As Black Friday has continued to expand in recent years, one response to its orgy of discounts and deals has been to promote the following day as “Small Business Saturday.” The idea is to encourage people to shop at their local stores rather than at national chains or big-box stores, or perhaps on the Internet. Doing so, argue its proponents, is both moral and good for the local economy, as it keeps jobs and money in “our communities” rather than, presumably, in the hands of faceless and distant corporate masters.
Tag: nationalism
Nationalism is Racism, So Why the Schizophrenia?
Racism is rightly denounced in American society. That’s not to say there isn’t racism, but when its not covert or closeted, it’s publicized as one of the most despicable beliefs a person could hold. Even when you pay millions of dollars to athletes of another color, as in the case of Donald Sterling of the Los Angeles Clippers, you become public enemy number one.
Indoctrination and Mind Control
Indoctrination, in the Webster II New College Dictionary is defined as “to teach to accept a system of thought uncritically”. Mind Control is a more intensive form of the same thing, requiring some form of physical or mental torture. Indoctrination and mind control can be used to instill a system of ideas before an individual has been subjected to any belief system or it can be used to change the system of beliefs already accepted by an individual.
Information, Non-intervention, Hindsight
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena, pre-TSA world traveler, domestic traveler. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS…
Canal vs. Braided Stream: Evolution over Structure
Guest column by zeeman stark. zeeman stark is the pen name for a freethinker who currently lives near a large freshwater lake with the Ute Indian eponym. zeeman disdains labels but accepts a no-recipe adjective soup in describing his philosophy: humanitarian, libertine, polymath, voluntary. zeeman has a penis indeed, peach-colored epidermis, stinky feet, and remembers…
The Argument from Patriotism
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he…
The Invisible Wall
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he…
My Journey to Voluntarism
Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he…
Words Poorly Used #7 — Nation
Many people use the word “nation” interchangeably with “country,” “state,” or “government.” This gives rise to confusion among those who are inhabitants of the latter three. The origin of the word nation is in its use to identify a group of people of common birth experience. An example would be the “Cherokee Nation.” An example…
Patriotism, the Anti-Nationalism
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original column appearing most Mondays at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. “One’s country” is not synonymous with “one’s nation.” Many are confused on this point. To equate the two is to confuse…