Progressive Bumper Sticker » progressive

Progressive Arizona Opposes Ann Kirkpatrick

The Sticker — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:23:41 +0000

In 2008, Democrats worked to elect Ann Kirkpatrick because they were sick of the right wing politics of Rick Renzi. Voters of all kinds in the 1st congressiona district voted for Kirkpatrick because they thought she would be a departure from the kooky Republican agenda promoted by Renzi.

Now, in 2009, voters see that they didn’t get what they thought they were voting for. Ann Kirkpatrick has turned her back on the progressive activists who fueled her campaign, and gone off to the House of Representatives to vote as if she were the second coming of Rick Renzi.

U.S. Representative Ann Kirkpatrick has worked to support just about every cockamamie far right wing idea that’s run through the back halls of Congress: Flag burning amendments to the Constitution, protecting government torturers, Star Wars missile defense boondoggles, even agitation against clean energy legislation.

What was the point of rank and file Democrats working so hard to put Ann Kirkpatrick in Congress, now that she’s acting like a Republican? Voter disgust at this hard right turn is what motivates this bumper sticker: Progressive Arizona Against Ann Kirkpatrick

Top Ten Selling Liberal Bumper Stickers, December 1-14 2008

The Sticker — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:53:25 +0000

What is on the collective mind of liberal thinkers as the year 2008 draws to a close? One indication is in the choice of stickers liberals choose to decorate their cars with. We’re a pretty sticky bunch, we lefties, and some ideas (Get Your Laws Off My Body, Not all Who Wander are Lost) are perennial favorites, while others (That One ’08) are more fleeting. Here are the notions most often sticking in our craws right now (click on any of these bumper stickers to get one for yourself):

Barack 2008, Michele 2016 Bumper Sticker. Looking forward a bit much, are we? You can’t call us a dour bunch anymore, I think.

Go Solar Bumper Sticker. The sun rises on this car decal.

Obama ’08: Mission Accomplished. Yes, yes, we heard. It’s true if the mission is an election. If the mission is the implementation of progressive policy then we’re not there yet.

Peace, Earth, Love. Aw, how sweet… and literally iconic on this wordless bumper sticker.

Welcome to America: Now Speak Cherokee. A rejoinder to those who suppose that English was invented in the USA.

Peace Sign Earth Bumper Sticker. To care for one, ensure the other.

1-20-09 Car Decal. Celebrating the Inauguration of President Barack Obama pre-emptively. Better than pre-emptive war!

That SUV Makes Your Butt Look Big. Or does it make your head look small?

O: The President Bumper Sticker. It’s not W: The President any longer.

10.

Don’t Let the Door Hit You On the Way Out, George. The extra gloaty bumper sticker of the season.

An End To A Bumper Sticker Era

The Sticker — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:30:40 +0000

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?

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

The Sticker — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:13:29 +0000

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.