others said they learned about the gathering from Twitter and from word of mouth. Another area Coffee Party is scheduled for Saturday afternoon at Potter’s Coffee House in Northwest DC.
Tea Party groups are trying to figure out how to transform the energy of the movement into results at the polls in November. That doesn’t seem to be the goal of these coffee drinkers who appear to rather just enjoy good conversation.
WATCH THE COFFEE PARTY THERAPY SESSION
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I am going to start a tea party vigilante group that will “coffee board” these tax predator vermin and their flaks.
One can only hope the students burnt down this twit’s office and home back in Berkeley.
We must start right now in our efforts to save our beloved cpuntry. We can begin
by fitting Pelosi with a unremovable branks!
Q: How many Coffee Party members does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. First of all that job is beneath them. Second, they’re waiting for someone from the Govt to do it for them.
Will the real Ellie Light stand up, please?
This coffee party things are so phony, and this not only because LA Times and CNN praised their authenticity –
They’re so clumsily designed, try in such an awkward manner to siphon the frustrations and anxieties that fuel the Tea Party into the democrat’s fold – these peopple remind me the Daily Kos trolls patrolling the Internet in missions “to befriend & persuade” conservatives or whoever –
As to the specifics of this article, man! What normal person would hook up, politically, with a Berkeley teacher?
A job, this coffee party thing is – and a crappy job, for that matter -
Two weeks and they’re gone -
In that photo of the five, I question how dedicated the whole group is. I notice a large tub on a cart directly behind them and must ask if one of them might be the busboy on a break?
That’s the problem with coffee……….you get that caffeine buzz, and then you crash!
Coming soon… the million granule march!
“I stopped by one of the Washington D.C. area gatherings Saturday morning at Peregrine Espresso in the Eastern Market area — only to find a small gathering of five activists huddled at a small table.”
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lmao!! Whatsa matter, Coffee Party, was ACORN and the SEIU already booked elsewhere? They are really effective when they dress up in para-military garb and wave their clubs around. Shouting slogans is good too. “YES WE CAN,….”
Libtards are pathetic losers!!
Huh, nobody wants to join a group of liberal hacks anymore…HOPE and change???