Monday, July 19, 2010

Tea is to Coffee as Republican is to Democrat

On the heels of the expulsion of the Tea Party Express a.k.a the Tea Party on speed, I decided to check into some of the workings of both the Tea Party and its sworn enemy, the Coffee Party.
What I found was a striking case of déja-vu. Granted, I did grow up in the South so hearing people refer to blacks as "colored people" like Mark Williams, leader of Tea Party Express did, is unfortunately not a new thing to me. However, neither are the stances or arguments of either group.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree here and from top organizers to tea and coffee drinkers across the US, the right vs. left hectoring runs deep.
The Tea Party came first, and started with a message of anger and action at a time when that's what the US needed. Having started as a response to the bailouts, the group quickly morphed into a sick, right wing extremist bitch fest complete with guns and an ironic support for the very people who caused the bailout.
The Coffee Party began as a response to the Tea Party which in reality is a shitty reason to start an organization. Annabel Park wanted to have a little sit down to discuss issues from a non-Tea Party viewpoint.
Beginning to see the trend? Tea Partiers like their Republican overlords are loud, stupid, ill-advised, close-minded, gun-toting right wingers while the Coffee Partiers are quiet, spineless, peace loving lefties.
May seem a harsh representation but overall, am I wrong?
These two parties offer nothing that the two party system doesn't. If anything, they're just amplified versions of the guys in suits that get paid to run this country into the shitter. You have Sarah Palin as a poster child, who many Republicans feel is a little too off the intelligence and experience reservation. You have support of extremist candidates and good old boys like Mark Williams and Richard Behney cleaning their guns and watching out for "colored people," a sentiment most Republicans wouldn't agree with or at least state openly.
Then you have the Coffee Party that is submissive and sweet, starting each meeting with a pledge to respect with patience and understanding the viewpoints of those who don't agree with them. You have members saying that they don't wanna "make a ruckus," they just want to sit down and converse about issues. Well, isn't that nice?
And to top it off, you have right and left bashing from each group. After all, coffee doesn't like tea and tea doesn't like coffee. So, how does that move this country forward? How does a "grassroots" representation of the suited version in congress make a shit stick of difference?
Well, it doesn't really.
For those of us who don't wake up proclaiming our undying devotion to either party, we have to sit in the sticky, untasty middle between coffee and tea.
Polls show that most US citizens are not staunchly Republican or Democrat, that they fall under the heading of "moderate." To me, that suggests that Republicans and Democrats, likewise Tea and Coffee are out of the loop.
The two party system is debunked, it doesn't work. It is flawed beyond repair. Our country is stagnating as corporate interests feed off our indecision. We don't need more offshoots of the same old shit, we need a real grassroots organization, a real NEW theme: to move forward, not right and left.

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