Green “Tea Party” (massive anti-tea party rally)

The Napa County Green Party invites you to participate in a momentous and historic Green “tea party" on Saturday, August 27, 2011, at 10:30 AM in Veterans Memorial Park at the corner of Main and Third streets in downtown Napa. Come help us unwelcome the Tea Party Express to Napa and instead show the public a positive Green Party alternative.

This Green Party counter-rally is being held simultaneously with the Tea Party's kick-off of its national tour. The Tea Party has steered our nation further toward the reactionary right, undermining workers' collective bargaining rights, attacking human rights such as access to health care, damaging our environment through attacks on regulation, and fostering an anti-diversity agenda that scapegoats Muslims, immigrants, and the LGBT community.

As the dominant parties acquiesce to this reactionary current, the Green Party stands apart as the healthiest alternative to the corrupt two-party system; a “duopoly” that has given rise to this right-wing shift. The Green Party's platform is based on 10 Key Values, and unlike its corporate-controlled Democratic and Republican counterparts, the Green Party refuses to accept any corporate financing. The Green Party holds dear to a core set of humanitarian and ecological values essential to building a sustainable society that honors the needs of struggling blue and white collar workers and the Earth as a whole.

This Green “tea party" will be a chance for Green Party members and our progressive allies from across the state to unite in opposition to the negative Tea Party agenda by affirming positive Green Party values such as grassroots democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, nonviolence, community-based economics, and sustainability.

Our Green “tea party” will feature prominent Green and progressive speakers, and cultural highlights for this event will include live entertainment, fun information booths, iced green tea, and vegetarian cuisine from Food Not Bombs of Santa Rosa. In line with our Green Party values of ecological wisdom and personal and global responsibility, this will be a zero waste event, and we ask that participants bring canned food items to the rally for donation to the Napa Food Bank. In addition, please wear a green shirt to show your support for the Green Party and/or our Green values.

Event participants should be advised that the Napa authorities may consider this peaceful assembly of citizens to be an act of civil disobedience. Despite the ongoing efforts of the Napa County Green Party to work in good faith to obtain a permit, the City appears intransigent.

Our rally will culminate in a progressive solidarity march from Veterans Park to the Napa Valley Expo Fairgrounds just across the river to protest the Tea Party Express event being held there.

Please join us on Saturday, August 27th at 10:30 AM in Veterans Park for this historic Green “tea party.” Let’s come together to stand up against the Tea Party and affirm the rights and needs of a society that empowers the majority of Americans and heals and nurtures the Earth. For more information, please email napacountygreenparty [at] gmail.com, or join us on Facebook: Napa County Green Party.