Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“Whenever I criticize GDP, I am pressed as to what I’d replace it with, and many critics of GDP do indeed eagerly pitch their new and improved versions to equally clueless wonks and academics. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m not even a little bit interested in such a nasty project, and a central pillar of my criticism of GDP is that it tries to measure the economic health of a country with a single test, even if an aggregate one. I’d suggest instead that no power center, state, or other authoritarian apparatus steering from the putative top should dictate or endorse a single standard of how communities or individuals assess their own wellbeing or economic outcomes.” (10/08/25)
“My childhood haunts of eating breakfast at Bickford’s — a pancake house chain serving stale, microwaved pancakes — and the two styles of ‘ethnic’ food in my suburban Boston home of Norwood, Massachusetts — sub-par Greek-style pizza and my childhood Chinese food restaurant, also sub-par — have all gone out of business. The culture has been ‘ruined’ by the emergence of authentic Mexican, Indian, Ethiopian and Thai restaurants (all unheard of in my teenage years). Eek! They’ve overrun our culture! By all means, let us give up tacos and go back to America’s historic culture of boiled dinners.” (10/07/25)
“Since Israel recommenced bombing Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel — unleashing what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, a United Nations commision and the consensus among genocide scholars all agree is a genocide — U.S. corporate media has reduced Palestinian participation in the discussion about their own extermination to mariginal or token appearances. In the context of the Sunday morning news shows that set the agenda for Washington, DC, Palestinians have been excluded almost categorically. Last December, I detailed for The Nation how the major Sunday morning news shows were an object lesson in the ways corporate media has centered U.S. and Israel perspectives in the war on Gaza over that of Palestinians whose voices are systematically shut out of mainstream news coverage.” (10/07/25)
“Universalism, writes philosopher Isaiah Berlin, is a worldview that dominated philosophy for two thousand years before being challenged by Romanticism. It is characterized by the idea that all knowledge and all truth can be discerned by reason. … The problem with universalism is that few agree on what the true answers are, especially when it comes to ethics and politics. And when one ascribes moral values to questions of truth, when truth is regarded as good and falsehood or error is regarded as evil, and if evil is regarded as dangerous, as something to be repressed by the state for the good of all, then we end up with authoritarianism and tyranny.” (10/07/25)
“For any good or service, there are two alternatives to commodification: First, do without that thing. In a world where doctors and other health practitioners do their work just because they love it, subsisting on whatever alms grateful patients happen to throw their way, the number of healthcare workers available will dwindle, not grow. More people will receive less care. More people will die younger. Second, enslave those who can provide that thing and force them to provide it. … Slavery is wrong. It’s wrong if you expect the slaves to pick cotton, and it’s wrong if you expect the slaves to perform surgery. A nearly as obvious problem is that slaves tend to care less about, and put in less effort to achieve, positive results from their forced labor. Would YOU hand a slave a scalpel and demand a heart bypass?” (10/07/25)
“Digital ID is even more dangerous than photo ID, precisely because it further diminishes the cost of tyranny for the government. What about, as in China, attaching social-credit points to digital IDs to reward obedient citizens? There is always another good reason for Leviathan to increase its power and to make citizens believe that granting it is in their own individual interests. Some readers may question my mention of Leviathan. But I ask them to reflect on how the general power of the state has, despite the correction of injustices against some minorities, grown to the point where it seems nobody can stop it. The fact that more and more people support it for different reasons makes its growth more dangerous, not less.” (10/07/25)
“In 1999, the Supreme Court recognized in that the ”constitutional right to travel from one State to another’ is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence.’ Unless federal agents secretly disapprove of you, your beliefs, or your suspected connections. Or unless those agents are feeling ornery and simply want to harass or taunt hapless people passing through TSA Whole Body Scanners. The Transportation Security Administration has vexed Americans ever since it was created in 2002. Last week, three separate idiotic TSA surveillance programs were exposed by Congress and the Trump administration.” (10/07/25)
“NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is attracting growing attention as it threatens to spiral out of control. There is ample reason for concern. What began as a limited military assistance program to Kyiv from the United States and its European allies following Moscow’s expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has morphed into something much larger and more dangerous. NATO members are no longer just supplying Ukraine with weaponry that could arguably be described as purely defensive; they are equipping their Ukrainian proxy with far more destructive, long-range weapons capable of reaching targets deep inside Russia. In addition, the United States and other NATO governments are assisting Ukrainian attacks by providing crucial military intelligence, including targeting data. By engaging in that conduct, the United States is violating some informal but very real rules governing previous proxy wars that Washington has waged against adversaries.” (10/07/25)
“he reported death of US dollar dominance has been greatly exaggerated. The dollar’s demise has been repeatedly prophesied, supposedly threatened by any number of currencies including the euro, the yuan, and recent hints of a gold-backed currency from the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Will the US dollar maintain its global dominance? Is there a role for bitcoin in US policy?” (10/07/25)
