Parables, although very important, sometimes become dated.  So for the new HD CNN viewing generation, I thought of including a new version of the Grasshopper and the Ant story, so they too can relate... Umm, by the way, as a disclaimer, I think you all know my ideals but now... right? (Meaning this is satire on how cluttered and messy our policy making has become).

If you are reading this post first, read the previous post (Food Prices) before you read this one.

The Grasshopper and the Ant, 2008

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 the ant is 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 freezes out in the cold.

Americans are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

There are demonstrations in front of the ant’s house.  ABC, NBC and CBS interrupt coverage of the Presidential campaigns and the War on Terror with breaking news, broadcasting the protestors  singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Senators rant in interviews with Larry King that the ant has gotten 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 to polls, Congress drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the summer.

It is quickly passed through the Senate. The ant’s taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribusiness company.

The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant’s food though Spring is still months away, while the government owned house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house crumbles around him because he hadn’t maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Congress appoints a commission that will lead an inquiry which will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose. The Los Angeles Times blames it on 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, who come from “the axis of evil”, and buy up big chunks of land and turn them into strip malls with 7 Eleven’s, Domino’s Pizza and BlockBuster Video’s, in turn promptly terrorizing the community.

Who says we don’t live in a democracy?