At the moment, I have two little bumper stickers on my 2004 Camry: a 2008 Obama/Biden sticker and a 2018 Ryan Watts sticker from the House campaign, both of which I did volunteer work for.
When I lived in Western Mass, I would see beat up old cars covered in every counter cultural New Age Vegan leftie sticker imaginable. My favorite was “Visualize Whirled Peas.”
There is one bumper sticker for which I have a proprietary grandfatherly affection:
QUESTION AUTHORITY
My dislike of bumper stickers is not an ethical issue, but a question of personality.
ReplyDeleteI have conversations with specific people, but not with humanity in general. I like being anonymous when I leave my home. I leave any general messages to the population as a whole to political parties or to organizations which I support such as Amnesty International.
The other day I was getting new glasses (the old ones had broken when I fell) and the oculist was showing me the new styles in eye-wear, and I told her, give me something more boring please. I like to look boring and maybe I am. That says a lot about my personality.
As for a bumper sticker urging people to question authority, well, the urge to question authority, if it is going to be a life project lived out with courage and risk, has to come from within oneself: by the time it becomes a bumper sticker, it's become just one more degraded slogan.
I have a bumper sticker with the famous Woody Guthrie message he had on his guitars on my guitar: "This Machine Kills Fascists." It's an oldie but a goodie.
ReplyDeleteHodie suffragium...
ReplyDeletequam minimum credula postero
This may not fit on a bumper sticker, but I think President Lincoln nailed it in his 2nd Inaugural...
ReplyDeleteFondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of Trump & Trumpism may speedily pass away. ... With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.
This may fit on a bumper sticker if you print is extra-small text...
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln led us through a tragedy. Donald Trump is one.
Lincoln wisely said...
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but...
They say "send her back".
We say "with malice toward none; with charity for all"
They say "make America great again"
We say "This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Didn't Emma Lazarus nail it?
ReplyDelete“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I'll send back the Trumpists!”
Hot air floats boats
ReplyDeleteDump Trump
Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
ReplyDeleteLà où il y a de la haine, que je mette l'amour.
Là où il y a l'offense, que je mette le pardon.
Là où il y a la discorde, que je mette l'union.
Là où il y a l'erreur, que je mette la vérité.
Là où il y a le doute, que je mette la foi.
Là où il y a le désespoir, que je mette l'espérance.
Là où il y a les ténèbres, que je mette votre lumière.
Là où il y a la tristesse, que je mette la joie.
Ô Maître, que je ne cherche pas tant
à être consolé qu'à consoler,
à être compris qu'à comprendre,
à être aimé qu'à aimer,
car c'est en donnant qu'on reçoit,
c'est en s'oubliant qu'on trouve,
c'est en pardonnant qu'on est pardonné,
c'est en mourant qu'on ressuscite à l'éternelle vie.
A better bumper sticker:
ReplyDeleteQuestion Authority!
Says who?
or
Question Authority!
Why?
Thirty-five years ago when I used ot take the bus in from Bundoora to central Melbourne I used ot pass a graffito I think from the anarcho-fems but possibly by the patriarchal archists (whoever they were they had a sense of humour):
A woman needs a man like country needs a government.
Mine would read:
ReplyDeleteQUESTION AUTHORITY.
WILL DO.
-- or --
QUESTION AUTHORITY.
YES,SIR.
-- or --
ReplyDeleteQUESTION AUTHORITY.
HOW HIGH?
I wonder...
ReplyDeleteKant, Kant question Kant, or Kant I?
These are fuckin great. I dunno, it seems like every day I see an "illegal immigrant hunting license" sticker or something. When I get my first car, I'm gonna put some kind of antifa sticker on. I think stuff like that actually does have an effect on people who aren't sure about their position. Gonna have to get high grade insurance for vandalism too though...
ReplyDeleteSonic,
ReplyDeletePeople have bumper stickers saying "illegal immigrant hunting license"?
I haven't visited the U.S. for ten years now and it's worse than I had imagined.
You'd better bulletproof your car if you're going to put an antifa sticker on it.
s.w.,
ReplyDeleteI have never seen that sticker. Not doubting its existence, but just as a matter of reportage I've not seen it in the (mid-Atlantic, Democratic-inclined) state where I live.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/outrage-over-illegal-immigrant-bumper-sticker_n_2640363
ReplyDeleteI've always been opposed to laws which restrict free speech, but I'm beginning to change my mind.
ReplyDeleteThink of it this way, s.w.: the stickers aren't inciting imminent violence, but they are flagging morons for us. That's a good thing.
ReplyDeleteOh that's weird. I didn't know it was specific to Colorado. We're pretty blue here in Denver, but I still see multiple thin blue line stickers a day at least. Or punisher skulls, or "try and come and take them" gun stickers or something. Glad you found it as abhorrent as I did though. Denver isn't a sanctuary city though, so you don't even need a license to hunt these people.
ReplyDeleteFor S. Wallerstein in particular, but perhaps of some interest more broadly:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.renewal.org.uk/blog/for-chile-beyond-neoliberalism-an-interview-with-fernando-atria
(I have only skimmed it, but it seems interesting. The discussion of Thatcher and Hayak is of some interest, and I feel a bit bad to have sympathy with the quote from Žižek that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. (I mostly think Žižek is a clown and con-man, but I'll admit that one bad thing about the end of the Soviet Union was the end of a place that at least provided the dream of a different possibly attractive model. Now there is, what - China? That doesn't seem even possibly attractive to me.) I mean, the sort of thing you can see here, before we know how it ends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuK6EM3JEfU
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Fernando Atria leads the most leftwing tendency within the Socialist Party and is the foremost critic (he's a legal scholar) of the 1980 Constitution, ratified by a phony plebiscite during the Pinochet dictatorship and still in effect with some minor modifications.