Progressive Bumper Sticker

An End To A Bumper Sticker Era

Consider what the world of the bumper sticker was like before the year 2000, when George W. Bush came to power. Bumper sticker design was for big organizations with big money. Those big organizations failed to respond to the problem of President Bush, however, and so, during Bush’s first term in office, a movement of grassroots bumper sticker design was begun.

That anti-Bush bumper sticker movement crested in early 2005, and then was replaced by the phenomenon of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. That campaign, unlike the campaign against Bush in 2004, was centered around one personality, and so the grassroots bumper sticker approach of individuals expressing themselves creatively was replaced by a flash again of the old way of movement uniformity.

Look out on the road today, and you see the result - a lot of official Obama for President bumper stickers, and not very many independently produced items. As long as Obama holds sway over the imagination of the progressive imagination, that’s how it’s going to be, and ironically, that centralized, personality-focused approach, as effective as it has been at electing Obama himself, may be the undoing of progressive idealism itself.

So we see the emergence of a new, post-election group of bumper stickers, with themes such as thank me, I voted for Obama.

Almost disappeared are the issue bumper stickers, and now, the Obama campaign itself is disappearing, to transition through Inauguration 2009 into the Obama Administration.

What will become of progressive activism? Can the progressive grassroots survive, when the White House accepts responsibility for progressive action itself?

Barack Obama Bumper Stickers In Bulk Beat Print On Demand Prices

The print-on-demand political merchandising system has been hit hard this month by the waves of inflation surging through the economy. CafePress has increased the price of its bumper stickers by about one third, sending the price of a bumper sticker, with shipping, over five dollars.

That’s a hard price for people to swallow, when their jobs are insecure, when their homes are defaulting, and when more of their income is swallowed up in essential expenses like food and fuel.

There is an alternative, however, to print-on-demand bumper stickers. Over at Irregular Times, they’re offering pre-printed Barack Obama bumper stickers, and are able to do so at a dramatically lower price than what the print-on-demand services can offer.

Instead of a price over five dollars, this Barack Obama bumper sticker is sold at a price of just $1.40 when bought in packs of 25. Yes, that price includes shipping and handling.

People want to get involved in politics. They want to do the right thing, but right now the cost of involvement can seem prohibitive for many Americans. Thanks to Irregular Times for bringing the price of political speech down to a level that people can really afford.

Bumper Sticker Shopping Through ThisNext

Post script: Dear Goodness me. ThisNext blogging is even worse than I thought. Not only is it super-controlling, stripping out html, it doesn’t even work properly. There’s supposed to be a bumper sticker graphic with a link for buying the bumper sticker in this article, but look for yourself: No graphic, and no link, is there.

Now I’m going to have to go back in and remove that garbage code, and place in my own link to the bumper sticker - direct, without any extra affiliate nonsense. Thanks for nothing, ThisNext. I’ll keep blogging for myself.

The more I see of social networking sites like ThisNext, the more I think that independent web sites are really the way to go for substantial networking. Making links and “friends” comes quick and easy on social networking sites, but so easy that the benefit is ephemeral, the relationships lasting just as long as a click.

The Whole Kaboodle On Bumper Stickers

I have just begun to explore a new way to shop for bumper stickers online: Kaboodle. Kaboodle is a kind of social networking site dedicated to shopping.

The truth is that when I think about shoppers, I don’t think about people who buy bumper stickers. I think about people who go to shopping malls and buy far too many clothes for themselves.

On the other hand, when people want to find a bumper sticker for themselves, how do they find the right one? Well, they go shopping.

Maybe, in order to be more successful, progressives need to think more about how to help people who are shopping for ways to express their progressive political ideas. Maybe, Kaboodle is the kind of place political progressives need to go more often. If we want people to pay attention to what matters to us, turning the huge shopping infrastructure in our favor couldn’t hurt.

I’ve spend a little bit of time this afternoon exploring the bumper stickers that are already listed on the Kaboodle system, and adding a few more of my own. I find that I appreciate the way that the system allows me to categorize bumper stickers into lists and sub-sections. Is this capitalist system inherently anti-progressive, or can it be legitimately turned into a medium for progressive activation of previously apathetic citizens?

The following are a few bumper stickers I’ve put together into a section called liberty.

Political Bumper Stickers by oakgall

I’d like to hear from other people what they think about this system, and how they’re using it.

Florida, Miami, Obama and the Focused Campaign

Late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” Oh, if that were true. With the creation and distribution of nationally focused media drowning out local sources of information, all politics in the USA has become national, with people paying more attention to cable TV broadcasts than to what’s going on right around them in their own neighborhoods.

It’s time to take that back, and reclaim the local identity as a relevant force in national politics. That’s one of the reasons the Irregular States catalog was created - to bring items like campaign bumper stickers to people that connect national issues to local identity.

Too many people grab a generic Barack Obama bumper sticker with a message that could apply anywhere. They put it on the back of their cars, and if you didn’t see the car’s license plate, they could be from anywhere.

It’s essential to remember that though the position of President of the United States is national, the election is actually an affair of the states. Unless a constitutional amendment is passed some time in the future, the Electoral College will be the group that actually elects the President - and delegates to the Electoral College will be elected in statewide popular elections.

That makes a statewide focus especially important, and state-level bumper stickers important too. Thus we see that bumper stickers like this one, proclaiming Florida is for Obama, may not be as prevalent as other Barack Obama bumper stickers, but they pack an extra punch.

Let’s take this localization of politics one step further, then. If the state level, Florida for instance, is what establishes the Electoral College vote, then it’s the local neighborhood that actually facilitates the Electoral College vote on Election Day. People don’t all go to one place in Florida to vote, after all. They go to a designated polling station in their city or village.

If you live in Miami, say so. Display a Miami for Obama bumper sticker.

So, support Barack Obama nationally, yes. Support Barack Obama in Florida, sure. But also support Barack Obama in Miami… or in whatever state and town you happen to live in. Focus the lens of progressive activism to affirm where you are in 2008.

Most Viewed Progressive Bumper Stickers at Zazzle, April 13-19, 2008

Print-On-Demand (POD) bumper sticker producer Zazzle offers an interesting feature to shopkeepers: the ability to view bumper stickers in rank order from most-often viewed within a time period to least-often viewed. The frequency of bumper sticker views has something to say, giving us a lens with which to view the shape of progressive sentiment about social and political causes of the day. What are these causes, and how do progressives orient themselves toward them?

The following are the ten most viewed progressive bumper stickers (not including our election bumper stickers, which we’ll rank separately) on our Zazzle webshop for the week of April 13-19, 2008:

1. Bitter: Ask Me Why

2. Ben Franklin Quote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

3. Is the Earth Getting Hot, Or Is It Just Me?

4. Veterans Against the War

5. Support the Peace, Say No to War

6. Customizable Congressional Campaign Bumper Sticker

7. Customizable Bumper Sticker Against Right-Wing Congressional Kooks

8. War Is Not Moderate

9. Fight Global Warming: Get On Your Bike!

10. Mark Twain Quote: “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

These messages are what progressives are looking for now. These searches capture what’s on the progressive mind now.

Lifeguards, Artists and Barack Obama

A bumper sticker catalog reports tonight, in the evening after the Democratic presidential primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, that the same person has bought a lifeguards for Obama bumper sticker and an artists for Obama bumper sticker.

I suppose it is possible that one person has bought these two bumper stickers for two different people. Nonetheless, I would like to believe that somewhere out there, there is a lifeguard-artist with progressive political leanings.

What an interesting person that would be, someone who takes time for creative expression and saves people from drowning. Could these two interests overlap?

Generate Your Own Political Bumper Sticker For 2008 Election

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a presidential election is all about the presidential candidates. It’s not. A presidential campaign is about the voters. An election is the process by which citizens get representation in the government.

Which presidential candidate gets elected determines who will get represented. The promise that presidential candidates make, that they will represent all the American people, is a sham. That’s just not how it works in practice. George W. Bush has represented corporate America, not American workers. He’s represented polluters, not environmentalists. He’s represented Creationists, not science teachers.

Supporting a progressive presidential candidate means supporting progressive constituencies as well. That’s why it’s so important to identify, on a candidate bumper sticker, exactly which constituency of support you represent. Are you with environmentalists for John Edwards? Then say so, and you’ll be supporting both John Edwards and environmentalism.

Because it’s impossible for anyone to identify all the progressive constituencies (we’re a diverse bunch), Irregular Times has developed a special method through which you can create your own 2008 election bumper sticker, using their templates to support Hillary Clinton, John Edwards or Barack Obama. You add the text to show who it is that is giving support to your candidate of choice.

You might show, for example, that your small village supports a certain presidential candidate, as in the case of this Trumansburg for Obama bumper sticker, even though Trumansburg is a town of under two thousand inhabitants. No one else is going to do that for you, guaranteed.

Locality is the luxury. Particularity is the new power. Express your individual political location even as you support your national campaign of preference.