I got this stupid email today and it depressed me so I had to rebut. Stupid email first, in green, rebuttal follows.
The Ant and the Grasshopper--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 grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
The Ant and the Grasshopper--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 is 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, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper 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 this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "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 grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it: "Temperatures of the 80's."
����A demonstration is staged in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing. Then the group kneels down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Al Gore 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-Ant 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 grasshopper 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 recipients 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 grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in (which just happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him since he doesn't 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 Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "fairness" has dawned in America. The grasshopper is subsequently found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
����November is coming.
����Vote Republican!
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The Ant and the Grasshopper--Modern Version
����The ant works hard in his air conditioned office all summer long, making important decisions about how to market his company's latest SUV. He keeps his lawn tidy and stocks his pantry on weekends. The grasshopper works hard at the steel plant all summer long, also stocking his cupboards and mowing his lawn on the weekends.
����Come winter, anti-trust legislation that would prevent industry owners from collectively suppressing salaries and benefits within their industry crosses George W. Bush's desk, to which he says, "no way Jose." Steel suppliers and auto manufacturers--suddenly feeling very secure--immediately cap worker salaries and benefits, increasing their profit margins. The grasshopper and his co-workers find their jobs offer even less opportunity for growth than before. "Shit," they say, "we have no socio-economic mobility." They experience feelings ranging from anger to depression; factory owners laugh and say it's "winter blues."
����The United Auto Workers calls a press conference. They want to call attention to the fact that somebody in America has to make the steel. In fact when the steel workers are hired by the factory they get to watch a video in which steel is pouring and American flags are waving--to which any patriotic grasshopper undoubtedly says "Fuck yes, give me some molten steel and give it to me now, let's not waste time talking about benefits."
����So CBS, NBC and ABC show up to shoot video of sign-wielding, lunatic grasshoppers and tacky-suit-wearing union leaders whining that their workers don't get raises anymore. A spokesperson for General Motors responds: "Well, relations between unions and corporations are of course a tricky business and as a matter of fact we're fortunate this work remains on American soil, since the quality and economy that Taiwan and Mexico offer are considerable."
����A couple of union grasshoppers are too lazy to think of anything better to say so they yell "Screw Taiwan." America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
����"Holy God," says America, "We ARE fortunate. Come to think of it, we're surprised that industrial jobs still exist in this service-oriented economy. Oh, wait, we're surprised that SERVICE jobs still exist in this INTERNET-based economy. Oh, wait, the Matrix, what is the Matrix?
America goes back to work and forgets all about corporate activity inside the Beltway.
����One weekend, instead of washing his car, the ant writes a funny email in support of his favorite presidential candidate, using the same tactics that talk shows use to get their audiences shouting, "Amen."
����Specifically, these tactics are:
����1. Treating the audience as though they are
����distinctly superior to the people being
����discussed, by virtue of their ability to
����see things realistically.
����2. Reducing the subjects to stereotypes.
����3. Fleshing out these stereotypes with a huge
����list of cliches--if the list is big enough
����the entire audience will accept the
����proposition (or else what's left to feel
����superior about?)
����In the ant's email he makes fun of high profile people who are concerned about economic mobility and its distribution in the United States. The concerned people sing and pray and basically it's a good time. What else are they supposed to do? Part of America's elite, they were brought up in the same upper-class culture as many conservatives. They have no idea what to do but sing and pray. In a way they're the most pathetic of all. Oh but wait, this isn't real, this is the ant's funny email, sorry.
����So the ant sends the email and lots of people laugh and vote for his candidate.
����Anyway, the Modern Version of the Ant and the Grasshopper has an epic closing scene in which the grasshoppers join forces with 25,000 welfare-cheating crack addicts, their non-crack-addicted second cousins and a good number of lepers, all led by Oprah of course who gave them all makeovers. They descend upon Georgetown talking about breast implants, spouting lines from recent movies in new, clever contexts, and generally acting nice. This scene boasts some of the greatest special effects ever created in a movie about ants and grasshoppers. They all make their way to the Key Bridge and one of the grasshoppers climbs up on the railing and starts waving his arms around. All the crack addicts etc. rush to the edge and hang over the rail. It's very dramatic and numerous helicopters appear. A voice-over of news reporters speculating a mass suicide brings the audience to the edge of their seats. Will the downtrodden working and not-working classes of America die by the hundreds in the Potomac River?! "Oh my God this is the cutting edge of filmmaking!" "American Entertainment in the year 2000!" "I'm breathless!" The audience gets the double whammy of incredible suspense and a wonderful sense of well-being. Well, the helicopters pull up alongside the bridge with many very heroic young military men hanging out, ready to catch as many jumpers as they can. But what do they see? The grasshopper is perched on the bridge's structure, shouting above the din of the choppers: "This is American steel! It supports a million trillion pounds of stress each day when a million billion Virginia residents commute back and forth to work! We make it by combining iron ore with derivative products of coal and limestone!" The audience is, of course, taken aback and overcome with emotion. The movie wins 15 Academy Awards.
THE END
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