The Ant And The Grasshopper Fable

[Stavros]

CLASSIC 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 shivering grasshopper has no

food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

 

THE END

 

THE BRITISH 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. So far, so good, eh? 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 less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to Provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table laden with food.

 

The British are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the Transvestites With Starving Babies Party, the Single Lesbian One Eyed Mothers Party and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking news,broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome." Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama that the ant has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.

 

Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by Camden Council. The ant moves to France, and starts a successful AgriBiz company [funded by the EU] (although within weeks, his business is threatened with compulsory purchase by the state unless he marries a French ant). The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost £10,000,000.The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Guardian blames It on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana growing operations and terrorize the community.

 

THE END.

 

 

Stav.

[Chinahand]

There is also an American Version:

 

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

 

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grass hopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grass hopper has no food or shelter do he dies out in the cold.

 

MODERN AMERICAN VERSION

Come winter, the shivering grass hopper 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 grass hopper 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 it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grass hopper is allowed to suffer so?

 

Then a representative of the NAAGB, (The National Association of Green Bugs), shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with green bias,and makes the case that the grass hopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on Ophra with the grass hopper and every body cries when he sings, 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 grass hopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the Temperatures of the 80's. Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grass hopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism 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 grass hopper 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 moms who can only hear cases on Thursdays between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled.

 

The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grass hopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the governments house he's in, which just happens to be the ant's old house,crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And, on the TV, which the grass hopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of fairness has dawned on America.

 

I was studying in the United States a few years ago and this joke appeared on the student bulletin board.

 

It immediately stirred up a debate about racism, which I felt was informative. The MBA course I was on only had a single black student and she raised up the fact that the joke wasn't making a joke about lazy people and hard working people, but about people who are physically different from each other. The joke cleverly starts with a lazy grasshopper, and then goes onto to satarize that grasshoppers are an ethnic group that are lazy and who are supported by The National Association of Green Bugs and need a Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act (or an Anti-Greenism Act in the American version) to protect them. Please note the real versions of these acts and organizations don't encourage or promote laziness, but rather try to support members of a disadvantaged community in achieving their true protential.

 

The American version is far stronger than the British one I admit, and I think its very easy to see how the American version has simply replace Black with green and changed what would be a right wing diatribe into a joke that reinforces racist undertones.

 

I don't think the british one is nearly as bad, but the last sentence about immigrant spiders enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and terrorizing the community says it all to me.

 

This is a racist joke and a crude one at that.

 

I'm not saying censor it, but I think there are better ways to satarize the barmyness of political correctness than being racist.

[Northline]

Never seen 'Bugslife' ?. . . there was a circus an everything