“When the situation was manageable it was neglected,
and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too
late the remedies which then might have effected a cure.

There is nothing new in the story.

It is as old as the Sibylline books.  It falls into that long, dismal
catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed
unteachability of mankind.  Want of foresight, unwillingness
to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear
thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until

self-preservation strikes its jarring gong. These are the features
which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

– Winston Churchill –

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... the endless repetition of history. Although history is always there for us, patiently waiting to impart its hard-earned knowledge, we often continue to stubbornly disregard it.