Politico Percolating

Coffee Party activism, which started on Facebook in furious protest against the Tea Party’s uprising, is spreading (and percolating) quickly in the months since Annabel Park instigated it. “Annabel Park did what any American does when she feels her voice has been drowned out: She squeezed her anger into a Facebook status update. ‘let’s start a coffee party . . . smoothie party. red bull party. anything but tea. geez. ooh how about cappuccino party? that would really piss ’em off bec it sounds elitist . . . let’s get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.’ Friends replied, and more friends replied. So last month, in her Silver Spring apartment, Park started a fan page called ‘Join the Coffee Party Movement.’ Within weeks, her inbox and page wall were swamped by thousands of comments from strangers in diverse locales, such as the oil fields of west Texas and the suburbs of Chicago…The snowballing response made her the de facto coordinator of Coffee Party USA, with goals far loftier than its oopsy-daisy origin: promote civility and inclusiveness in political discourse, engage the government not as an enemy but as the collective will of the people, push leaders to enact the progressive change for which 52.9 percent of the country voted in 2008.”