posted October 21, 2009 12:27 PM         

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

This one is a little different
Two Different Versions
Two Different Morals

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 they 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 the ant 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.

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant - not a grasshopper! Make sure that you pass this on to other ants. Don't bother sending it on to any grasshoppers because they wouldn't understand it, anyway.

posted October 21, 2009 02:58 PM         

this story would be great if it took into account that those the ant "got rich off the backs of" actually did the gruntwork of gathering the ant's hoard...which obviously would not be the grasshopper

anyway the grasshopper doesn't die because he doesn't save enough. he dies because he is a seasonal creature!

posted October 21, 2009 03:55 PM         

What utter tripe and bullshiit.

posted October 21, 2009 07:29 PM         

your story is just grossly out of touch with reality.

before you jump on someone for their faults try walking a mile in their shoes, jwhop.

as to the socialist "victim" story about the downtrodden workers, i have never put that forward, only you have, in complaint. but if you think even ONE billionaire or corporation got where they are without a lot of people working for groundlevel wages, think again. those "value producers" you talk about are important. but they do not do it by themselves!

posted October 22, 2009 03:15 AM         

Oprah has exploited thousands with her damned listening her whole privileged life.

Musicians should be shot on sight if they're paid for their so-called work.

Artists are sell outs if they're not painting for free.

Really, why isn't a farmer who produces food that carries disease paid exactly the same as one who grows organic, biodynamic food? In fact, why pay for anything? Obviously the worlds' resources will NEVER run out and everyone should take all that they want whenever they feel like it. I'm so damned oppressed by having to pay for my food and clothes and home and everything else. Those people don't deserve any pay at all for the work they do. And the evil ones who employ them? They should never have had the crazy, selfish idea of giving people jobs and benefits and providing services to other even though I use those services because I need them. I mean, NEEDS people! They should be free and unlimited! I should magically be provided with them at no cost to myself or anyone else nevermind who actually has to, gasp, work for free to provide for me. In fact, any day now, God will descend from the heavens and just start giving me things.

posted October 22, 2009 03:25 PM         

Straight Marxist Socialist class warfare bullcrap.

Well yes, this story was sent to me by email and I think it was a little different from the last one I posted.

Eleanore, truth is that without the search function it's time consuming to go back and try to find an old thread.

posted October 22, 2009 06:23 PM         

as i said more than once, i don't think any grasshopper would stick around for winter in the first place, and he certainly would not be stupid enough to ask the ant for food. i am sure their tastes are quite different. in other words i think the story is a) off base to begin with and b) has nothing to do with socialism UNLESS YOU WANT TO RUN A POINT INTO THE GROUND with absurdities!

but since one side of the table seems to think i am a socialist and therefore doesn't even bother to read what i wrote, i leave it to you to keep patting yourself on your own back. as i said elsewhere, YOU are the paranoid conspiracy theorist pushing the "socialist plot to destroy america" where it doesn't belong.

eleanore - i wasn't and i don't rant on about the oppressors and the oppressed. i just pointed out that no rich person gets that way without someone else doing a lot of the work. oprah has scads of employees, rowling's books can't come out without the workers in the publishing companies, and musicians also make very little money if they operate solo. ask any busker how rich he is! and ask any henry ford how many cars he actually put together to make "his" mark.

that they provide jobs for people goes without saying! but that the people who do those jobs help them get rich ALSO GOES WITHOUT SAYING. fancy them wanting to be able to take their kids to the doctor once in awhile at a reasonable price!!

i was just basically laughing at the irrelevant use of this old fable which never really made any sense in the first place.

posted October 22, 2009 06:49 PM         

It also fails to take into account how it works: sure, sympathetic noises are made for those in need, but even if the goal of raising taxes to deal with it comes about (*) then those funds aren't taken from the rich (who have too many lawyers & tax shelters, and probably offshore accounts), but rather taken from the middle class and the poor and given to the rich. It's the rich who get their homes rebuilt time & time again while those in poor areas destroyed in a major disaster are pretty much shrugged off. It's the politicians and corporate power players that get the welfare (some call it "wealthfare") over and over again. It looks to remain the same under Obama who has done far more for CEOs who often flew in on their private jets to pick up their welfare, and in some cases used it for special bonuses, moving jobs overseas, and/or shutting their biz down anyway and retiring wealthy.

(* if that fails, declare a war, raise taxes, and keep 'em raised after the war is the classic that never fails...ok, the taxes raised during the Spanish American War were finally abolished a few years ago, but other than that...)

Some say that's not socialism, but I disagree (I'm talking about once applied, not what many people think of when they wish for it--the brochures and the reality of any ideology are very different from one another). Whatever system is in place, and even in the most Communist ones, the government and ruling class of industrialists and the like are the ones to benefit. Soviet Russia, the Russian Federation, China, the United States of America...a ruling class rules over them all, all in the guise of the ruling class taking care of everyone else. I'd say that's true of everywhere, just it's more blatant in some countries than others.

That said, I'm fully aware of the "the world owes me a living" group of people and despise them. However, the government & media doesn't ever really care about them as this modern retelling of the fable claims, only in exploiting them. And as any con-artist on the street can tell you, these types of people just beg to be exploited by the clever who promise them something for nothing. Con-artists do it, corporations do it, the government does it. And these sad individuals fall for it, time and time again, and it's messing this country up hardcore and ironically they're getting screwed right along with everyone else that they help to screw over in their own infantile selfishness (of course claiming it's everyone else whose selfish for not catering to their own selfish demands).

And THAT said, here's my favorite modern retelling of the ant & the grasshopper:
http://www.thewebzine.com/articles/071806Grasshopper.html

posted October 23, 2009 07:41 PM         

Jwhop.. This story is so right. Too many times we see the lazy people, those deviod of ambition, believing that those of us that work our butts off and save money, should give then part of our spoils.

Maybe if they spent more time working and not complaining like little bit**** they would be able to take care of themselves.

posted October 23, 2009 09:02 PM         

quote:

---

that they provide jobs for people goes without saying! but that the people who do those jobs help them get rich ALSO GOES WITHOUT SAYING. fancy them wanting to be able to take their kids to the doctor once in awhile at a reasonable price!!

---

posted October 23, 2009 09:56 PM         

or maybe one day YOU can have an idea that takes forty people to execute and they will work for you for the rest of their lives because they are so grateful to have a job!

i'm with the grasshopper. who needs the fricking ants? i'm off to play music for the tourists down the beach.

posted October 24, 2009 01:32 AM         

How has Obama declared war against FOX? Have they even come under an IRS audit, as typically happens to stations unfriendly to a president (of either party)?

posted October 24, 2009 12:49 PM         

the so called "lazy indigents" feeding off the poor ants...only the queen feeds off the ants, oh and those animals that EAT them. this is not the welfare population! they don't eat anyone!

anyway enough breath on a stupid story that doesn't even make a good analogy to begin with..

posted October 27, 2009 09:55 AM         

I'm thankful to the people who do the poorly paid work in this country and I wish we had a living wage in effect. But I'm not going to blame people who work their arses off to make more money for everyone who doesn't. If we're going to talk about the very few rich and powerful people who supposedly and conspiratorially control the world and keep everyone poorer than they otherwise could be, let's try and be specific.

Otherwise, you're slamming a very large percentage of our hardworking citizens. Because, seriously, don't let's act like everyone who is not well off just got unlucky. Plenty of people I know who are not well off outright say they'd rather spend time with their families and friends than go to school at night, even part-time, to get a degree. After all, that's eight years and debt. Well, fine. Good for you. We're choosing differently. But ten years down the line, when my family is better off thanks to the sacrifices we CHOSE to make, don't come banging on my door complaining that our success is at your expense.

All those people who worked to get Rowling's books out chose their jobs. As did she. She wasn't a wealthy person, clawing her way up some supposed ladder of evil and taking advantage of everyone who helped bring her books to the world. Is it her fault? Or mine? Or anyone else's? She's from the UK and I can speak from the US and a little from the Japanese perspective ... these are not countries where there is literally no paid work and no opportunities. We're not out there in rags, lucky and grateful if we're capable of herding animals and plowing fields out of need. How is anyone supposed to put out their creativity and discoveries in this world without others working, too? Hey, we could automate more so people don't have to do the "crappy" jobs but then, oops, that's evil, too. Can't "steal" people's jobs. My point is not that people shouldn't be paid more but why is it the artist's fault how much paint costs? Can we say Government failure .... again and again and again?

I know too many people who have come from nothing and worked very hard to build a better life for themselves and their families. And I know people who CHOSE a different path; sometimes one that didn't quite turn out to their advantage. No one should take credit for someone else's success and no one should be blamed for someone else's failure. IMO.

posted October 27, 2009 01:48 PM         

or perhaps we should deny them healthcare and let them infect us as they lie in the street ailing. that would show them, right?

and since when does neglecting your children's upbringing to bring home a fatter piece of bacon equate with being "better off?" i know a lot of people think "providing" in the material sense is the be-all and end-all of parenting, but it doesn't leave much time for nurturing the hearts and minds of the kids...especially if you bring your job-related anger home with you!

i don't recall BLAMING the rich for anything, not oprah or jk rowling for sure. just pointed out that there is an interdependency at work that is often ignored by people who think "value producer" only means the person who HEADS the company. just ain't so...!

the corporate rich, the rockefellers, the government, well they come under a different heading altogether - but they have nothing to do with the ant and the grasshopper. the ant is the miserable sod who worked hard, played by the rules and is damned if he will give away anything to those who are less able, intelligent or fortunate. the fact that he pays the price of slaving away to feed his queen and lives underground is what makes him miserable to boot.

posted October 28, 2009 02:36 PM         

Of course O'Bomber is making war against Fox News. O'Bomber even attempted to lock Fox out of the White House Press pool during an interview of a high level O'Bomber appointee.

Of course O'Bomber has opened an investigation into Bush Administration officials...of the CIA and staff of Attorneys who gave Bush advice.

O'Bomber would attempt to criminalize Fox and the Bush administration...if he thought he could get away with it. The public is against any such nonsense and O'Bomber's job approval ratings are below 50% and falling.