We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Mencken’s Forgotten Wisdom on War
by Jim Bovard | Jun 25, 2025
As a stampede of weasels just sought to con America into supporting another Mideast war, it is time remember America’s most underrated critic of bellicose folly. H.L. Mencken is famous for his smackdowns of politicians and ridicule of government and of much of American culture. But he also offered sage advice for citizens judging officialdom itching for carnage.
On May 9, 1939, The Baltimore Sun published Mencken’s essay on “The Art of Selling War.” This piece, included in the Second Mencken Chrestomathy published in 1995, deserves a far higher position in the Mencken and antiwar pantheon.
In words that are painfully relevant for today’s news, Mencken warned, “The fact that all the polls run heavily against American participation in the threatening European war is not to be taken seriously.” Mencken continued:
“Wars are not made by common folks, scratching for livings in the heat of the day, they are made by demagogues infesting palaces…The very unpopularity of war makes people ready to believe, when they suddenly confront it, that it has been thrust upon them…because their own demagogues have been pretending, all the while, to be trying to prevent it.”
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/menckens-forgotten-wisdom-on-war/
Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek Minister of Finance) describes AI as a new form of capital that produces not goods, but behavioral modification. This is achieved by engineering perceptions.
The answers provided by ChatGPT, or the images rendered by StableDiffusion — as these increasingly inform our perceptions, they in turn define the reality we experience.
This is what makes AI so powerful — he who controls the AI, defines the reality of tomorrow.
⚡️TBOT Show Episode #6: Big Tech Power Plays, WiFi Sense Tingling, ICE See You, Going Back IRL
Welcome back to the TBOT Show (now with a little positive news 💘)
Watch on Substack
This week’s stories:
Big Tech Makes Power Plays – Data centers across the US are securing first dibs on energy, consuming massive power and destroying the environment. Learn which companies and where.
Is Your WiFi sense tingling? – Comcast’s new “WiFi-Motion” tracks movement in your home using WiFi signals. It can literally see through walls.
ICE See You – An app that tracks ICE gains 240K users. Now the dev is under political fire. Legal? Moral? You decide.
Going back IRL – Youth in the Netherlands are ditching phones for “Offline Club.” The digital detox movement is here.
Solution – Convert units easily with ConverterNOW, a FOSS app on F-Droid.
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