Self Fulfilling Prophecies

Remember back in the ‘70s when our moral guardians sprayed poison – Paraquat – on marijuana plants? For decades they’d been pontificating about marijuana being a “killer weed,” without a shred of evidence to back up their rhetoric. Finally they must have decided that if they couldn’t convince people it was a killer weed, they’d make it one. Paraquat was supposed to cause severe physical symptoms in people who smoked marijuana that had been sprayed with it; hence the authorities finally turned pot into the killer weed they’d spent decades saying it was.

Another self-fulfilling prophecy has made the news lately. Bush’s “reasons” for invading Iraq – Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were closely allied, Hussein played a large role in the 9/11 hijackings, many of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis (a large number of gullible Americans actually believe that, to this day), Iraq is a center of global terrorism, etc. – turned out to be patently false. And of course, those Weapons of Mass Destruction which we, uh, er, just “haven’t found yet.”

Now that we’ve invaded and conquered Iraq – Mission Accomplished, etc. – and with the ensuing hatred of millions of Muslims for the West, Iraq has been overrun with more rebel and insurgency groups than anyone can even keep tabs on. And one of the most fanatic and violent of the terrorist leaders in Iraq has declared his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al Qaida. So now Iraq – which 2 years ago was a police state by any yardstick, but was not connected to 9/11 or bin Laden or any international terrorist networks – actually has become a breeding ground for international Islamic terrorists.

Thank you, George W. Bush (and the neo-cons who are pulling your strings), for creating another example of the term “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The nice thing about a self-fulfilling prophecy (for the person who was spreading it) is that this person becomes right. Marijuana really is a killer weed (Paraquat was supposed to cause all kinds of lung, kidney and nervous system problems), so don’t smoke it. I told you it was a killer weed.

And now, Iraq really is a haven for Islamic terrorists. See, we were right to invade and occupy that country. We can’t pull out now – for God’s sake, it’s a haven for international Islamic terrorists who hate America! We have to stay and finish the job!

People who have an adequate number of functioning brain cells can usually see through these self-fulfilling prophecies, and can see that acting on this erroneous belief is what caused the event to happen. Unfortunately, though, there are enough dim-witted people (and unfortunately they vote) who hear the warnings and hysterical rhetoric based on false information, and then they ultimately see the result of acting on this false information, and their reaction is “see, ______________ was right. It was true.” And the person who spread these hysterical Big Lies becomes right, (even gets re-elected), and the circle goes round and round………….