Does anyone have an anti-Ant and Grasshopper story?

[holiday]

That stupid republican ant and grasshopper story is being beaten like a dead horse at another forum I go to and I was just wondering if there was a similar story for us dems (besides the Joe liberal one?).

[Lasher]

1. Ants are communists.

All of the ant's wealth goes directly to the anthill. If Republicans say they're like ants, call them commies.

[laughingliberal]

4. And the Queen gets all the good stuff while the ants continue working their asses off

I think it's an analogy for those at the top getting all the benefits of the laborers labor.

[GreenArrow]

14. that'd make it more like a feudal monarchy, maybe? n/t

.

[SpiralHawk]

8. Commie RepublicANTS

Why do they HATE America?

[Soylent Brice]

9. this is the best answer. n/t

[Coventina]

16. More like totalitarians. Ants have absolutely no individual freedom.

Why they love that story, and like to think of themselves as ants is beyond me.

[Lasher]

21. They think it supports their silly stereotypes.

And being a child's tale, they are able to follow the story.

[GreenArrow]

2. Frederick (the Mouse)

By Leo Lionni. It's a kid's book, the point of which will likely go over the heads of your intended audience.

http://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Leo-Lionni/dp/0394826140

[Brickbat]

3. Here's a version (scroll down a bit)

http://braesdemblog.typepad.com/braesdemblog/2003/11/how_can_any_ame.html

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
THE VERSION BUSH DOESN’T WANT US TO KNOW
by Kellen Wilson

If this were truly a fable where the ant was a Republican it would go more like this: First of all, you don't believe that the ant would be doing any hard work, do you? All hard work would be done by the grasshopper. And at a very low wage, I might add. You see, the Republican ant busted up the grasshopper union leaving the grasshopper to work at a much lower wage. This means that the mother grasshopper has to work just to bring in the same salary that the father grasshopper used to bring in alone. Then one day the Republican ant decides that even without the unions, wages were still too high and things like health insurance and safety regulations for his workers were eating into his profits and bonus packages, so he decides to move his anthill across the border where he can get Mexican beetles to do the work for dung.

Across the border the Republican ant is free to plunder the resources of another country and reap wild profits without having to worry about such foolish things as living wages, laws to protect the environment, safety regulations and child labor laws. This, of course, leaves the grasshopper without any meaningful work and he is forced into degrading service work ("would you like fries with that caterpillar, sir?") or playing the lottery. Some can't find work at all and end up homeless or sometimes the grasshopper feels hopeless and turns to drugs or crime, but that's okay, too because now the ant has more contracts to reward some of his biggest campaign donors in the flourishing new prison industrial complex industry.

But wait, something's wrong. Even after moving his anthill across the border to exploit cheap labor and natural resources the ant is still losing money leg over claw. How can this be happening? After all, the ant is working the capitalist, free enterprise system full throttle, which means everything should be hunky-dory. Instead, the stock market is a free fall, 3 million jobs have been lost in the first 3 years under an ant administration, the economy is in a recession, the country is 2 trillion dollars in the hole, the states are broke, there’s no money for schools or infrastructure, Veterans of Foreign Wars benefits, nor any other vital social program. Of course, none of this stops the ant from getting huge tax breaks.

And you would think with all of the tax breaks, privatization, corporate welfare and deregulation the ant's businesses would be thriving, wouldn't you? - You would be wrong. Because of mismanagement, corruption, malfeasance, and crooked Ponzi schemes the ant has run many multi-billion dollar corporations into the ground, screwed the grasshopper out of his life savings, stored the money away in offshore banking accounts and ran to Congress for a bailout, which will be paid with the grasshopper's taxes.

MORAL OF THE STORY: REPUBLICANS HAVE NO MORALS.

[HughBeaumont]

10. Don't forget that the Ant, and his fortune, pretty much get away with it scot-free.

Just like the Great Depression, there are still obscenely rich people no matter what happens to the rest of us.

[holiday]

11. thats exactly what i needed thanks

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. Good catch!

[LeftishBrit]

5. Not exactly anti, but Leon Rosselson has a version that's much more sympathetic to the grasshopper

The Ant and the Grasshopper
(Leon Rosselson)

The ant and the grasshopper, everyone knows how the story goes,
How the ant was diligent, never spent
Anything lightly, laboured wisely,
And gathered his store for tomorrow.

As for the grasshopper, clad in the summer sunshine,
Light as the wind on the broken water,
His song he gave to the summer days,
Singing "Where the dance leads I'll follow".

Then came a hard winter, nothing grew, and the cold wind blew,
But the ant was safe and sound, underground.
Carefully counting his pile around him,
Dividing his time until tomorrow.

Now see the grasshopper, blown by the north wind's fury,
Hungering for the easy summer,
Comes to the ant and says, "My brother, give me bread,
"Now's the dance that I must follow".

"Why did you waste the summer, summers don't last forever,
"You're just an idle beggar, you must pay the price, sacrifice.
"You wouldn't heed me, you took life easy -
"Take the punishment that follows".

Now see the grasshopper reel like a dry leaf falling,
Weaving a dance that will last forever,
Back goes the ant to his nest to work, to feed, to rest,
For him there will always be tomorrow.

The ant and the grasshopper, everyone knows how the story goes,
How the ant was diligent, never spent
Anything lightly, laboured wisely,
And gathered his store for tomorrow.

As for the grasshopper, clad in the summer sunshine,
Light as the wind on the broken water,
His song he gave to the summer days,
Singing "Where the dance leads I'll follow".

[guitar man]

6. Ants are collectivists

It wasn't his food, it belonged to the collective. End of story.

[Gman2]

7. Yup, Grasshopper is AIG, wall street, CEO's and corps. Ants are citizens.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. This is what happened after the original story.

The jerkass ant wasn't the only ant around, of course. Another ant housed and fed the grasshoper. Next spring, when word got around of the jerkass ant's jerkassness, he became a social pariah, and his life was miserable forever.

[TalkingDog]

15. The story isn't Rep. it's just been co-opted by the upperclass wealthy and they inverted the message

as a class war propaganda tool.

The rich are the grasshoppers. They want to live off the labor of the ant who works hard and minds his own business, because they've been off vacationing in X (insert secluded, exclusive destination here). They've been slumming with the neuvo-riche like Paris Hilton and hanging around Hollywood, baby.

Notice, in the story, that every thing is fine for both until hard times set in. Then the grasshopper expects the ant to give up everything the ant has worked for every day, like a regular middle and lower class guy.

The little Red Hen is another story with the same message. She is willing to share with those who labor along side her. But for them that deal in fast talk and what ifs but offer no real help, she has no sympathy.

It's about class war. Don't let anybody tell you any differently.

[jmowreader]

18. The Little Red Hen story revisited

The Little Red Hen was friends with a lazy dog, a sleepy cat and a noisy yellow duck.

One day the little red hen found a skid of wheat seeds in the back of the barn. She had an idea. She would plant the seeds.

The little red hen asked her friends, Who will help me plant the seeds?

Not I, barked the dog.
Not I, purred the cat.
Nor I, quacked the duck.

Then I will, said the little red hen. So the little red hen planted the seeds all by herself.

When the seeds had grown, the little red hen asked her friends, Who will help me cut the wheat?

Not I, barked the dog.
Not I, purred the cat.
Nor I, quacked the duck.

Then I will, said the little red hen. So the little red hen cut the wheat all by herself.

When all the wheat was cut, the little red hen asked her friends, Who will help me take the wheat to the mill to be ground into flour?

Not I, barked the dog.
Not I, purred the cat.
Nor I, quacked the duck.

Then I will, said the little red hen. So the little red hen took the wheat to the mill all by herself, ground the wheat into flour and carried the heavy sack of flour back to the farm.

The tired little red hen asked her friends, Who will help me bake the bread?

Not I, barked the dog.
Not I, purred the cat.
Nor I, quacked the duck.

Then I will, said the little red hen. So the little red hen baked the bread all by herself.

When the bread was finished, the tired little red hen asked her friends, Who will help me eat the bread?

Not I, barked the dog.
Not I, purred the cat.
Nor I, quacked the duck.

This wasn't the answer she expected, since she was a Republican who assumed her three friends were all deadbeats.

But why, she asked, won't you ask to eat the bread?

The dog spoke.

"Remember last year when you pulled the same thing? We all helped you every time you needed it. At the end of it all we had a thousand pounds of bread. You gave each of us one loaf and sold the rest, then spent the money on a pool table you won't even let us play on. So this year we went to work for the leftist organic-farming fox at the end of the lane. He pays a living wage. He has benefits. He takes care of his employees. Oh, and the grain you planted? It was his, and he is NOT pleased."

[jmowreader]

17. They patch this damn thing every so often with the RW bogeyman du jour

After all, it's got ACORN in it now. It just used to have Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition.

But try this. It's the best I can do at the current time.

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!

VERSION THEY DON'T TELL YOU, BUT IT'S THE TRUTH

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper knows grasshoppers only live a few months no matter what precautions they take, so he forms a Free Love commune with a hundred cute female grasshoppers. They laugh, dance and play the summer days away, and screw their brains out every night--leaving millions of grasshopper eggs in secluded locations.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well-fed, and comes out of his burrow in the spring ready for another season of hard work. The grasshoppers all died off at the first cold snap, but they knew they were going to, and in the springtime millions of baby grasshoppers emerge to laugh, dance and play their summer days away too.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Know your limitations.

MODERN VERSION

The ant (whose name is Richard Cory) owns a food manufacturer that employs 100,000 grasshoppers. That's the story in the papers--Hard Working Ant Employs Entire Population Of 95 Midwest Communities. They don't tell you he's making Soylent Green out of the grasshoppers who get killed in his plants' frequent industrial accidents or that threaten to take the real conditions in his factories to the press.

One morning his stock price dropped half a point. In response he fired half his staff then informed them "if production drops I'll fire the rest of you." Accidents, and Soylent Green production, both increase.

"My property taxes are too high! Reduce them by 30 percent and I can hire some more people!" They do. He does not.

"I couldn't hire back anyone because my income tax is too high! Reduce it and I can hire!" They do. He does not.

"My regulations are too restrictive! Relax them and I can hire." They do. He uses the savings from his tax cuts to move production to China. He converts the factories into distribution centers that employ one-tenth the people the factory did.

Now he's producing Chinese Flavor Soylent Green because as bad as his safety record was in the US, it's worse here. But in China, they have execution for dissidents so he's happy. In fact he installed a firing range on his plant property so the police wouldn't have to go on his grounds to do the killings.

The 90,000 grasshoppers the ant once employed are starving and, because the ant helped every other factory in the area relocate to China, the termites, moths and borers are also without jobs. The ant goes to Congress, telling them "Look at those deadbeat bugs that won't get a job. We must cut off their welfare! No free rides!" not mentioning of course that it was the ant's fault those bugs have no hope. Congress loves it.

He then does an interview with the television station telling the other ants in town the shiftless bugs are a drain on the system. Look at them, he says, see them driving their Cadillacs to the welfare office--conveniently failing to mention those bugs used to work for him and bought those Cadillacs with money they earned working in his factory.

Soon all the bugs have died of starvation while the ant is sitting there looking at his now-dwindling sales figures wondering why no one's buying his food anymore. The fact he impoverished all his customers never occurs to him.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Someone needs to dig up Ronald Reagan and kick him right in the nuts.

[jmowreader]

20. Addendum to the story

This damn ant builds his house every year. He owns a mattress factory that has for the last 25 years successfully lobbied Congress to not require flammability standards for bedding on the grounds it will damage the American mattress industry. Every spring he gets the law voted down, and every fall he smokes cigars in bed, ignites his mattress and burns his house down. Now if the cheap bastard would spend five bucks to put fireproof ticking on his mattresses, raise his wholesale price $10 to cover it and advertise his ticking as "the biggest advance in mattress safety in 30 years" he'd make more money and he wouldn't have to build a new house every year, but that makes too much sense.

[L. Coyote]

19. If you are such a diligent ant, don't sign up for SS and Medicare.

The analogy works for the winter of our lives too.

We grasshoppers invested in SS and the damn ants running the bank (USG) spent our children's money on Bush Wars!