Ant and Grasshopper request

[tkulesa]

My sister just sent me that republican version of the story of the ant and the grasshopper, the one about the good hardworking republican ant and the lazy, manipulative democratic grasshopper.

I wrote and sent her a more honest version. But I know there was a really kick-ass version someone wrote and posted here quite a while ago.

Does anyone have that version?

[Cheesehead]

1. Here's one that I wrote and posted a while back

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
COMPLETELY UP TO DATE 2004 VERSION:


The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer, trying to make ends meet by working two and sometimes three minimum wage jobs, struggling to keep a roof over his head and food on the table.

The grasshopper tries to make do on unemployment after his career dies when his lifelong job is outsourced to China. He spends his days reading the want ads and posting resumes on monster.com with no success. There is little money for food, much less beer.

Come winter, the President gives a prime time speech to announce that he is in favor of tax cuts for this richest supporters. In addition, he reports that the cost of heating fuel is likely to rise because of the rising quantities being consumed in the battle for world domination. The citizenry is expected to suck it up and support the war effort. It is the patriotic thing to do. The American Way. We must stay the course.

The ant and the grasshopper turn their thermostats down to 55 degrees and wear mittens in the house. They call the TV networks to try to pubicize their plight, but the conservative media will only report on the windfall the rich are getting with the tax cuts and how good life is when you are wealthy and contribute to the President's re-election campaign.

The oil companies (with the Vice-President's blessing) commission a conservative think tank to develop energy plan legislation that will allow them to maximize profits. It favors fossil fuels for future transportation and energy generation applications and rolls back environmental regulations. The House passes the bill at 4:00 in the morning after sufficient arms are twisted. The CEO's count their salaries and stock options. They donate $2000 from their tax windfall to the re-election fund and encourage their underlings to do the same. It is important to corporate bidness that the President stays in office.

Donald Rumsfeld announces that the military needs more money for the "war" effort. The billion dollar a week cost of the Iraq occupation does not fit within the $400 billion+ "defense budget. Those funds are earmarked for the defense contractors who strongly support the President and contribute to his campaign, even though they build unneeded weapons. More must be allocated to pay the contractors for outsourced services from the no-bid, cost-plus sweetheart contracts. There is no money in the Treasury to allocate for the war, so it will have to be borrowed and added to the deficit. "It's only money," says Rummy. "We're talking about freedom and democracy for Iraq. Get your priorities in line here. Don't you support the troops?"

The debt will be paid by future generations of ants and grasshoppers. With interest.

Newt Gingrich calls for a new "Contract for America." There are flags everwhere. Only war supporters can be real Americans! What America really needs is another tax cut. Gays are the spawn of Satan. The ant and grasshopper are ignored when they ask what is in it for them. They are arrested when they try to protest. The Patriot Act, you know.

Tom DeLay introduces legislation to eliminate unemployment benefits. "Get a job, slackers" is his slogan. Corporate lobbyists applaud and give DeLay piles of money for his support. The grasshopper is just about out of unemployment, and there are no jobs to be had. He is living on Ramen noodles already, trying to survive the job loss. The administration says the economy is "robust". The media parrot the day's talking points. Especially Fox News.

The ant gets very sick from working 18 hours a day, but has no health insurance. The premiums would eat up half of his earnings, if he qualified. The clinic wants cash before treatment. The ant digs into his meager savings, bites the bullet, and starts looking for another part-time job to cover the loss. In his dreams he lives in Canada, where everyone gets health care.

The President appears on TV again. His speech makes no sense. He looks like he is coming off a three day bender. He talks about fear, and danger, and staying the course. He hints that Saddam and Osama are second cousins. He looks under the podium for WMD's. He is confident that he could never make a mistake, or trust a con man, or stretch the truth. Even a little. He goes off to Crawford for a much needed vacation.

The ant and grasshopper soldier on. The ant works all of the time and his health becomes perilous. It becomes nearly impossible to stay awake all of those hours, much less work. His supervisor cracks the whip. Corporate says productivity is the gospel, and if he can't cut it he can be replaced. The grasshopper can't find a civilian job that will support his family. Luckily he is still young enough to join the army. He soon finds himself in Iraq, with an M16 and no body armor. It's 115 in the shade. The troops don't understand why we are there.

It's election year in America and the ant and grasshopper have a choice - either stay the course or make a regime change for a better America. They know what "four more years" will bring. They understand the consequence and importance of their vote.

They vote Democrat. Kerry wins in a landslide. The ant and grasshopper live happily ever after.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Learn from your mistakes.


Edited to correct formatting

[tkulesa]

2. Thank you.

I hope you don't mind if I share this.

[Cheesehead]

4. Not at all. I hope your sister "likes" it!

n/t

[DarkPhenyx]

5. Yippie!

Something else to annoy my neo-Con cow-irker. Thanks you very much! He gae the Rep version to me months ago, and my response wasn't nearly as good.

[Cheesehead]

6. You're very welcome

I LOVE to provide ammunition!

[soundfury]

3. The Grasshopper

The grasshopper is unable to find work, because with 5% unemployment, at least one person out of twenty who needs a job can't find one. If unemployment gets below 5%, the wasps who own the factories start to panic. If the wasps had to compete for employees, instead of the employees competing for jobs, the wasps would have to either raise their prices or keep less of the profits they earn from the ants labor.

Since there are more ants than grasshoppers, and since ants are generally better qualified because they've had access to better education, health care, etc., the grasshoppers are always the last to be hired and first to be fired.
20 years ago, the wasps only kept $50 for every dollar they paid an ant. Since then, the ants have worked longer hours every year (thus spending less time with their families) and improved their efficiencies (thus helping their companies stay competitive by keeping costs down). Now the wasps are able to keep $500 for every dollar they pay an ant!

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, then they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it as "Temperatures of the 80's."
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stage a demonstration in front 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.

On the radio, Rush Limbaugh spends three hours a day complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
G. Gordon Liddy spends an hour complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Laura Schlessinger spends an hour complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Michael Medved spends an hour complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Neil Boortz spends an hour complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Oliver North spends an hour complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
In the newspapers, George Will writes a column complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Cal Thomas writes a column complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Ann Coulter writes a column complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Michelle Malkin writes a column complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
William Safire writes a column complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
The Washington Times publishes an editorial complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
The Wall Street Journal publishes an editorial complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
The American Spectator publishes an editorial complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
The New York Post publishes and editorial complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
On television, Sam and Cokie complain that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Tim Russert complains that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Bill O'Reilly complains that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Sean Hannity walks all over Alan Colmes complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Paula Zahn complains that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
Brit Hume and Tony Snow complain that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs, while Mara Liason and Juan Williams agree.
John McLaughlin complains that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.

Chris Matthews complains that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.
John Stossel does a special for ABC complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.

Regnery Publishing publishes novels by Bernard Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, Gary Aldrich, Laura Ingraham, and Bill Bennett complaining that grasshoppers are lazy and should just get jobs.

The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Coors Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, and the Olin Foundation each buy tens of thousands of copies, to both ensure that the books hit the bestseller lists and to make sure that every library and school in the country received multiple copies.
Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings 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".

Al further explains that the wasps are avoiding taxes by moving their money offshore, exploiting tax loopholes, and ensuring that the bureaucrats appointed to regulate their industries are their friends, through the legal bribery known as "campaign contributions". He claims that more of the budget is spent on corporate subsidies than on welfare,and that a social safety net pays dividends in the form of lower law enforcement and penal system expenses. He is immediately attacked as engaging in "class warfare". Bob Barr draws up impeachment papers. House Majority Leader Dick Armey is quoted as saying, "Buddhist Temple blah blah invented the internet blah blah Love Canal blah blah Love Story blah blah."

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Ant 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.

Or, would have, had the Supreme Court not struck the act down (5-4),on the grounds that they didn't like it. The fact that two of the Justices had relatives working for the ant, one had a long history of discriminating against grasshoppers, and one had publicly expressed support for the ant was deemed completely irrelevant.

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 who can only hear cases on Thursday's between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled. The ant loses the case. Then he woke up, and remembered that since the judiciary had been shifted to the right for 12 years under Reagan and Bush, and since Orrin Hatch's Judiciary Committee refused to even give any center-left judges a hearing, the only Clinton-appointed judges were center-right. The grasshopper's suit was dismissed as having no merit.
Eventually, the grasshopper does in fact manage to find a job, working in the same factory as the ant. In fact, the factory started to hire lots of grasshoppers, since they would work more cheaply than the ants, the low wage still being a huge improvement over the welfare check that had previously enabled his carefree life.

This had unexpected consequences for the ant. One day, the factory foreman came up to him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Ant," he said, trying to avoid eye contact. "There's so much cheap grasshopper labor on the market these days that I can't afford to keep you working for me. I'm going to have to let you go." Not long after losing his job, the ant became ill, he'd contracted cancer through exposure at his job. Because of deregulation and tort reform, the ant had no legal recourse.

Unfortunately, his health insurance had lapsed after he lost his job. Medical expenses quickly devoured his savings and his assets. When his money ran out, he got thrown out of the hospital, and was last seen hanging out in an alley; filthy and wearing a "will work for food" sign.

This was eventually the fate of the grasshopper as well. One day the wasp who owned the factory decided that he could make even more money by closing the factory and opening a new one in Thailand, where the grasshoppers will work for even less money and the government environmental and safety regulations are even less "burdensome". And the wasp lived happily ever after.