The Holocaust, Y2K, the ozone hole, acid raid, the Mayan calendar, global warming, the Chi-com virus -- they are all examples of media-generated hysteria, leading to the suppression of dissent. That suppression has become more overt and violent. It is even finding its way into law. Yet none of the hysterical events I have mentioned has any significant amount of reality behind them. They were all manufactured, all fictional. *Conclusion:* we live in a highly suggestible, unstable, irrational society that is run by insane clowns, and the decline in religion has added to its irrationality and instability, as superstition and fanaticism take the place of religion.