OLD VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself! ________________________________ MODERN VERSION The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when the y sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.' ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on theant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper. The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood. The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010, 2012, and future elections. .
I find the lack of understanding of biology in this conservative fable rather fitting. Grasshoppers only live about a month, so they aren't interested in housing for the winter. Grasshoppers are interested in eating and fucking and could care less about the miserly materialistic ants. Grasshoppers know that life is short and they live in the sunshine instead of counting their loot in the dark. barfo
So is that something you wrote? Saw on a website? Showed up in your email? Also when clicked to reply to your post there is a link to your yahoo email account that I think you tried to post as a picture.
Because if you wrote it I was going to compliment you on it because while I may not agree with all of it you did a hell of job. And if you didn't I would like to think you'd want to give credit to the person that did. I'll just copy and paste it into Google if you want to keep it a big secret.
If the grasshopper was a hard worker who was layed off and like most Americans had no savings and was kicked from his appt after unemployement ran out... or someone who lost their house paying their medical bills... or lost their entire retirment to Madoff scam... would you view this differently?
Poor people are always poor due to being lazy and irresponsible. That's why this "updated parable" makes so much sense.
It's friggin' satire, folks. How about this? Look at it as the antithesis of something Jon Stewart might trot out. OK?
So, you took it seriously? Yeah, that seems about right, as well. Really, though, it's always amusing to me how we all seem to enjoy trotting out anything that may have even just a hint of supporting our various political and/or moral bents. Something about a grain of salt............................ That said, America is going to hell in a hand basket.....at least we won't take anything with us.
I take everything seriously. I'm a very serious person. Because there isn't room in the handbasket? barfo
