In 2011, we chose to spend more time doing stuff, and less time
tooting our own horn (the latter is actually more expensive). So, as we welcome our newly elected Board of Directors and begin 2012, let’s take a look back at ten important ways that Coffee Party volunteers helped to bring about the cultural and narrative shifts that made 2011 a year of progress despite many obstacles. Please join us as part of our "Class of 2012" Membership Drive so we can build on the following accomplishments.
10. 417,572,792 Post Views on Facebook
If have any doubt that everyday Americans can have an impact on political discourse, consider the fact that a small team of volunteers shared the Coffee Party's civil, fact-based, and solutions-oriented approach to information gathering and civic engagement more than 417 million times in 2011. [Click here to see our Facebook statistics for 2011, and read more about how we did it.] 417 Million post views from a single Facebook fan page is pretty impressive considering that it cost us zero dollars and zero cents to operate it. If a handful of volunteers can do so much with so little, maybe We the People have a fighting chance in 2012 — Super PAC's or no.
Facebook page is not our only communication network — we have a YouTube channel that's reached 892,000 viewers, an email network of 85,000, and a Twitter network of 14,000, not to mention 175 other Facebook pages.
But “Join the Coffee Party Movement” is the virtual town hall that started it all. Total post views for the year (actually, through Dec. 28) include views resulting directly from Facebook.com/CoffeeParty, and views resulting from our users sharing posts to their own walls (and those posts being shared by their friends, and so on).
9. For the People Summit | Jan. 21, 2011
America's more informed citizens and our most responsible good-government organizations were in a state of despair after the "Citizens United" Supreme Court decision allowed unprecedented, unlimited, anonymous corporate spending to decide dozens of Congressional races in the 2010 midterm elections. As the first anniversary of the 5-4 ruling drew near, Coffee Party USA partnered with the relentless artists and activists at the Backbone Campaign to organize a Lobby Day, a satirical protest, and a very serious summit on money in politics at the Washington Plaza Hotel, which was carried live on C-SPAN. [MORE]
8. "Are you suggesting that we start a revolution?" | Feb, 26, 2011
As the people of Tunisia, Egypt, London, and Madison, Wisconsin sowed the seeds of what would become a Global Democracy Movement, college students in America were also showing signs that they were prepared to rise up and respond effectively to anti-democratic abuses of power. What started out as a Coffee Party campus visit in late February, led to an international youth uprising in response to a baseless, ideological attack against Planned Parenthood. Students at Wesleyan University, prompted by Coffee Party’s Annabel Park and Eric Byler, brainstormed and produced an inventive web video called “I Have Sex: I Support Planned Parenthood.” 366,000 views later, the video had sparked a series of equally creative responses from students on campuses across the nation (and even overseas), thwarting a radical, fact-free agenda to undermine health care access for the young and the working class, and showing hundreds of thousands of America’s newest voters that positive impact on our deliberative process can be fun. [READ MORE]
Looking back at how history would unfold in 2011, it's interesting to note that Annabel Park's response to a Wesleyan student's question in the video below foreshadows a "tipping point" in America by examining similar movements in other countries.
7. This Year, Let’s Get the Facts First, Then Get Angry About Taxes | April, 2011
If America was going to make any progress in 2011 toward restoring self-governance to the People, a vital step would be a narrative shift from “I am angry that I have to pay taxes” to “America needs Tax Code Reform.” That’s why Coffee Party USA spent the month of April countering the usual 1% Media Spin with a national campaign highlighted by a video called "16 Corporations or We the People" — one of a series of web videos featuring hundreds of new voices, carried on Free Speech TV, reaching millions of homes. The initiative, called “Coffee Break Campaign to Save America” also included local and on-line actions with volunteers handing out fact sheetson "Main Street" and devoting 15 minutes a day to on-line actions. Notice how closely the video below, shot in April, aligns with what we now think of as the Occupy, or 99 Percent movement. [MORE]
6. Coffee Party's Information Activists
CLICK HERE for a work-in-progress list of some of the best writing from our all-volunteer team of contributing writers in 2011. Many of them began as stand-out contributors on our Facebook pages or incisive voices on our volunteer calls, and some are now members of our newly elected Board of Directors. We’re very proud of Coffee Party Radio, fast becoming a central marketplace of ideas for Coffee Party USA. In 2012, we will be building up to a regular schedule with at least one show a day. Coffee Party Secretary Jeanene Louden and Corporate-Person American crusader Will Rice will each have their own shows next year, joining Annabel Park and Egberto Willies who shouldered most of the weight in 2011. If you’re interested in joining our team of thought-provokers and action inspirers, please write to us.
Left to right: Contributing writers Tabitha Justice, Shane Brooks, Eric Byler, Paul Weiskel, and Executive Director Debilyn Molineaux
In February 2011, as democracy advocates in Tahrir Square inspired the world, and, as the rising tide of the Global Democracy Movement first touched America's shores, the Coffee Party's contributing writers began a year-long conversation with our readers. In addition to blogs and videos that reached millions of people, we hosted fascinating exchanges on our comments boards and our radio shows, allowing everyday Americans interpret these momentous events without the filter of 1% Media, and with a welcoming spirit of encouragement for diverse perspectives and diverse ideas.
We were all part of The 99 Percent's social media pushback against a barrage of 1 Percent Media narratives characterizing democracy advocates in America as violent and radical (even if they had to splice in stock footage to do it). The global perspective offered by Annabel Park in particular, who was invited to Europe this year to conference with democracy advocates from around the world, helped to explain to America that our struggle against entrenched plutocracy is part of a global phenomenon triggered by economically unsustainable inequality, intolerable corruption, and the advent of social media tools that allow We the People to organize and respond.
Here are four essays that tell the story from February to November.
- The Tipping Point by Annabel Park & Eric Byler, published Feb. 25, 2011
- Why I Occupy by Paul Weiskel, published Sept. 21, 2011.
- Letter to the Occupiers and the 99 Percent by Annabel Park, published Oct. 2, 2011
-
The Politicization of Law Enforcement in Response to the Occupy Movement, by Eric Byler, published Nov. 29, 2011 (hours before he was arrested as luck would have it)
In 2011, Coffee Party member and contributor Will Rice played the role of a Citizens United satirist and an Actual Person essayist, each with a lot of courage, creativity, and heart. Our three favorite Will Rice videos are “Spy Infiltrates Bank of America Protest,” “Petition for Corporate Person American Rights” and the “Corporate-Person American Anthem.”
But on Nov. 23, 2011, Will dropped his bank-worshiping satirical character, and came out of the "Money Closet" as an inheritor of wealth who is willing to put aside his lifelong discomfort with speaking openly about money, in order to authentically and effectively advocate for Tax Code Reform. Now, he is teaming up with Coffee Party founder Annabel Park to lead a Coffee Party Lobby Day on Capitol Hill in January, and leading a new tax code reform initiative called Coffee Party Commonwealth [click here to add your voice], which we hope will help us discover hundreds of new voices and new leaders in the Coffee Party movement. [MORE by Will Rice]
3. Annabel Park on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal | Oct. 29, 2011
Annabel Park's appearance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal reached millions of people with a message of civil, fact-based, and solutions-oriented deliberation on the key issues facing America today. If you like this, you should watch two companion videos shot earlier in the year at the Democracy Convention in Madison, WI (Aug. 25, 2011, see below) and at the Occupy camp at Freedom Plaza in Washington DC (Oct. 9, 2011). The three clips show the evolution of Annabel's interpretation of the cultural shifts taking place in America in 2011.
2. Hats Off To Our Local Organizers!
We are so grateful to our Local Organizers active in 35 states and at computer portals across the U.S. As strange as it may sound, at no point in Coffee Party’s history did we consider accepting the financial patronage of hyper-partisan oil barons or 1 Percent lobbyists or “think tanks” in Washington. That meant that our 2,200 local organizers had to make a go of it with little more than strong convictions, love of country, and good old fashioned American ingenuity. Please write to us if you'd like to be one of them.
We were thrilled when people sent in photos and recorded voice messages for experimental collaborative videos like the ones you see below.
And most importantly, we want to give special shout out to our local leaders who made the Coffee Party into a national movement. There is no way to name them all, so please forgive CLICK HERE for a work-in-progress listing.
1. Citizens Intervention / Enough Is Enough Rally | Oct. 29, 2011
Click here for a press release about the Lobby Day that followed the rally. Click here for our Position Paper, written during the days leading up to the rally. Click here to see a few dozen of the hundreds of speeches made by everyday Americans that day and that night, many of whom had to brave a freak ice storm! Click here for statements by survivors. We also launched our Citizens Lobby program, with people from all over the United States visiting the Capitol Hill offices of their Senators and Representatives, dozens of hand-written, hand-delivered letters, and 110,707 faxes written to Congress for the year.
