Little Red Hen Rashomon

There’s a revisionist version of “The Little Red Hen” going around that portrays the bread-baking hen as an industrious Republican and her fellow barnyard animal as lazy and greedy [by definition!] government employees, union workers, and other minions of the Democratic Party. (Here’s an example.) The message, of course, is that “Farmer” Obama is taking away the fruits of honest Republican toil to give it to his followers because they won’t shift for themselves.

I think the version by Michael Griffin of Saunderstown, Rhode Island is a lot closer to reality.

Quoted with permission:

“Not I,” said the cow.

“Not I,” said the duck.

“Not I,” said the pig.

“Not I,” said the goose.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did. She planted her crop, and the wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.

“Who will help me reap my wheat?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the duck.

“I’m too busy finding ways around health and safety rules,” said the pig.

“I’d dirty my million-dollar office,” said the cow.

“Isn’t that what illegal immigrants are for?” said the goose.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread. “Who will help me bake the bread?” asked the little red hen.

“I’ve already made enough for 100 loaves selling futures and options on the wheat you grew,” said the cow.

“Only if you bake it at the Chinese bread factory so we can maximize our profits,” said the duck.

“No, I get all the free bread I want from the corporate welfare programs arranged by the politicians I bought,” said the goose.

“If I’m to be the helper, that’s like being a board member, so I should get a million dollar bonus,” said the pig.

“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, threatened to throw her out on the street if she didn’t hand over all the bread. But the little red hen said, “No, I shall eat all five loaves.”

“You’re a gay liberal terrorist!” cried Dick Cheney the cow.

“You have to feed us or the whole country will go hungry!” screamed Hank Paulsen the duck.

“I need to sell all five loaves to help pay for my corporate jet!” yelled John Thain the goose.

And Rush Limbaugh the pig just drooled and foamed at the mouth in a prescription-drug-induced hypocritical rant.

They all painted CUT TAXES! picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting “Liberal! Socialist!”

Then Farmer Obama came. He said to all the animals, “You must not be so greedy and irresponsible.”

“But we’re used to taking all of the bread: our lifestyles demand it and anyway the hen is used to having nothing,” they said.

“Exactly,” said Farmer Obama. “That is what makes completely unregulated free enterprise so dangerous. Those in the barnyard who earn the most begin to think that the rules don’t apply to them. Worse, to support their lavish lifestyles, they begin to lie, cheat, and steal from those who have less. Without modern government regulations, the administrators and executives will steal the fruits of those doing the real work and give nothing back, until one day nothing is left and we all starve.”

The little red hen clucked, “I am grateful, for now they recognize the importance of doing real work and making real products in our own barnyard.”

But the corporate neighbors became quite upset because she had proven that they were greedy, lazy, and incompetent. And they took over the barnyard in a hostile takeover; and to maximize profits, laid off all the farm animals whose taxes were being used to prop up the barnyard and fund hostile takeovers until no workers were left and every barnyard in the country went bankrupt and nobody could grow wheat, or harvest, or bake bread.

Then, the conservatives smiled and said, “Now they’ll find out why we cling to our guns”.

It occurs to me that certain Congressional Republicans are being the other farmyard animals to the Democrats’ Little Red Hen, claiming credit for the benefits of the economic stimulus package after they steadfastly refused to help pass it.