Leaders and followers
by Luke W., Unknown News
Oct. 4, 2005
It seems like a long time ago, but in my past I worked in a packing plant. I worked in a lot of different departments there, and did some of the hardest labor that line of work has to offer, including a stint in the stockyards for about a year one time. It wasn't too hard, but it kept you busy enough so an eight-hour shift went by at a decent clip. The dust was hard to take, but all in all it was good work.
When you're new in any department you are a target for some good-natured pranks and assorted grab-ass kind of shit, so the other guys can find out if you're an OK guy. Goes with the territory of being the new guy, and as I was never signed into any one department I was used to being a new guy. So in the stockyards it goes like this.
The foreman says, "Luke go to sheep pen 28 and drive the sheep down to holding pen 10." Holding pen 10 being the pen the sheep last see before they are butchered.
Now there were three types of livestock at this stockyard, and five different divisions of animals -- bulls, calves, cattle, pigs, and sheep. Only the fleetest of foot and the fearless drive bulls. Pretty much everyone drives the rest of the animals.
You use a canvas slapper to drive the animals at a stockyard, they make a lot of noise if properly used but do little damage to the animals. Every animal drives different.
I never drove bulls, it is fun to watch but you don't really drive bulls, most of the time it is the other way around, the bulls are chasing the drivers.
Calves are annoying because they are always trying to suckle you so they are always pushing their mouths into your groin. Which surprises you the first time around, and then quickly becomes annoying. You keep them moving and they don't cause a whole lot of problems.
Cattle drive all right except for a occasional stubborn one, and you just have to lay into it with the slapper and cut off its exit paths, and if it is too much trouble you leave him behind until you get the others to the pen and then you lock them up and go get a couple of helpers to drive the stubborn one.
Pigs are a pain in the ass, in that they drive pretty easy, but you always get one or two who are going to want to buck the system and go the other way. You can't let one get past you or they will all go back. So if one gets past you, then just accept the inevitable and turn around and walk all the way back and start again.
Now, like I said before, I had been in the stockyards for about a week when the foreman tells me to drive sheep. I had never driven sheep but I figured they couldn't be too much trouble because if you make even the slightest fast movement near a sheep pen, the flock bolts to the opposite corner in a panic. Should be no problem.
So I walk all the way down to holding pen 10 and open the gate, and walk all the way back to sheep pen 28, which is about a five minute walk. By the time I get back to sheep pen 28 there are a lot of guys hanging around and talking, and I figured it was slow and they were just killing time.
So I grab a slapper and open the gate and slap the bare cement with the slapper, which makes a loud crack, and the sheep are in the corner climbing up the backs of one another trying to get away from me in a panic. Kind of sad really.
I go into that corner where the sheep are, and they run to the other corner. The gate is wide open and it is a square pen, but they won't go out the gate. They just keep going from one corner to the other.
The foreman is in on the gag and yells, "Luke get the lead out and drive them sheep!" Well, I really started slapping sheep and making noise, but I wasn't making any progress. The sheep just kept running from one corner to the other. Then I noticed the guys were laughing and hooting and hollering and really enjoying the whole show, so I throw up my hands and say, "OK, I get the joke. How do you drive sheep?"
A couple of the guys hop down to show me. The thing is, you don't drive sheep. You've got to lead them, but you can't lead them. They will only follow one of their own.
So you need about three guys to drive sheep. One controls the gate and the other two controls the sheep. The guy at the gate only opens the gate wide enough for one sheep to pass through. One of the other guys is outside the gate and the other guy is in the pen. The guy in the pen goes and picks up a sheep and pushes it through the gate, and at that point the guy outside the gate and the gatekeeper makes sure that one sheep doesn't get back to the flock, which is where it most desperately want to go.
Then the guy inside picks up another sheep and pushes it through the gate. Usually it takes three or four sheep being pushed out the gate, and then all of a sudden the rest of the flock literally bolts out the gate to follow their leaders ... and you simply drive them down to the holding pen.
Years ago, they said, they'd had a goat on a leash that led the sheep. The sheep mistook it for one of their own. They called the goat a Judas goat.
Sheep are often used as a metaphor for people, like in the parables. Driving sheep in the stockyards is a good metaphor for people and politics and leaders.
Leaders are just people that are thrust out in front of the population to lead them in a desired direction, which is determined by the drivers.
Leaders are always made to look like just one of the good hard-working men and women of this country, you know, one of the people, and up to a certain point they are, I'm sure. But the leaders groomed for national politics are shoved in front of the people to lead the party and the people in a desired direction.
These leaders take off their suit coats and roll up their sleeves before elections, and make every effort to appear as one of the people. But they're no longer a part of the people.
Sometimes these national leaders forget that they are not of the people any more and try to really represent the people, and a sharp tug on the leash is required. Howard Dean comes to mind. Pretty much the whole national Democratic and Republican leadership comes to mind, as not being a part of the people any more, as being on a leash.
At some point any metaphor breaks down, but before I leave this I would like to point out one thing: It doesn't really make a difference if a leader is one of the sheep, or a Judas goat on a leash. The leader doesn't matter at all. The flock is going to go where the drivers want the flock to go.
Understanding this is the key to understanding our problems, and understanding the leaders we are tricked to follow.
