One for the wide awake!
A somewhat dated response to the fable, which is also dated. All these versions prove is that even fables can be politicized to suit the agendas of, either side. They serve in helping to avoid thinking about how to deal with real issues with practical solutions, like a child might do.
A somewhat dated response to the fable, which is also dated. All these versions prove is that even fables can be politicized to suit the agendas of, either side. They serve in helping to avoid thinking about how to deal with real issues with practical solutions, like a child might do.
Quote:The Partisan Versions Of The Ant and The Grasshopper
by
Bob Mitchell
Published on
Friday, June 01, 2007
by CommonDreams.org
I recently received an email that retold the famous fable of the ant and the grasshopper in a modern light from a Republican point of view. It was cute, but I felt that it need to be responded to, so I wrote a Democratic version as a reply.
Here was my reply to this email:
The Modern Version of the fable of the ant and the grasshopper as reported on Fox News and regurgitated endlessly by right wing am radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh (to the point where it is accepted as gospel by their listens who have an average apparent IQ of 27) has neglected to report the full story.
It turns out that the grasshopper wasn't really dancing and playing all summer. He was really a disabled Vet who had recently returned from President Bush's war in Iraq where he was severely injured while riding in a Hummer that was not properly armored even though the war has been going on for over 4 years.
What the ant had interpreted as dancing was really a bad gait caused by an ill-fitted prosthesis that had been gnawed on by rats while waiting for treatment at Walter Reed Hospital.
The playing was the grasshopper attempting to hitch a ride because he couldn't afford to pay the $3.49 per gallon for gasoline that Exxon/Mobil was charging in an effort to boost their already record quarterly profits of 92 Billion Dollars (that's $92,000,000,000.00) which happened to be up 75% from the last record quarter that they had.
He was trying to catch a ride to the Halliburton headquarters because he heard that they were doing pretty good - Build and Fight For Profit! - and thought that they might be hiring. It turns out that they were hiring, just not here in the US. They had openings at their customer call center, but it was located in Bangalore, India.
He thought about trying to make it over there for the job, but it turns out that the average wage that is paid to these call center people is only the equivalent of about $175.00 a month.
It also turns out that Fox News didn't quite have it right on the ant's situation either. It turns out that he was really a Republican congressman from Sugar Land Texas. What was supposedly work was really him scurrying from corporation to corporation eliciting bribes...ahhh, I mean, donations for a supposed children's charity that were then diverted to paying for parties at the Republican National convention.
As an inducement for these contributions the ant was offering exclusive face time with the Vice-President of the United States and other top Republicans aboard a luxury yacht.
These meager donations of $50,000 to $100,000 were exempt from campaign finance reports because they weren't for a political campaign, but rather a donation to a children's charity!
And while it was true that the Democratic leadership did call for a return to financial sanity by rescinding the tax cuts for the rich, which the ant had profited by handsomely, it wasn't true that the ant ever came any where near paying his fair share in taxes.
As it turned out, the ant had moved the headquarters of his tool making business that he had purchased in a hostile, leveraged takeover from the small Connecticut town where it had been located since 1843 to Bermuda to avoid paying United States taxes.
The other thing that Fox had wrong was that the ant didn't get fined for violating the EEOC statues, he was fired for soliciting sex with an under age congressional page. Fox also didn't report that the Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and other key Republicans knew about the ant's behavior, possibly for years without ever doing anything about it.
As far as the grasshopper ending up dead in the ant's house, this part is true. It turned out that the ant's house was indeed seized by the government due to the ant being caught with over 2000 oxycontin tablets that it was suspected that he had gotten from Rush Limbaugh.
The grasshopper bought the house at the drug seizure auction with the money that he made from selling his story to the National Enquirer. He was shot and killed during a botched drug raid. It turned out that the date for the raid was wrong on the memo that the DEA sent to the FBI, the state highway patrol and the local drug enforcement task force.
When the joint task force battered in the door to what they thought was the ant's house and saw a grasshopper of color, they shot first and asked questions second.
At first the chief of police denied any wrong doing on the part of his officers or any members of the task force. The grasshopper was forced to recant his denials when a copy of the security tape from the ant/grasshopper's home surfaced on YouTube that clearly showed the grasshopper being beaten, tortured and then shot by various members of the task force.
It later turned out that several members of the task force had actually taken digital photographs of the grasshopper being tortured and humiliated.
The ant in the mean time has just received a $5,000,000 advance on his tell all book and is in negotiations with the Lifetime Channel for an autobiographical movie of his life. It is rumored that he is considering teaming up with Newt Gingrich to take a run at the Republican nomination for President and Vice-President.
*********WAKE UP AMERICA!**********
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