The Greek tragedy

Any good Greek tragedy apparently needs theatrical masks. Usually covering the entire face and head, with holes for the eyes and a small aperture for the mouth, as well as an integrated wig.

So when Greek opposition lawmakers argues, on stage, that Germans should pay reparations for their World War Two occupation of Greece before criticizing the country over its yawning fiscal deficits, you know there’s a mask covering a real tragedy here. Or, in other words, a dog is buried alongside a cat, two gold-fishes and a shoe that formally belonged to a sponge-diver. Covering the burial place is lots and lots of manure.

“How does Germany have the cheek to denounce us over our finances when it has still not paid compensation for Greece's war victims?", says one actor while sneezing into a Euro-bill.

The tension is growing, what will the German stage-actor respond with?

Before we get to that potential answer we need to look at the whole setting.

In that liminal space between the audience and the stage, between myth and reality, were we have the intentional cooking of the books to get into the EU, making good use of Evil Inc; Goldman Sachs to hide the real numbers. On the stage we have the puppets dancing around playing out the tragedy to the audience whom uselessly stare at the spectacle, booing when the puppets tries to explain the current state of affairs, applauding when the story goes over into socialist promises.

Behind the stage we have greedy drooling puppet masters that don’t really know how the play will end. If they let the Greeks on the stage fall down the trap-door, the whole project of Hitler-geldt may eventually collapse. And they cannot help them out either, their own rules prohibit them. So the only solution is to introduce deus ex machina into this tragedy. In this case such sudden interaction will partly be in the form of other countries buying Greek securities, and in part the evilness of IMF. The effect, although no-one in power says that, is a bail-out. You know, the very thing they actually cannot carry out, but through the backdoor this can still be accomplished.

Well, as some other backdoor action we know from psychical interaction lubrication may be needed, but there might still be some pain involved. In this case IMF, that just the other day argued for hyperinflation, will propose certain deeds that lefties will regard as rape by a 2by4. In actuality the con-artists and cornflake-economists of IMF will recommend inflation and pro-bubbles in order to enhance the tragedy.

But the theatrical characters and their puppet masters are hiding another surprise the audience will not really appreciate. This because the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and British actors have their own problems that sooner or later will be introduce unto the stage. If that is so, the whole theatre may actually collapse, with actors and audience alike. You see the foundation of the theatre was build on a muddy hillside with already rotten tree-bulks, and now it is raining and soon a earthquake will rock loose the set and slide it down the hill into the abyss below.

We have actually been in similar situations before. Back then things escalated into planet wide conflicts, two times in a row actually, and both times Germans played one of the key roles.

We’re far off from having combat-boat dressed Germans throwing sun-symbols around on stage, but as in any decent tragedy there are twists that will be played during the show. France protectionism, Argentina arguing over the Falklands again, trade wars between China and the US, and the entire Middle East is a playground for conflicts are only a few of the fuses already lit.

What needs to be considered is what will happen during the next round of financial calamities. If you hadn’t realized it before, the depression never ended, it is only postponed and swept under the rug, temporarily that is.

The Greek tragedy follows the Icelandic equivalent as well as the Baltic States, Ukraine and some others and should only be seen as another act, not the whole play.

With this in mind, does it really matter what the German actor says?