I got a political e-mail about the 'Ant and the Grasshopper' story... I responded.

[merwin]

I got an e-mail recently sent to a number of people I know (who are all very liberal people). For some reason, this person thought it would be a good idea to send out a Pro-Republican and an Anti-Democratic version of "The ant and the grasshopper" story. Here's what they wrote:

OLD REPUBLICAN 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.

MODERN DEMOCRATIC 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, ABC & 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." 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. Ted Kennedy & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Dan Rather 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.

I felt that I had to respond to this insanely stupid e-mail with my own version of the story... Here it is:

THE 2006 DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The wealthy grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

A month into the summer, the ant loses his job due to outsourcing, and can't afford to ride the leaf down the stream into the city to find a job due to skyrocketing gas prices.

Another month goes by and the wealthy grasshopper has been blessed with tax cuts, while the ant is without a job and wondering why his taxes keep increasing... all the while the chimp who runs the country keeps telling him that taxes are low and the economy is improving.

Another month goes by and the ant's former well paying job has been replaced by a minimum-wage job at McDonalds. President Chimp announces that unemployment is at an all-time low, while forgetting to mention that the average income has been cut in half. The wealthy grasshopper is spending his time lounging poolside watching his stocks in oil steadily rising, while he drives his Hum-G through the McDonalds drive through and laughs at the ant.

Another month goes by and ads are popping up all over the TV telling us how the ants are going to ruin the country if they win the midterm elections, and how only the grasshoppers can keep us safe from the larger animals who want to take all of their food and money and kill them. The ant wonders how the grasshopper is going to keep him safe when most of the army-ants are deployed in the Middle East, and the grasshoppers can't even keep that country under control.

Another month goes by and the ants decide that they're going to take back the country from the grasshoppers who are driving it into the ground.

The story ends as we see massive ant turnout at the polls. Not even the grasshopper-owned voting machine companies can rig the electronic voting enough to secure a win for the grasshoppers.

REMEMBER TO VOTE TODAY! ONLY YOU CAN SECURE A WORLD FREE OF GRASSHOPPER RULE!

Let's GOTV and make this story a reality!

[jhrobbins]

1. Your version is so true!!!!!

[merwin]

3. Thanks... I probably could have made it better if I had spent more time on it.

But it would have been useless after this morning :)

[demigoddess]

2. I remember this being used in the sixties as propaganda against black

people and then it was used in the reagan era as anti-welfare propaganda and I am not surprised it is popping up again. That story was just made for propaganda. EVERYONE sees himself as the ant and anyone they do not think well of as the grasshopper.

[sleepyhead]

4. A "friend" sent a similar version to me

During the Clinton administration, with subtle changes meant to specifically insult the Clinton and Gore families, as well as the original racist, jingoistic details. Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to formulate a clever reply like the OP's. I responded with a scathing diatribe, full of profanity, and refused to speak to that particular friend again (especially since she claimed ignorance of the true meaning of the words and "just thought it was a cute story"). To this day, she can't understand why I have her emails sent directly to my spam folder.

[merwin]

8. I'm not exactly sure who it was that sent that e-mail.

It's my friend's e-mail list, and someone on it sent a reply with that to everyone on the e-mail list.

[Gelliebeans]

5. K&R

[stop the bleeding]

6. one of the best posts today

thank you

[merwin]

7. No, thank you!