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.
THE 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, CNN, NBC
and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper
next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table
filled with food.
America and the world is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Then a representative of the NAAGB (National Association of
Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with
"extremist right-wing greenophobia," and makes the case that
the grasshopper is the victim of genetic greenism.
Kermit the Frog appears on talk shows with the grasshopper, and
everybody cries when he sings "It's Not Easy Being Green."
The President and First Lady 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 grasshopper who has been
denied the prosperity he deserves by those that are mean-spirited,
who benefitted unfairly during the Reagan summers.
Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper,
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 was
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.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last
bits of the ant's food while the government 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 grasshopper bought by selling
most of the ant's food, they are showing the President standing
before a wildly applauding audience announcing that a
new era of "fairness" has dawned in America.