Germans Against Racism
August 22nd marks the twentieth anniversary of the Rostock riots. Targeting Roma and Vietnamese migrants, the two days of violence that followed are considered amongst the worst race riots to hit...
View ArticleDuty Free of Doubt
Like many of the politically-oriented flyers to be found in Berlin, this one impresses through sheer volume. Unlike some of the ones featured in Souciant, neither the main text here — translated below...
View ArticleNot Without a Fight
During the Cold War, Berlin’s divided status made it possible for the already expansive city to become a haven for ways of living that more conventional cities made difficult. In the wake of the...
View ArticleLike Paper in Fire
Wherever walls, fences and windows are plastered with flyers, we know that the pace of daily life slows down there. Maybe it’s a corner where people wait for a bus or train. Maybe it’s a meeting...
View ArticleHard-Knock Life
To someone who lives in a less intensely intellectual environment than Berlin, the wordiness of the flyers pasted over the city’s walls is surprising. But activists wouldn’t bother to include so much...
View ArticleBlowing in the Wind
The radical flyers one sees pasted up in European cities frequently try to make up for the blind spots of the postwar Left establishment. That means prioritizing multiculturalism, pro-immigrant...
View ArticlePost-Nazi Partisans?
Radicals the world over continue to make use — some would say overuse — of the terms “Fascist” and “Nazi”, which have demonstrated remarkable staying power in the lexicon of demonization. But there’s...
View ArticleOff-Color Guard
While there are good reasons why the denunciation of “fascists” has hardened into a reflex on the Left, there are also good reasons for restraining it. The relentless negativity of this fixation makes...
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Disrupting Bandit Signs
It’s really easy to overlook a bandit sign. Just a few words of text and a telephone number, pasted to telephone poles in poor neighborhoods, advertising a roofing company, or the number of someone...
View ArticleRepression in the USA
While leftists in Germany today often focus on the plight of immigrants, particularly from the Middle East and North Africa — and the corollary concerns in the homelands of those immigrants — attention...
View ArticleThe International Populist
Bluntness can be a masquerade. The declaration here is unequivocal: “Henry Ford was an anti-Semite.” And the supporting evidence laid out below is hard to argue with. Ford did publish The International...
View ArticleAll the President’s Enemies
In the part of the Tucson metro area where I live — the same part where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was nearly assassinated in 2011 — anti-Obama sentiment has been strong since he first became a...
View ArticleThe Price of Freedom
Although almost everyone around the world has a superficial knowledge of the American way of life, forced down their throats by the United States’ two most successful export industries, weaponry and...
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The States of Reinjury
Plastering political bumper stickers on the back of your car or truck may win you friends and enemies, but paying for a customized wrap-around paint job takes vehicular self-expression to a whole new...
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Promoting Post-Tourism
For over a decade, artists and intellectuals have been touting Berlin as an alternative to overpriced and overpopulated metropolises like London, Paris, New York and Tokyo. And even now, despite a...
View ArticleDisgusting Politics
There are times when the exuberant heterogeneity of the bumper stickers I see on many American vehicles seems to realign itself into a synchronized statement. Take this vehicle I found myself inching...
View ArticleJesus Is Coming
Sometimes, after a hard week, the smallest serendipities can do wonders. I was driving along, physically and emotionally spent, when I spied the sort of vehicle I photograph to use for this feature....
View ArticleOccupied Territories
Three times each week, from August through December, I walked by this SUV on the way to teach my first class. My mind would sometimes be preoccupied with its bumper stickers as I hurried to the...
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The Pleasures of Vegetables
There aren’t many bright spots in German history. Even the nation’s most worthy achievements are overshadowed by its many misdeeds. But this stigma does have a positive side. Because Germans remain the...
View ArticleForget 911
The cars and trucks that draw my eye usually display an excess of public expression, with an array of bumper-stickers telling a complex and sometimes contradictory story of political and cultural...
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