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.

Fox, MSNBC and CNN 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.' Pat Robertson then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames George W Bush and the Republicans for the grasshopper's plight.

Glen Beck exclaims that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the Democrats in conjunction with the Republicans draft 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 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.

MORAL OF THE STORY: It doesn’t matter who you vote for!!

Holy Crap!! You just explained the Aboriginal Population, here in my Country..

The Grasshopper being the Aboriginals and the Ant being the White people.

This story is well modified for todays situation. You did a great job..

You tell me how Loyd Blankfein can work 8 hours a day and make 300,000,000 dollars a year, while somebody in mcdonalds works the same amount and only makes 40,000 a year, and then you may have a point.

Also, lets say you're "rich," -- you have 10 million dollars.

With that, you can buy treasury bills, at 3% interest, that's 300,000$ a year, doing NOTHING, except collecting risk free interest from america's debt.

How is that fair? Guy with 10 mill makes 300,000$ a year doing no work.

Guy at mcdonalds makes 40,000 a year doing 8 hour shifts every day.

....?

[edit on 4-4-2010 by Kaytagg]

Here's my version:

The queen and the colony:

All summer long, the ants toil away, working hard for their queen. In return, the queen gives the ants back a fraction of the food they have gathered. Then, when the winter comes, the ants are happy, and the queen is happy -- because she has 1000x more than any single individual ant. Nobody really complains too much, because they are happy being slaves.

The end

Originally posted by Damian-007
Holy Crap!! You just explained the Aboriginal Population, here in my Country..

The Grasshopper being the Aboriginals and the Ant being the White people.

This story is well modified for todays situation. You did a great job..

I know exactly what you mean, but these grasshoppers get their house, trash it & demand another, only to repeat it, ad nauseum

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Also, lets say you're "rich," -- you have 10 million dollars.

With that, you can buy treasury bills, at 3% interest, that's 300,000$ a year, doing NOTHING, except collecting risk free interest from america's debt.

How is that fair? Guy with 10 mill makes 300,000$ a year doing no work.

Guy at mcdonalds makes 40,000 a year doing 8 hour shifts every day.

....?

Life isn't fair. Get over it.

One small change with this story. When Kermit the Frog shows up, he eats the Grasshopper. Ant accused of hiring hit Frog. Government freezes his assets. Ant gets life.

The variation of the story I heard had the grasshopper killing the ant and taking over the food. Moral of the Story: Winner takes all. But that's more like a pun on "real life" isn't it?

gj

Originally posted by ganjoa
The variation of the story I heard had the grasshopper killing the ant and taking over the food. Moral of the Story: Winner takes all. But that's more like a pun on "real life" isn't it?
gj

That moral seems to describe the attitude of the USA Govt quite aptly, wouldn't you agree?

There is also the version where the ant's father works hard all summer, storing nuts and food. The ant's father was a hedge fund manager, so he only had to pay 15% in taxes, while the grasshoppers paid over 20%. The ant's father made a killing on credit default swaps while the grasshoppers 401k's went down the toilet.

The ant's father dies. The ant spends his entire winter eating the food his father stored up and telling the poor grasshoppers to go screw themselves. Some of the grasshoppers actually like to be told to go screw themselves and form this group called a "tea party." The tea party grasshoppers held protest rallies where they called the grasshoppers that do not like to be told to go bugger off names like "socialist" and "Nazi."

Great parody. everything sounds about right except for the Glen Beck comment. May I suggest you do a little more research of Beck’s positions on social justice.