Posted by The Sticker on May 28th, 2007
If you’ve opened a newspaper, turned on the radio or television, or gotten online over the last few days, you’ve been blasted by a consistent, relentless message valuing the things that warriors do. Listen to that selective message of Memorial Day, and you’ll likely feel your heart stirring in pride when you think about people rushing off to war with guns loaded, ready to fight.
Isn’t that odd? Think about how effective the propaganda of Memorial Day has become, that the mainstream message becomes pride in people who go en masse to kill each other.
Murder is the most serious crime there is. When it takes place in the course of war, however, we’re supposed to believe that murder is an honorable thing. Stealing is a crime, but in war we steal homes, territory, and sovereignty. Destroying someone else’s person property is a serious crime too, but we applaud it in war.
Come to think of it, war gives people permission to go out and commit a huge number of crimes. The crimes of war take place on such a scale, with such a steady consistency, that war itself becomes a crime. War can be defined as a time during which people are allowed to behave as criminals.
Heck, let’s be honest about it, and stop all this mushy language about “those who serve” and “fighting for our freedom”. War is a crime
Posted by The Sticker on May 25th, 2007
There’s an old Buddhist slogan: Be where you already are. We Americans would do well to take that advice, in a modified form, when it comes to our treatment of the environment: Let where you are be where you are.
If you live in the Northeast, don’t maintain a lawn in the pretense that you live on the prairie. Let the trees and bushes grow some more.
If you live in the South, don’t use northern grasses and water them like crazy to try to get them to grow.
Above all else, if you live in the desert Southwest, don’t pretend that your yard is an oasis. Xeriscape, for goodness sake! Most of New Mexico is not at all suited for lawns. Tucson is not Cornwall. There are no sheep grazing in verdant pastures. The California soil is suited for scrub and for jericho trees, not bluegrass.
Stop watering the desert. It wasn’t meant to be a lawn.
Posted by The Sticker on May 24th, 2007
It’s 2002 all over again. The Democrats are supporting George W. Bush’s plans to fight in Iraq.
Oh, but it’s worse this time. This time, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Iraq War will be a disaster. After all, the Iraq War has already been a disaster for four long years, and the Bush White House has no new ideas to put things right in Iraq.
The worst thing is that we fell for the Democrats’ line of bull in 2006. We were suckers. We believed that if we elected Democrats to a majority control over both houses of Congress, that they would act decisively to end the war in Iraq.
We were wrong. We were wronged. We’ve been wronged by George W. Bush, and now we’re being wronged by the Democrats in Congress.
The Democrats in Congress are giving up. They’re surrendering to the most unpopular President of the United States in living memory! They’re letting the pro-war Republicans have their way. The Democrats in Congress have agreed to introduce legislation that would give George W. Bush all the funding for the war in Iraq, including the surge, and the surge after the surge, with no strings attached!.
Listen up, America: Politics is no longer about Democrat versus Republican. Politics is about pro-war versus antiwar. Which politicians in Congress have the courage to stand up to George W. Bush and say that no, he can’t keep on throwing America’s reputation down the toilet. No, he can’t keep on spending money on a bankrupt war, building up record breaking budget deficits. No, he can’t keep throwing human lives at a cause that never was just in the first place.
If your representative and senators on Capitol Hill vote to authorize this no strings attached budget for war, they don’t deserve to be in Congress. Democrat or Republican doesn’t matter. Vote them out in 2008.
We’re watching, Congress.
Support the Peace
Posted by The Sticker on May 23rd, 2007
Mitt Romney is far out… on the right wing edge of Kookyville. In his hunger to win the Republican presidential nomination for the 2008 election, Mitt Romney seems ready to say just about anything to make the right wing radicals happy. He denies global warming. He thinks the war in Iraq is a great idea.
He flip flops. Boy, is Mitt Romney a flip flopper. He supports abortion rights, then he’s against them. He supports marriage equality, and then he’s against it. I wonder, if Mitt Romney campaigns long enough, will he come out against his own nomination?
Listen, folks. Mitt Romney is a right wing bomb set to blow America sky high with right wing religious extremism. It’s time to defuse the bomb.
Luckily, Mitt Romney is easy to defuse, if you just know the code: Mitt Romney is a flip flopper, and that means that, no matter which political agenda you support, you just can’t trust him.
It’s true. If you support abortion rights, you can’t trust Mitt Romney anymore. But if you oppose abortion rights, you can’t trust Mitt Romney either. He could just as easily flip flop right on back to supporting Roe v. Wade.
Ideologically, Mitt Romney is erratic. He’s unpredictable. He’s careening from left to right, and who knows where he’ll end up?
Mitt Romney is a flip flopper, and that’s why no one in America can trust him to be President of the United States.
Posted by The Sticker on May 21st, 2007
All right, this is not really a bumper sticker. However it’s got a bumper sticker kind of quality, and an originality in the turn of phrase that I just couldn’t ignore. It’s a postcard using the slogan Wigwams of Bass Destruction.
From weapons of mass destruction to wigwams of bass destruction… it’s not exact alliteration, or rhyming. It’s an odd kind of phonetic similarity that grips the mind.
All the better to mock the Bush Administration’s excuse for starting a completely unnecessary war by invading and occupying Iraq.
Far out.
Nonetheless, I do feel a bit sorry for the fish.
Posted by The Sticker on May 20th, 2007
Here’s the latest surpising result from the ongoing, weekly bumper sticker primary conducted by Irregular Times: Bill Richardson and Al Gore are winning over Hillary Clinton. In fact, Bill Richardson is also beating Barack Obama.
Here’s the chart showing the trends from this year, statistics coming from the presidential bumper sticker sales by Irregular Times:
Posted by The Sticker on May 18th, 2007
This bumper sticker has got to be one of the most righteously gutsy designs that I’ve seen in a long time: Oppose the Troops - Violence is Immoral.
Hoo baby.
It’s got a point, doesn’t it? You know it does, but this bumper sticker makes you feel uncomfortable, right? I mean, saying that you don’t support the troops is, in the current political climate, like saying that you’ve decided not to breathe any more. It’s ideological suicide… or at least it’s purported to be.
After all, how could you oppose the troops? They’re fighting and dying to protect our freedoms from… uh… well… from… They’re not really fighting to protect our freedoms, are they? On the contrary, it’s the war that the “troops” fight that is being used as an excuse to destroy American freedom.
Do you support the troops when they shoot to kill? Do you really? Do you support them occupying someone else’s country? Do you? Do you support the troops in the way that they obey whatever other people tell them to do, no matter how outrageous? Do you support them in Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay?
Are you really okay with what the troops are doing? Do you really support them?
Hey, you’re not running for public office, and I doubt that you will any time soon. What have you got to lose. Go on ahead and oppose the troops. You know it’s the right thing to do.
Posted by The Sticker on May 17th, 2007
Dal LaMagna used to be known as Tweezerman, running for President under that name, handing out campaign tweezers as a gimmick to get people to think about voting for the Tweezerman for President line.
Since that time, however, LaMagna has become more serious, working directly in Iraq to do grassroots diplomacy. He has met with members of the Iraqi Parliament himself, seeking to contribute to the dimnishment of violence in Iraq. He has also produced three films about Iraq: Iraq For Sale, The Ground Truth and The War Tapes.
Dal LaMagna is running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008. If you want a true voice for peace in the White House, consider supporting his campaign.
Dal La Magna 2008. Vote for Peace.
Posted by The Sticker on May 11th, 2007
This bumper sticker gets the award for the best use of a double entendre in the name of a good cause.
Is the Earth getting hot, or is it just me?
What other bumper sticker allows you to be sexy and socially conscious at the same time? You can be cool green on the inside, but red hot on the outside with this double entendre that is as alarming as gobal warming itself.
It’s important, with the issue of climate change, to break through people’s desire to forget about the problem. Global warming, after all, is a big problem, and lots of people feel so trapped by the demands of day to day living in civilization that they just don’t feel powerful enough to make a change.
Sure, this slogan is a little bit sexually charged, but then again, so are the cars that are out there on the highway, spewing carbon dioxide into the air. Better to emit some body heat than to let the Earth heat up beyond our control.
Help those around you get turned on to the defense of nature. Empower them with this provocative message so that they’ll stand erect against pollution, and in favor of an agenda of more efficient energy.
Posted by The Sticker on May 9th, 2007
Consider the re-election of Peter Stark to Congress. Peter Stark (his real first name is, unfortunately, Fortney), recently gained attention as the first ever openly nontheist member of Congress. That means that Representative Stark is the first member of either the House or Senate to admit that he does not believe in any supernatural divinity that interferes in the lives of human beings. Unfortunately, that is still a radical statement, even now.
Peter Stark is also honored with one of the four highest rankings of support for progressive legislation in the current U.S. House of Representatives.
So, when the people of California’s 13th congressional district say Thank You, Pete Stark, on a bumper sticker, they’re saying thank you for his enlightened liberal politics and for the courage of his ideological conviction, whether that has to do with political or religious matters.
