The Coffee Party and its discontents

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We reported on Thursday of a schism between the progressive wing of the Coffee Party and its leadership. Launched with high hopes last year and seen by some as a progressive answer to Tea Party, the party has instead been an example of the failure to counter the power and energy of the tea party movement -- and its own board members are portraying it as an organizational disaster.

This week, the organization also announced the dissolution of the interim board this week, and three board members lashed out against the two cofounders in response.

"We are writing to you because it is our belief that much can be learned from the experience of the Interim Board, and the dynamics on the Board which we believe seriously impeded our process. We would like to identify some issues which, from our point of view, have become problems within the Coffee Party, and which, if not corrected, will hinder its success," wrote ousted board members Bahiya Cabral-Johnson, Teri Torres-Hart and Sabina Virgo in an open letter.

Painting a general picture of organizational chaos, they pointed to a lack of civility in the organization, a lack of democracy and a lack of consultation.

"By the time the volunteer Interim Board was dissolved the group had dwindled from seven to five after two members withdrew to pursue other activities. At that time, the Coffee Party USA Board of Directors chose to re-delegate their authority to a larger team of active Coffee Party volunteers who are now charged with managing the transition to a permanent board," said a member of the Coffee Party leadership about the changes.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/The_Coffee_Party_and_its_discontents.html



Typical Democrat organization, chaos, a lack of civility in the organization, a lack of democracy and a lack of consultation.

 

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(Excerpt) During the past week or so, Sabina, Teri, and Bahiya had been threatening to resign. They were angry at Annabel, and their position was, essentially, either she goes or we go.

On Monday night, a few hours before the weekly Interim Board call, Sabina told me that at least one, and possibly 3 Board Members would resign if Annabel was a participant on the call. I realized then that, even if I could have succeeded in keeping the Interim Board together, it would not have been in the best interest of the Coffee Party to continue with 3 board members this unhappy. (End)

The Annabel mentioned is one of the co-founders along with Eric Byler. When one or more people join a group and then state an ultimatum "either the founder goes or I/we go" the proper response is "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."

Their mission: The organization's mission states that it is based on the underlying principle that the government is "not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans."

"The government is not the enemy of the people." That is pretty much the universal Liberal philosophy.

When we hear the typical Conservative say government can't do something, that private enterprise/the market can do it better, we have to realize private enterprise/the market has had the opportunity, up to this point, to do something.

The glaring example is health care. Private enterprise/the market has had over 100 years to do something.

Everything, from pensions to medicaid/medicare to welfare, was in the hands of private enterprise/the market before government stepped in. Now we hear people say private enterprise/the market can do this and can do that, all the things government is currently doing due to the fact private enterprise/the market couldn't do it.

The free market version of pensions and welfare was charity and people starved. The free market version of medical care was "pay or suffer".

When people talk about a "new idea", let the free market handle it, they forget the free market handled it since the beginning of time! There's nothing new. It's as old as history and that's exactly what Obama referred to when he said he didn't want to hear the same old, tired ideas.

The Coffee Party discontents wrote, "We have been sent emails from our founder calling us timid bureaucrats, sexist jerks, out of touch with the people, fearful, intimidated, unable to understand the historic importance of the moment…etc.…"

"Timid, fearful, intimidated, unable to understand the historic importance of the moment" I'm willing to bet the founders expected a more "radical" approach to problems. If that's the case then they were correct in dissolving the board.

There has to be a strong voice for government and when others espouse the virtues of the free market running things the people have to be reminded the free market was in charge of every program the government currently runs and the reason the government runs them is because the free market could not or would not. The free market had it’s chance and failed.