Grass-hoppa

Most of you have seen the blatantly racist story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. Here is my version:

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The trust-fund 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, also is warm and well fed.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Grasshoper who have rich parents don’t have to work too hard to live well.


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, who receives a healthy stipend from his well-to-do dad, laughs and dances and plays the summer away at his family’s Hampton summer home. Come autumn, the grasshopper is busy recruiting all of his rich grasshopper friends to vote Republican so that he can get tax breaks on the “income” he gets from his dad. The grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why ants can’t pay their fair share of the taxes. Fox and its affiliates air segments of grasshoppers who can no longer afford both a Lincoln Navigator AND a Hummer due to what they claim to be their incredible tax burden (although most have CPA’s who successfully trim down their effective tax rate down to 17%). America is stunned. How can this be, that hard working grasshoppers who earn six figure salaries, receive 25 vacation days a year, work 8 hard hours in air conditioned offices, can be relegated to one luxury automobile per family. Mr. Burns appears on Sean Hannity’s show with the grasshopper, and everybody cheers when he starts chanting “Show me the money!!!!!!”. Rush Limbaugh stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group yelling to the ant to “go back to your own field!!!” The Christian-right wing of the Republican grasshoppers join in the demonstration claiming that the ant is living in sin with another male ant. Pat Robertson then has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake. George Bush and Dick Cheney exclaim in an interview with Rush Limbaugh that the ant is lazy, filthy, and is milking the social programs made possible by the rich. They both call for an immediate tax cut, which they claim is “fair” and will even benefit the ant (although the ant’s share of the benefit equates to $52 per year vs. $30,000 per year for the wealthiest 2% of the grasshopper population). Finally the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Ant Act”, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant, who was pulling double shifts at the local Home Depot, can no longer afford to make his mortgage payments since he has to help his elderly parents with their skyrocketing medical costs. He’s also devastated by the loss of his young nephew who was killed in a walk-by stomping by gang-member grasshoppers after school. His nephew usually attends an after-school program, which was cut after the “Economic Equity and Anti-Ant Act” was implemented, eliminating the funds required to support the after-school program. Since the ant is still 3 months away from his 27th birthday, he is drafted by the army to fight lady bugs in an adjacent field whom the President alleges have weapons of mass destruction (future intelligence determines that the apparent WMD’s were simply really fat lady bugs). Rich young male grasshoppers across the field quickly get their dads to cash in “favors” so that they wont have to serve in the war. The story ends as the ant is killed by friendly fire in the battle field. His home, which he worked hard to build, is seized by the bank who subsequently sells it on the cheap to grasshopper developers. They tear down the home and build a mini-mall in its place, which is part of their overall plan to turn the once quaint and charming neighborhood to one of many overpriced and generic planned communities filled with homes bought by over-leveraged yuppy grasshoppers. The economy implodes a few years later as the budget deficit sky-rockets to historic levels and housing prices collapse as grasshoppers realize that track homes aren’t worth $1 million.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Democrat


For reference, here is the racist version:

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 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.

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