People,
So my good buddy KFOX from CDBaby (the best music store online by far - fair to artists and customers etc etc) sent this to me yesterday and it made me mad, so I thought I'd comment on it.
The Ant and the Grasshopper
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 he's 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 all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's 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 others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, 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 they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in fron t of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and
both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his
"fair share."
Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and 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.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel
of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent
welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits
of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just
happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he
doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
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 once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican
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BULL. SHIT.
Joe's version of the story
There's an Ant and a Grasshopper. One day while out walking the Grasshopper discovers a huge and bountiful tree with enough leaves to feed all the ants and grasshoppers in the world for a very long time. So he goes back to the ant and reports what he found: "Ant, this is fantastic, let's go tell everyone and make sure we all get as many leaves as we need for winter." Needless to say, the Ant is not quite on board, and his little ant brain starts turning almost immediately, trying to think up ways to get all the leaves for himself.
Anyway, after telling everyone about his find, the Grasshopper goes back to the tree and starts collecting leaves for himself. After a while, he realizes that he has more leaves than he could ever use in one winter, so he gives the extra to grasshoppers and ants who can't get leaves for themselves. Everyone is happy.
Meanwhile, the Ant has hatched a diabolical plan. He's hired a bunch of ants and grasshoppers to go and collect leaves just for him. He's agreed to pay them 1/56 of a leaf for each hour they work, barely enough to live on. The grasshopper suggests a 1/2 leaf an hour living leaf wage, but he is quickly shouted down by other ants who want to get their own piece of the leaf action.
But why would some ants and grasshoppers take such a small amount of leaves to do such a big job? Well, these ants and grasshoppers have kind of rough lives and will take the work where they can get it. In fact, many of these insects come from families who used to be owned by the Ant's ancestors. And even though he doesn't own them now, he's done all he can in the past hundred years to make sure they don't get education, insect police protection, equal rights or the ability to drink from the same puddles or eat in the same rotten oak tree. Also, some of the ants and grasshoppers are from another ant hill down south and will work for next to nothing as long as they aren't reported to the Ant.N.S. The Ant in charge likes this. He likes this a lot and starts getting A LOT of leaves.
Eventually, the Grasshopper gets pissed and asks the Ant "Why are you doing this? There's enough for everyone, but you're making it impossible for so many of our fellow ants and grasshoppers to live." This, in turn pisses the Ant off and so he and his buddies impose a leaf tax on the very insects that they are exploiting, making themselves even more leaves and making their already poor workers even poorer. When asked about it by the insect news the Ant says "Oh, cry me a river. If they weren't so lazy and went to insect college then they could have anything they want." After the cameras are off, he eliminates Antfirmative Action programs from the budget.
Finally, the Ant has pushed too far. Everyone is pissed and wants the Ant to cut the shit. Many ants and grasshoppers have no leaves and winter is almost on them. They are afraid. The Head Ant is confused for a few days and doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to give up his Ant-U-V or his huge anthill or, most importantly, his huge pile of leaves. Suddenly he has a GREAT idea.
"Fellow insects, I have grave news." (pointing) "That anthill over there poses an imminent danger to us. We could be eliminated by them at any time. They train terror ants, have weapons of ant destruction and must be stopped. We will invade." The Head Ant knows this isn't true and in a moment of self-awareness asks the Vice Ant what he thinks. "Well, I used to work a lot with that anthill, and even though they really aren't a threat to us, they have a lot of leaves over there, so I say go for it." It is decided.
During the invasion the Head Ant has another great idea. He frames it so that anyone who argues against any of his policies or his self-serving war is automatically a traitor to the insect colony. This is great because it sets up a society where no one can criticize anything for fear of being branded a terrible insect who doesn't appreciate that young insects are giving their lives for him in a war he didn't want. Very clever.
Eventually the insect colony becomes a really frustrating and scary place to live. There are Pro-Head Ant zealots everywhere and the insects are living in constant fear of being attacked by Ant-Qaida. Of course, this is how the Head-Ant wants it because he wants to be the Head-Ant as long as he can. Plus, with all the insects living in fear, they don't have the time or energy to be too pissed off about how they lost their insect jobs and are poorer than they've ever been.
Finally the Grasshopper, who fought in another senseless ant-war, has had enough. He steps up and says he wants to change the system. He calls the Head-Ant and his team a bunch of crooks, which is true. The Head-Ant, who dodged the aforementioned war calls the grasshopper (who was shot three times) a big pussy, which is not true. Dag. The Grasshopper promises to make things better. The Head Ant also promises to make things better, but in fact will keep them just as they are. The Head Ant is a pretty big anthole.
The end of this story hasn't been written, but the moral is simple: VOTE DEMOCRAT!
