“There remained the problem of converting reluctant acquiescence into enthusiasm. It was solved, as always, by manufacturing new fears. The history of the process remains to be written by competent hands; it will be a contribution to the literature of mob psychology of the highest importance. But the main outlines are familiar enough. The whole power of the government was concentrated upon throwing the plain people into a panic. All sense was heaved overboard, and there ensued a chase of bugaboos on a truly epic scale. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the world before…”

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, Ch. 4

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? In fact, we can point to the just recently passed (thankfully) Covid years as the most recent example of shenanigans of this type, because it is obvious now (as it was from the beginning to anyone who wasn’t afraid to see things clearly), that the governments around the world threw everything they had into whipping the people into a froth of panic and hysteria.

But the quote above didn’t arise from that episode. Instead it originated after the four-year murderous orgy known as WWI. Mencken eloquently describes the reluctance of the American public to enter the war and the full-court press used to turn the tide of opinion in favor of it. The tactics used to persuade the masses to abandon their good sense and independence were exactly the same as those used in 2020 and 2021 to convince the public that they (or their grandmothers, or someone else’s grandmother) were in imminent danger of succumbing to a hideous malady (common flu), unless they immediately adopted the nonsensical practice of face-masking, shopping in one direction only, driving alone with the windows fully closed, staying in their house with all the windows double-barred and the doors triple-locked, abandoning the ritual of church attendance on Sunday morning (most especially Easter Sunday), and, above all, lining up and baring arms to receive the one and only thing which could save them from complete destruction–a newly developed (unproven) serum pitched as a miracle drug by pharmaceutical companies–the mRNA shot, which, by the way, just happened to be highly profitable for those (Pfizer, Moderna) which happened to be conveniently and politically connected to those highly placed officials who “called the shots”.

What is next? What new monster will be created to gin up rabid, irrational fear across the public swathe for the purpose of padding someone’s bank account or garnering more power? Nuclear war? Space aliens? Another contrived pandemic? A world-wide financial breakdown on a scope greater than 2008 ever was? Who knows? It is virtually certain, however, that something will be brought out and tried and we will be given another chance at being fooled again.

Because we never learn.

“I’ll get on my knees and pray…we don’t get fooled again.” — The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”