Progressive Bumper Sticker

A Very Woody Hug And Kiss for Tree Lovers

There’s something kind of sexy about a tree hugger. It’s not for nothing that people talk about getting a “woody”, or that the ancient Greeks imagined that sexually attractive spirits lived within trees. Trees are phallic, penetrating the sky and earth alike.

Right wingers are out of touch with this natural symbolism of sexuality. They’re so much into dirty, stinking oil wells that I don’t think that they really have much fun in the bedroom. They mock environmentalists as “tree huggers”, and don’t realize that this very phrase reveals how much they’re missing the boat.

This t-shirt (made here in the USA, free of sweatshop child labor) takes the right wing insult and embraces it, much as environmentalists embrace trees: I don’t just hug trees - I kiss them too.

Is this Pacifist T-shirt the Best T-Shirt Ever?

Hyperbole is the nature of the Internet. The t-shirt you see here has been nominated as the best t-shirt ever.

I don’t think that there’s ever been that kind of award given before.

I’m not in a position to judge what the best tshirt ever is, but this one would be among my top picks, to be sure. It features a handsome young boy, giving us the peace sign with his right hand, and a slogan written as a definition, “Pacifist: Someone with the nutty idea that killing people is a bad thing.”

I’m glad that this t-shirt is out there, because, on consideration, it’s absolutely nuts that so many advocates for war out there are trying to make pacifism out to be an extreme ideology. In fact, pacifism is the heart of true moderation. War is not moderate. It’s violence that’s the true extremism.

George W. Bush is the Weapon of Mass Destruction

There’s an old saying out there that goes, “You can run and run for a long time before you realize that the thing that you’re really running from is yourself.” If ever there has been a politician who epitomized that saying, it has been George W. Bush. Everything that George W. Bush says he’s for, he ends up working against. Everything that George W. Bush says he’s against, he ends up working for.

That basic truth about the political identity of George W. Bush is recognized by this bumper sticker, which reads, “George W. Bush is the Weapon of Mass Destruction”. Bush says that he’s against weapons of mass destruction, but he presides over the world’s largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Bush is also a recklessly pro-war President, wreaking destruction wherever he can.

Bring Back the Dark Ages. Vote Republican.

Every now and then, I come across a bumper sticker design so apt, and yet so evocatively disturbing, that I both want to put it on the back of my car right away and am afraid even to look at it again. That’s the case with the bumper sticker you see here, which has the simple message: Bring Back the Dark Ages. Vote Republican.

Stop and think historically for just a minute and you’ll see the clear connections between the right wing’s ideology and the Dark Ages. The Republican agenda is essentially motivated by a medieval way of thinking, and the consequences we suffer are like the suffering of the Dark Ages.

War. Ignorance. Lack of progress. Persecution. Torture. Inability to fight disease. Lack of preparation for disaster. Fear. Centralized power. Theocracy.

Line up the world that the Republicans threaten to bring us alongside the Dark Ages, and they match with frightening accuracy. Thus, the words of this bumper sticker strike deep: Bring Back the Dark Ages. Vote Republican.

The design is elegant as it is creepy. The color scheme suggests something ancient, as the image is ancient, a medieval danse macabre image of two skeletons with a priest leading another person off to their doom.

Bright and cheery, it is not. Yet, the message gets through, loud and clear.

President Bush, Stop Harshing on My Mellow!

Every now and then, I come across a bumper sticker design that cuts through all the complicated arguments of the professional politicians, and reduces an issue down to an essence that people can understand and identify with on a human level. That is the case with this bumper sticker design:

Mr. Bush, Stop Harshing on My Mellow

We can talk for week after week about the irrationality of George W. Bush’s Iraq policy, the inadequacies of his economic policies, the ignorance of his science policies, the near-sightedness of his environmental policy, and the injustice of Bush’s agenda to dismantle the constitutional liberties guaranteed us under the Bill of Rights. The sad truth is that many Americans just tune out when you try to talk about the details. We need an anti-Bush shorthand, a quick way to identify the core problem with Bush’s politics.

Hey, Mr. Bush! Stop harshing on my mellow!

That is the problem, isn’t it? George W. Bush, in spite of his Republican rhetoric, believes that it’s the job of big government to be the boss of us all. We’ve got no room left for mellow under harsh President Bush.

Bush thinks it’s his job to run our country through war on little more than a hunch, to get us to work longer hours for lower wages and worse benefits. He puts us through heat waves of denial of global warming, and subjects us to the sex police if our relationships don’t fit his idea of morality. Bush gives us Big Brother government, always watching, with its Total Information Awareness and warrantless wiretaps of our telephones.

Oh, and he wants us to be afraid, afraid, afraid of the boogeyman who’s going to get us all unless we all do exactly what Bush says.

Bush needs to back off. Bush needs to stop harshing on America’s mellow.

Can I Teach Evolution In Your Church?

When I saw this button, I just about fell over laughing. It’s a great example of how a well considered phrase can reveal the weakness in an opponent’s argument. It asks:

So, can I teach evolution in your church?

What a brilliant reversal of the Creationist campaign to force public schools to teach religious faith in high school science classrooms! The Creationists want us to pay taxes to teach religion in our schools, so why not have the reverse take place, and have churches pay for biology teachers to come and teach evolution in Sunday School?

The answer is obvious. It’s not the business of public schools to tell churches what they can preach on Sundays. Of course, that’s the point - the two realms are separate. Creationist Christians have no more right to push their religious beliefs in public school science classes than science teachers have the right to educate Sunday School students about how evolution works.

This button offers powerful rhetoric for an important cause. Put it on

Obama is Beautiful

Every now and then, there’s a slogan and a design that come together to express something that no speech could ever put together. That’s the case for the design and wording on the bumper sticker Obama is Beautiful.

The bumper sticker starts with inspiration from the 1960s, 1970s slogan: black is beautiful. With the colors of black and brown mixing together in a rippling whirlpool of subtle color, that’s the background.

There’s also a value in the Obama name, however. Right wing pundits attack Barack Obama’s name, as if the name itself, and being of partly Kenyan descent, is something to be ashamed of. It’s not. We need leaders with an understanding of the world, and Barack Obama’s ties to Africa and experience in Indonesia are factors highly in his favor as he campaigns for President in 2008.

Then, of course, there’s the literal interpretation. Barack Obama clearly has a kind of style that no other presidential candidate can hope to approach.

It all comes together without effort in this design: Obama is beautiful.

Better Dead Than Fred - Fred Thompson, That Is

Who could have expected that Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson would have to face down a new version of an old anti-communist slogan? Yet, that’s exactly what’s happening as alliterative liberals have drafted a memorable phrase in their effort to confront the corrupting politics of Fred Thompson:

Better Dead Than Fred

Fred’s not Red, but his policies do cause dread.

Fred Thompson is a pro-war, anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-pollution corporate lobbyist with an unremarkable short political career. No wonder he is provoking such strong opposition from Democrats and other progressives.

Is American really so superficial now that it’s willing to overlook all of Fred Thompson’s obvious flaws just because he has a gig as an actor on the TV show Law and Order?

As this bumper sticker says, no thank you, Mr. Thompson. America can do better.

Wigwams of Bass Destruction?

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.

Oppose the Troops Bumper Sticker

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.