Across the nation today people are gathering in over 350 events for the national kickoff of the Coffee Party movement, which started on Facebook. The Coffee Party movement aims to reform government through civility, accountability by lawmakers and an end to obstructionism. The Coffee Party movement rejects the idea that the Tea Party represents “Real America.” There are now 60 groups nationwide, and at last count, 123,000 members.
CNN dropped by on one Coffee Party gathering this morning at Washington DC’s Busboys and Poets and interviewed its owner, Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American artist, activist and restaurateur. Asked about the Coffee Party as a political party, he called it a “people’s version. It’s something that I think has been missing in the dialogue, which is the voice of the people. Oftentimes the media takes a certain sound bite and they explode it and it makes it sound as though the whole world is thinking this way. I think most people in the United States want to see a more progressive agenda.”
Rachel Maddow interviewed Annabelle Park, originator of the idea of the Coffee Party. She described the movement as being about three things: for civility, for cooperation in government, and for affirming the American community - "that we don’t have to be so divided over our differences of opinion."
