by Tim Danahey
The Coffee Party has stood for civility and encouraging civic engagement. We've created a national organization with chapters in many cities and states. Within these chapters, we've enabled social media communications specific to the various states and many regularly hold Coffee Party USA meetings to address local issues.
It's been positive and our memberships and social media impact are growing at extraordinary rates. We've gathered and posted news on an hourly basis and we are approaching 750,000 followers and many millions of reaches every week.
The Board of Directors is now ready to implement the next stage of Coffee Party USA development. We are pleased to announce national issue groups. These are groups where individuals across the country who are interested in specific issues can work together through our internet platform and develop original reasearch and activism.
The first issue group concerns privatization of public assets such as water and sanitation, electricity, roads, prisons, schools, and public services. We believe this is a growing national concern, a possible additional expense for taxpayers, and a windfall for private investors. If we work together on this issue to build our knowledge base, we intend to use this base to provide inputs, opinions, and activism to specific attempts at privatization in small communities across the country.
One of the most egregious assaults on public assets recently occurred in New Jersey where Governor Christie enacted a law which allows public water systems to be privatized without a public vote. There have also been attempts to crush municipal attempts to create publicly-owned internet service providers. The issue is vast and involves communities as varied as Portland, Oregon, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Chatanooga, Tennessee. We will need a talented issue group to monitor developments, analyze privatization schemes, and apply fact-based analysis. Please volunteer at www.CoffeePartyUSA.com if you'd like to be part of this group. Mention "Privatization" in the comment field of the volunteer form.
Other issue groups will also be forming based on inputs and interests of our members. If there are issues important to you, we look forward to hearing your thoughts, sharing them with others, and considering additional issue groups.
These are wonderful times for the Coffee Party USA. Our philosophy of encourage polite civic engagement is resonating with many who are tired of politics-as-usual and partisan rancor. Please join us if you are not yet a member. When you join, get involved and let's make the difference politically.