The Sheep Effect, by Michael Davis – Straight No Chaser #172
June 18, 2010 Michael Davis 0 Comments
I’ve said this a million times, people are sheep. I’m convinced that’s why such idiots like Glen Beck have an audience. I thought I’ve seen everything when during the last presidential election (the one where the black guy won) a woman said to John McCain on national television, “He’s (Obama) a Muslim. The reality is that there are still thousands of people who still think that as well as think that he’s not an American citizen and the government is going to kill grandma.
I can’t believe just how much like sheep people are. I mean, DAMN, what a bunch of stupid motherfuckers. It’s one thing to think something when you are a victim of constant media bombardment telling you the same thing over and over. Why think for your self? If someone says it on TV it MUST be true, right?
I guess if you (not me, YOU) hear something over and over and it’s on TV it must be true, right?
You’re a stupid small-minded asshole…but I get it.
I get not able to withstand what you see on TV. I mean, come on its TV! When I was younger I followed TV and believed everything I saw like Jesus said it. Of course I was around 7 or 8 but that does not matter I believed it.
I’m well aware that people are easy prey to the media. I must admit I’ve never been much of a follower on any level so that most likely explains why I have not succumbed to the boob tube on any level. As a matter of fact if stuff on TV gets too stupid I simply stop watching. Case in point, I have not watched my favorite show of all time in more than a year because it just got SO fucking stupid I just had to stop watching after 20 plus years. That show was All My Children and I started watching when I was about 2, Jean.
I may be immune to stupidity on the airways but I freely admit that there are some people (Tea Baggers, GOP, PETA) that will believe anything they see on TV.
Watching and believing stuff on TV is one thing but I was sure that if put in a situation in real life where it was clear that something was fucked up, people no matter their affiliation would smarten up.
My god was I wrong.
Last week I went to a trendy restaurant on trendy Sunset Blvd. in trendy Los Angeles. I was with a bunch of people and the only reason I was at this restaurant is because I didn’t want to seem like a dick and bail on the evening. I wanted to go home and read a book, or play a video game or work. I did NOT want to go to dinner but the people I was with were really cool and I did not want to be a dick and bail.
Long story short, there was a line to get into this trendy restaurant on trendy Sunset Blvd. There were about 20 people waiting to get into this trendy restaurant on trendy Sunset Blvd.
There were also roaches, BIG roaches scurrying around outside the trendy restaurant on trendy Sunset Blvd.
Roaches.
Well you know me. I looked at the MANY roaches outside of the restaurant and asked the crowd waiting, “Am I the only person who sees these ROACHES?”
People laughed. People made jokes. People ignored me. I’m the only person who refused to eat there.
Everyone including the people I was with decided to stay and eat there.
WTF?
Let me be clear, WHAT THE FUCK?
I was the only one who refused to eat there. No one else left.
People are sheep. This is why I fear the future, if people can eat at a restaurant and ignore the roaches hanging out clear as day, because someone told them the restaurant was ‘cool’ then what defense do we have against lies and evil when said over and over again on Fox News?
No wonder Hitler got as far as he did.
Martha Thomases
June 18, 2010 - 6:21 am
This column is an insult to sheep, who are cute and give us wool. Which is more than you can say for Glenn Beck.
R. Maheras
June 18, 2010 - 9:06 am
Those were probably the trendy roaches waiting in line to get in.
Seriously, though. If there were that many roaches scurrying around outside, imagine the tens of thousands scurrying around inside! I’d have walked away as well.
Mike Gold
June 18, 2010 - 10:51 am
Roaches are the perfect metaphor.
The trick to convincing the masses is repetition. It’s a contemporary variation of the Big Lie. If you keep on throwing all sorts of crap at somebody, there’s a cumulative effect: people who might dismiss each item individually are less likely to do so after the fifth, the tenth, or the twentieth accusation. And once you’ve got them there, everything seems plausible. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Well, no, but here there isn’t even smoke. Just the steam from the bullshit.
Look at the Birthers. That’s the most goddamn stupid thing I’ve heard come down the pike since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But a lot of people believe it, and more are willing to give it the benefit of doubt. Add to this the incessant hammering Obama had been taking for “being” a socialist, a Nazi, a communist, a Muslim, a terrorist, a one-worlder and a gun-confiscator, and on a subconscious level a lot of people think there must be SOMETHING seriously un-American with the man. Something. Why take the risk?
We don’t even question the Birthers any more. On the Colbert Report yesterday, “moderate” South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis said Obama was “not born in Hawaii” and Colbert didn’t even make a joke.
There’s a lot to criticize Obama for and I’ve done so repeatedly in this venue, on The Point, and elsewhere. But this barrage is so far over the top there’s a major ethical stench — and, yes, a major racial stench — over the Right. They hate being compared to Nazi Germany, but they have outdone Dr. Goebbels.
Vinnie Bartilucci
June 18, 2010 - 6:51 pm
If something is in line with what you already suspect, or at least want to believe, it’s easier to accept. If anything, the more outlandish the thing you believe is, the more likely you’ll believe evidence supporting it, if only because of its paucity.
A bigot can see 50 news stories about black kids getting academic awards or helping to build a hospital, but one story comes along about a black guy getting arrested, and they leap on it, saying “You see?”
In the case of the restaurant in your story, that’s easily explained. It was an expsnsive, trendy place, and the desire to get in easily outbalanced the evidence before their eyes. This is a fancy place, which means it CAN’T have roaches, so obviously these are not roaches from this restaurant. Perhaps they are from the chili joint down the street, and are just passing by the fancy place on their way home to their wife an 8,452,768 children.
People happily ingest food in those places that they would throw in their spouse’s face were it served them at home. But put a small amount of it on a big plate, drizzle some fetid sauce around it and give it a French name and they won’t be able to make it fast enough. And you’ll hear the classic line “It’s supposed to taste like that, it’s more authentic”.
Andrew Zimmern should be struck about the face and neck for convincing us that the food that the indigent and poor people of the world are forced to eat becasue of their poverty is in any way a delicacy. If he asked any of the people braizing those mule hooves if they’d like to have a couple steaks instead, there’d just be a cartoon cloud of smoke, and the sauce pan spinning in mid-air.
And the man who discovered Civet Cat Poo Coffee is next in line.
John Tebbel
June 19, 2010 - 6:08 am
Optimists.
I’m working on the “I Love Roaches! Cookbook,” to be followed by “Cooking Roaches without Electricity or Running Water,” “Converting your Wood Stove to Burn Roach Husks,” and a couple of Studs Terkel knockoffs: “Remember when there were so many rats we didn’t have to worry about eating Roaches” and “Food Stamps, Mon Amour.”
See you on the barricades.
Mike Gold
June 19, 2010 - 8:11 am
Roaches were high up on the pre-Columbian Central American food chart; very popular, too. If we were to establish massive roach farms we could probably cure world hunger. And make some decent horror movies at the same time.
R. Maheras
June 19, 2010 - 11:56 am
We already have massive roach farms: They’re called cities.
Reg
June 19, 2010 - 1:48 pm
“Hmmmm. Tastes like chicken.”
MOTU
June 19, 2010 - 3:17 pm
Reg,
Ugh.
John,
Ugh.
ed zarger
June 19, 2010 - 10:26 pm
We REALLY have to teach people Critical Thinking. Examine everything that’s presented to you.It’s not something that many people in power would want, because it makes it tougher for them to control others. Well, maybe it would if we could teach it well enough. It is appalling how many people believe lies just because the media (Fox News is an easy target.) say the lies over and over again.
One of their tricks is to intersperse the lies with just a few truths or insights that their audience knows is true from their supernormal experience.
Sigh.
Marc Fishman
June 20, 2010 - 12:03 pm
A person is smart. People are dumb.
mike weber
June 20, 2010 - 4:09 pm
Old cartoon – Maitre de standing by as waiter and grinning chef lift lid on a fancy covered dish to reveal a smoking mass.
“It’s a roast telephone book. We put it on the menu in French, and *you* ordered it!”
Don’t know who did that one.
Sid Gross cartoon: Guy in fancy restaurant looks round from his “Chateau Whatever” menu, sees legless frog on wheeled platform dragging itself out of the kitchen with little flatirons…
MOTU
June 21, 2010 - 12:59 pm
Marc,
Put that on a tee-shirt!
Mike Weber,
LOL! …and great avatar!