I just finished a column on a group that has dubbed itself the Coffee Party Movement, a nominally liberal answer to the Tea Partiers. My argument is that the group is useful, but lacks depth.
It reclaims government as a potentially positive influence on society and restates what should be obvious, that 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 that we face as Americans.”
The problem is its apparently content-free agenda and the bloodless commitment to cooperation and efficiency that has stalled the Obama agenda and left progressives standing on the sidelines.
Its founder, Annabel Park, told The New York Times that the group would offer “a different model of civic participation” and hoped to “send a message to people in Washington that you have to learn how to work together, you have to learn how to talk about these issues without acting like you’re in an ultimate fighting session.”
It blames Washington gridlock on “the proliferation of partisanship,” an argument that ignores much of what actually happens in the nation’s capital and underplays the need for elected officials to take principled stands on issue.
What good is it, after all, if the U.S. Senate works together when the result is hundreds of thousands of American troops on foreign soil fighting in unnecessary and counterproductive wars? What good is it if elected officials work together, if it results in the dismantling of welfare, or the expansion of the national security state?
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 
Still, it's a start, and might provide a good balance to the T party.
sigI think the Coffee movement is a great idea but I would agree with Hank that the goal should not be bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is a lousy idea when you're trying to be bipartisan with a pit bull (GOP) intent on ripping your legs off. I want the Democrats to act like Democrats not like Republicans, corporate shills or gutless cowards.I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed with Obama. His encouragement and approval of the firing of the RI teachers is beyond the limit and appalling. Because of the big bucks he is offering to school districts, they all will be encouraged to enact these wrongheaded draconian policies. We will see more mass firings, more union busting. He is pro school vouchers and charter schools which will not improve education but which will help to destroy our public school system.Obama is supporting nuclear energy which is not safe, not secure and which is a prime example of corporate welfare. Banks, financial lenders and private investors feel that nuclear energy is too risky and so they are not willing to invest in nuclear power unless the tax payer backs these enterprises.I am not even sure if Obama is going to support and maintain Social Security. He's setting up some commission and selected Alan Simpson ( a rabidly anti Social Security troglodyte) as one of the participants. I feel that Obama is Reagan lite. Very disappointed and disillusioned with Mr.O.The only thing you can say is that he's marginally better than McCain/Palin would have been.
The French and the US Navy have been running reactors safely for decades. One would hope that we could figure out how to capitalize on that experience. As far as OBH44 & Joe being better than McCain & Sarah, we just will never know. One thing is for sure, we can't afford the nonsense of EITHER party with respect to spending, the deficit, nor the national debt.While people of good faith can disagree on particulars, we should all agree that we all have certain inalienable rights. And, should work to protect those. And, leave everyone free to pursue their own vision of happiness without the force or fraud of who ever is in office at any particular time.
1986 – The U.S. government declassifies 19,000 pages of documents indicating that between 1946 and 1986, the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, released thousands of US gallons of radioactive liquids. Many of the people living in the affected area received low doses of radiation February 2003: Oak Ridge, Tennessee Y-12 facility. During the final testing of a new saltless uranium processing method, there was a small explosion followed by a fire. Three employees were contaminated. Radioactive tritium is leaking from NJ and Vermont reactors as we speak.14 January 1969A series of explosions aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise left 17 dead and 85 injured.16 May 1969The U.S.S. Guitarro, a $50 million nuclear submarine undergoing final fitting in San Francisco Bay, sank to the bottom as water poured into a forward compartment. A House Armed Services subcommittee later found the Navy guilty of \”inexcusable carelessness\” in connection with the event. 12 December 1971Five hundred gallons of radioactive coolant water spilled into the Thames River near New London, Connecticut as it was being transferred from the submarine Dace to the sub tender Fulton. October-November 1975The USS Proteus, a disabled submarine tender, discharged significant amounts of radioactive coolant water into Guam's Apra Harbor. A geiger counter check of the harbor water near two public beaches measured 100 millirems/hour, fifty times the allowable dose. 22 May 1978Up to 500 gallons of radioactive water was released when a valve was mistakenly opened aboard the USS Puffer near Puget Sound in Washington. November 1992Due to a valve failure, the nuclear-powered USS Long Beach leaked 109 gallons of radioactive cooling water over a 44-day period while docked at San Diego Naval Station. An additional 50 gallons had leaked out there the previous April and May. The San Diego Union reported that coolant had also been released at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) and Indian Island (Washington). U.S. Navy officials insist that the level of radiation posed no threat, and that a \”very small amount of valve leakage that is unavoidable and occurs on all ships is well understood, controlled and accounted for.\”
Seattle Times, 7-19-2008:PARIS — First, an overflowing tub at a French nuclear plant spilled uranium into the groundwater. Then a burst pipe leaked uranium at another nuclear site, raising an alert on Friday.The two accidents within two weeks, both at sites run by French nuclear giant Areva, have raised questions about safety and control measures in one of the world's most nuclear-dependent nations, and given fodder to anti-nuclear activists.Environmentalists said the incidents are a wake-up call, raising doubts about an industry in which France has staked out a leading role internationally.[ ]On Friday, nuclear-safety officials announced the discovery of a burst underground pipe at a plant in Romans-sur-Isere, southeastern France, run by an Areva subsidiaryInspectors found that the pipe had been broken for several years and didn't meet safety standards.November 1992In France's most serious nuclear accident, three workers were contaminated after entering a nuclear particle accelerator in Forbach without protective clothing. Executives were jailed in 1993 for failing to take proper safety measures.
November 1995Japan's Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor leaked two to three tons of sodium from the reactor's secondary cooling system.March 1997The state-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation reprocessing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, contaminated at least 35 workers with minor radiation after a fire and explosion occurred.September 30, 1999Another accident at the uranium processing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, plant exposed fifty-five workers to radiation. More than 300,000 people living near the plant were ordered to stay indoors. Workers had been mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel, but had used too much uranium and set off the accidental uncontrolled reaction.French officials have temporarily shut down Europe's biggest plant making fuel for nuclear reactors, at Tricastin, as a result of an accident over the weekend. They also said they did not know why a dangerous chemical was leaking from France's fast-breeder reactor, the only such commercial reactor in Western Europe. On Sunday night the state-owned Atomic Energy Commissariat said it was halting uranium enrichment at the Tricastin enrichment plant near Pierrelatte for a week while it investigated a leak of mildly radioactive toxic gas discovered over the weekend. The leak injured seven workers. On Monday, Jean-Pierre Capron, head of the commissariat, said experts still had not determined the cause of a leak of coolant discovered more than a week ago at Superphenix, the world's biggest fast-breeder reactor, not far from the Tricastin plant. Toxic and Volatile Substances The gas that escaped from the Tricastin plant, as a result of a faulty valve, was uranium hexachloride. It is only mildly radioactive though highly toxic. Although the sodium leaking from the Superphenix fast breeder is not radioactive, it is dangerous because it explodes on contact with water. About 25 tons of the chemical have escaped from the reactor so far, but investigators have not been able to trace the source of the leak. The two accidents have reopened the debate over the safety of nuclear reactors in a country that gets 70 percent of its electricity from atomic power and where nuclear energy has aroused less political controversy than anywhere else in Europe. France's major Socialist trade union has joined environmental groups in calling for the Superphenix to be shut down while the leak is traced. But the Industry Minister, Alain Madelin, appealed for calm. ''We must not lose our nerve,'' he said. ''If the repairs justify shutting down the reactor, we shall do so.'' The safety question is also focusing attention on the poor economic performance of the Superphenix reactor, which creates new plutonium from the plutonium fuel it burns, offering the prospect of almost limitless energy. In an interview with Le Monde, Mr. Capron said that Superphenix's electricity costs almost twice as much to produce as power from a normal reactor. But he argued that the cost could be reduced as French technicians learned more about designing and building fast breeders.
Putting aside the nuclear waste problem and all the accidents that have happened over the years, I am surprised that a libertarian would be for nuclear power which cannot exist without tax subsidies in the billions. Nuclear waste becomes a problem for tax payers, too, because nuclear waste becomes a national security problem. Big accidents like Three Mile Island also get bailed out by our tax dollars. Private insurers won't touch nuclear plants. In short, nuke power is corporate welfare at its worst and yet libertarian likes nuclear power. He extols the French for their commitment to nuclear power, which is state run (universal nuclear care) but hates French universal health care.From the washingtonpost.com, 3-2-2010:The projected cost for a pair of proposed Georgia plants would be $14 billion; the Obama administration last month pledged to provide them with $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees. So utilities have turned to state legislators and regulators to help contain capital costs. In states such as Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, utilities have won permission to charge customers for some of the cost of new reactors while construction is still in progress — a financing technique that would save utilities a couple of billion dollars for each reactor. Previously, utilities had to wait until power plants were in operation before raising rates, as they still do in most states.[ ]But businesses and other electricity users in those states aren't buying that argument. Instead, they are saying utilities are pawning off much of the projects' liabilities on customers because bank lenders and investors will not take the risks.[ ] \”It's a terrible idea,\” said Jim Clarkson, a consultant with Resource Supply Management, a Georgia firm that advises companies on how to reduce electricity use. \”We've had decades of subsidies for nuclear plants and all sorts of preferential treatment. They still require loan guarantees because the smart money won't touch them.\”[ ] The reaction of big businesses, as well as other consumers, has turned states that were bastions of support for nuclear power into hazardous territory. And it could thwart the Obama administration's efforts to jump-start nuclear reactor construction by handing out chunks of the $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees Congress authorized in 2005. Turning to the statesThirty to 40 years ago, expensive nuclear plants drove some utilities into bankruptcy. That has made banks gun-shy about lending and investors wary about buying bonds. Moreover, the new plants are so expensive that a single unit could equal a quarter to 100 percent of the market capitalization of an entire utility company, potentially damaging the utility's credit rating. That's why utilities turned to the states, lobbying in recent years for the ability to charge customers while construction is in progress. \”Without this legislation, we would not be considering building new nuclear generation in Florida,\” Grant said.
>I am surprised that a libertarian would be for nuclear power which cannot exist without tax subsidies in the billions. No subsidies! If a company or individual wants to do it, that's fine. So, if we are NOT going to allow nukes, can we eliminate all the gooferment employees that work on it?
If nuclear energy were a totally new technology, maybe that would justify all the loan guarantees and government subsidies, OUR TAX DOLLARS. But Nukes are not new, they've been around for more than 50 years and there have been very serous accidents in the US and all over the world. It's about time that nuke plants pay for all their own costs without depending on massive outlays of our tax money, after all, they are privately owned capitalistic companies run by highly paid CEOs.Again, the point is, nuke plants cannot exist without our tax money. It's just like those stupid sports stadiums that are built with a huge chunk of our tax money. Enough, they should not get any more handouts after more than 50 years. If banks and private lenders won't back nuke plants why should the tax payer. Even some other big private capitalistic businesses, big utility users (as noted in the article), are fed up with the favored treatment of nuke plants.Libertarians have selective outrage.
\”Coffee\” may be astroturf.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/ny_times_wapo_willing_tools_of.html*** begin quote ***March 04, 2010NY Times, WaPo willing tools of astroturf scamThomas LifsonThanks to bloggers, two liberal newspapers have been busted as willing tools of a sophisticated astroturf PR scam by the Obama camp. Desperate over the wildfire success of the Tea Party movement, an astroturf group, the Coffee Party Movement, was created to be portrayed as \”civilized\” in contrast to the media caricature of the Tea Parties as racist, violent, and in-bred. Co-opting the energy, and splintering the protests, as well as drawing attention away are the obvious intentions.*** end quote ***We'll just have to see what the truth is.
How is the Coffee movement astroturf? Who are the supposed big money groups behind the Coffee movement? The article makes a claim that it was formed by the Obama camp. What does that even mean, the Obama administration or just ordinary people who supported Obama? Very deceptive use of words but I would expect no less from a right wing web site. Right wingers and libertarians are either liars or delusional.Oh please, the WAPO is no longer liberal, it has gone right wing. The Times has some good liberal columnists like Krugman, Herbert and Rich. Dowd and Friedman are clowns. It also has conservative clowns like Brooks and Douthat.Much of the tea party movement was funded by big money such as Dick Armey's Freedom Works which is funded by the big corporations. And the tea party movement is also made up of some very deluded and misguided ordinary people, it's not all astroturf but a big chunk of it is indeed astroturf.
Annabel Park, founder of the coffee Party, was never paid by the Obama campaign, but she worked very hard as volunteer, as did millions of other Americans. A newspaper inaccurately reported that Annabel held a videographer position. But, if there is anyone who cares about such things, and also cares about getting their facts straight, the truth is very easy to verify. To date, neither Annabel nor her partner Eric Byler have ever been hired by a political campaign or by a political organization. They are active citizens who, as volunteers have knocked on doors, made phone calls, and made videos.
Annabel Park, founder of the coffee Party, was never paid by the Obama campaign, but she worked very hard as volunteer, as did millions of other Americans. A newspaper inaccurately reported that Annabel held a videographer position. But, if there is anyone who cares about such things, and also cares about getting their facts straight, the truth is very easy to verify. To date, neither Annabel nor her partner Eric Byler have ever been hired by a political campaign or by a political organization. They are active citizens who, as volunteers have knocked on doors, made phone calls, and made videos.