REWRITING THE STORY OF THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, laying up supplies
for the winter.  The grasshopper plays his fiddle and dances the summer away.
 
Come winter the ant is warm and fed.  The grasshopper dies in the cold.

This tale is attributed to Aesop, a Greek ex-slave who lived around 600 B.C. 
 I
wonder how many parents have told it over the centuries to how many children,
trying to impart the virtues of foresight and industriousness.

An email version crossed my screen the other day, altered not to teach a 
virtue
but to express resentment and fear.  It went, in essence, like this.  The ant
works hard in the withering heat all summer long, laying up supplies for the
winter.  The grasshopper plays his fiddle and dances the summer away.  Come
winter the grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the 
ant
should be warm and fed, while others are starving.  The networks broadcast
heartrending pictures of the shivering grasshopper and the comfortable ant.

A member of the NAGB (National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on
Nightline, charges the ant with green bias and says the grasshopper is the
victim of 30 million years of greenism.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah and sings "It's Not Easy Being Green" with a
grasshopper fiddle orchestra.  The audience weeps.  Bill and Hillary Clinton
tell Dan Rather they will do everything they can for grasshoppers denied
prosperity by ants who benefited unfairly during the Reagan Summers.

The piece goes on in this vein.  Whoever wrote it was on a roll.  The story
ends with the grasshopper finishing up the ant's food, while the government
house he's in -- the ant's old house --crumbles around him because he doesn't
know how to maintain it.  The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The person who forwarded this revised tale to me did so out of disgust, not
amusement.  She couldn't resist adding her own version, which went something
like this.

The ant uses an inheritance to make a killing in the stock market, then 
invests
billions in hedge funds based on the currency of the emerging economy where 
the
grasshopper lives.  As the market bubble created by speculating ants bursts,
the ant quickly shifts his fortune into dollars.  The currency collapse wipes
out the grasshopper's tiny savings and his job.  Ants who pull their money 
out
too late are recompensed by the International Monetary Fund, the money coming
from the taxes of grasshoppers everywhere.

The IMF, in return for saving the currency, demands that the grasshopper's
government undertake "structural reform," meaning sharp reductions in social
services.  Grasshopper children have no school, no health care, no food.  The
desperate grasshopper demonstrates in the streets and is thrown in jail.  The
ants, after making sizable campaign contributions to politicians of all
parties, bask happily on a cruise liner.

I sighed as I read these alternate versions of the old story.  So
mean-spirited.  So laced with envy, distrust, hurt.  I wonder how many 
parents
have told some rendition of the story of the lazy, undeserving poor or the
greedy, undeserving rich to their children, thereby imparting their own
bitterness to the next generation.  I wonder if we will ever get beyond our
self-serving caricatures of people who have more or less money than we do.

Surely we all know -- don't we? -- that some rich people have struggled hard
for what they have, while others have had wealth dropped upon them and are as
indolent as any grasshopper.  Couldn't we all admit that there are some folks
who will live happily from the largesse of others without even being 
grateful,
and also some hardworking ones who remain poor because they have dozens of
strikes against them, many administered deliberately or inadvertently by 
those
who are rich?

Max Weber said long ago, "The fortunate is seldom satisfied with the fact of
being fortunate.  Beyond this he needs to know that he has a RIGHT to his 
good
fortune.  He wants to be convinced that he 'deserves' it."

I'm tired of that infantile need.  I'd like to see us admit once and for all
that virtue is very imperfectly correlated with wealth.  Then I'd like to see
us, having gotten beyond false excuses for our widening, cruel, 
guilt-inducing,
fear-inspiring, disheartening class divisions, make those divisions 
disappear.

So here are some ways I might rewrite Aesop's fable:

The ant goes to the grasshopper one chilly fall day and says, "You know, I've
got way more than enough to get us both through the winter.  Here's your 
share;
you can play your fiddle for me, and next summer we can work together and put
up plenty for us both.  That will give me some time to play too."

The grasshopper goes to the ant and says, "You know, I haven't been very
productive or responsible, but I want to be.  It's hard, when I have so 
little
land, capital, education.  I want to be an equal contributor, not an 
indentured
servant.  I'm willing to work and learn.  Help me do that."

The ants and grasshoppers sit together and talk, with a pledge to keep minds
open and cheap shots to a minimum.  The grasshoppers show the ants the many
ways in which the economy systematically privileges ants and grinds
grasshoppers down -- and the ants listen.  The ants tell the grasshoppers 
about
the disappointments, disorderliness, crime they have suffered from 
grasshoppers
-- and the grasshoppers listen.

Then what?  How would you write the story so it tells our children not about 
a
world we hate, but about a world we'd like to live in?

 (Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an 
adjunct
professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.)

1999-06-26 14:05 Kossuth 
Oxigen

Musorvezeto: Balogh Istvan
Riporter Simo Endre

Mv.: - Aki kenyere javat mar megette, az tudhatja, hogy politika es etika 
egymast kizaro 
fogalmak. A politika lenyege ugyanis a hatalom megszerzese es megtartasa, 
ezert az 
eszkozokben etikai szempontbol nem nagyon valogat, errol legfoljebb a 
nepszeruseg 
megszerzese erdekeben elmondott beszedekben esik szo. Kozben az allami es 
katonai titkok 
leple alatt keszul a tortenelmi lecke fiataloknak, a tortenelemkonyveket 
ugyanis mindig a 
gyoztesek iratjak. A titkok persze - legalabbis a demokratikus gyakorlatra 
szert tett orszagokban 
- viszonylag hamar leleplezodnek. Ma mar nyilvanossagra kerult peldaul, hogy 
az Irak elleni 
haboruban alkalmazott uranfegyverek milyen radioaktiv szennyezest okoztak, es
 ennek milyen 
kornyezeti es egeszsegugyi kovetkezmenyei vannak. Kulfoldi lapszemlejeben 
Simo Endre egy 
balkani szindroma lehetosegerol elmelkedik. 
R.: - A NATO csokkentett uraniumtartalmu bombakat, raketakat, aknakat es 
lovedekeket vetett be 
Jugoszlavia ellen. Felrobbanasukkor mergezo nehezfempor szabadul fel beloluk,
 belelegzese 
pedig sugarbetegseget okozhat es radioaktiv gocot idezhet elo a tudoben. A 
tenyekrol beszamolo 
Le Monde Diplomatic idez abbol az amerikai hasznalati utasitasbol, amelyet az
 uranfegyverekhez 
csatoltak. Eszerint a robbanoanyag eges kozben elvegyul, elszall, kicsepeg es
 szetsugarzodik a 
talajban es a roncsok kozott. A robbanoanyag csak teljes elegese utan valik 
hatastalanna. Az el 
nem egett anyag rendkivul veszelyes, lehutesekor kulonos formakat olt, es 
idegen anyagok 
hatasara veszelyesebbe valhat, mint elotte volt. A recyclalt uranlovedeket 
elsosorban Apache 
helikopterekbol es A-10 repulogepekrol lottek ki, hogy attorjek veluk a 
pancelosok falat vagy akar 
harom meter vastag betonon is athatoljanak. Az ujrahasznositott uranium a 
termeszetes uranerc 
dusitasa kozben keletkezo mellektermek, a letezo legsurubb es legnehezebb 
fem. A Pentagon 
130 tonnanyit halmozott fel belole az obol-haboru ota elmult het evben, pedig
 a fegyver hasznalata 
ENSZ-tilalom ala esik. Az uranfegyvert a shenectedi Nolls Atomic Power /?/ 
laboratoriumaban 
fejlesztettek ki. A kutatas kozben Leonard Dies mernok 50 km-es korzetben 
sugarszennyezest 
eszlelt a legszuro berendezesek filterein. 1980-ban New York allamban 
bezarattak a National 
Lieding Dostries Plantot /?/, mert a sugarzasi szint meghaladta a 
kornyezetileg meg turhetot. A 
fegyvergyarto ceg eletet sztrajkok sokasaga tarkitotta, a dolgozok ugyanis 
arra torekedtek, hogy 
rakbetegseguket szakmai artalomkent ismertessek el, es javitsanak 
munkakorulmenyeiken. 
Uranfegyvert eloszor az Irak elleni haboruban vetett be Amerika es 
Nagy-Britannia. Mara mar 
biztosra veheto, hogy az obol-szindromat is uranfegyver idezte elo. Okat 
ugyan eveken at 
szemermesen titkoltak a kozvelemeny elol, de Ramsy Clark volt amerikai 
igazsagugyminiszter 
nemzetkozi akciokozpontot szervezett hatterenek kideritesere. Mississippi 
allamban 251 olyan 
amerikai katona eletet kiserte figyelemmel, aki reszt vett az obol-haboruban 
het evvel ezelott. 
Megallapitottak, hogy 67%-uk torzszulotteket nemzett, mert a sugarfertozes 
kovetkezteben 
elfajzottak a genjei. Egyes ujszulottek rakosan jottek a vilagra, masok nemi 
szervei olyan 
elvaltozast mutattak, amilyent az orvostudomany meg nem ismert eddig. Iraki 
orvosok is - idezem 
- iszonyatos deformalodasokat tapasztaltak magzatokon es ujszulotteken. 
Abnormalisan magasra 
szokott a leukemias gyermekek szama, a felnottek kozott pedig a daganatos 
betegsegek 
elszaporodasara figyeltek fel. A NATO 40 tonnanyi serult uranfegyvert hagyott
 maga utan a 
Kozep-keleti sivatagban, a radioaktivitas felmillio iraki es kuvaiti eletet 
fenyegeti. A balkani 
sugarszennyezes mertekerol meg nincs tiszta kepunk, sem a szerbeknek, sem a 
Duna-medence 
tobbi nepenek. Egy balkani szindroma lehetoseget ugyanolyan katonai titok 
fedi, mint amilyen az 
obol-szindromat fedte evekig.


FIDRICH Robert (Fidusz)

http://www.albakor.hu/fidusz/