Friday, October 10, 2003
The Ant & the Grasshopper - modern New Zealand version
(I don't know the original author of this piece, but am happy to acknowledge him/her if someone can let me know.)
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 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 TV crews show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.
New Zealanders are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Greens, the trade unions and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. TV1 News, interrupting a cultural festival special from Ngaruawahia with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome." Dun Mihaka rants in an interview with Pam Corkery 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, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. With the help of United Future and Jim Anderton's mob, the bill is quickly passed into law.
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 retroactive
taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribiz 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, Margaret Wilson now is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the NZ Herald 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, praised by the government for enriching New Zealand's multicultural diversity, who promptly terrorize the community.
Who says we don't live in a democracy.
(I don't know the original author of this piece, but am happy to acknowledge him/her if someone can let me know.)
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 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 TV crews show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.
New Zealanders are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Greens, the trade unions and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. TV1 News, interrupting a cultural festival special from Ngaruawahia with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome." Dun Mihaka rants in an interview with Pam Corkery 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, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. With the help of United Future and Jim Anderton's mob, the bill is quickly passed into law.
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 retroactive
taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribiz 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, Margaret Wilson now is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the NZ Herald 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, praised by the government for enriching New Zealand's multicultural diversity, who promptly terrorize the community.
Who says we don't live in a democracy.
