The Zen Guy (3)

The Skinny Guy's teacher taught him to unravel in zen parables.

One of them was the story of a book smart student who wasn't very smart.

This student sought to impress the zen master with his erudition.

The zen master was not impressed and challenged the student with the following question:

"Show me your original face before your parents were born"

The book smart student was unable to do this

and the master would not provide any clues as to the answer

because you can't taste another person's food.

So eventually out of frustration the book smart student went down to the local apothecary

and sold off all of his books

because of course they were useless

and all those years he had spent reading them was a waste of time.

The book smart student also left his teacher

and from then on led a simple life tending to the tomb of a famous monk

Many years later

so the story goes

while the student was sweeping around the tomb

his broom hit a rock

and in hearing that sound

became enlightened

which was a bunch of crap

according to the skinny guy.

Things that don't go together

Is there a new kind of warfare going on?

The things that don't go together this time are the German invasion of Greece in 1941 and the German invasion (well sort of) of Greece in 2011.

In 1941 Germany invaded and conquered Greece in 24 days.

As a result of the invasion thousands of people died, starved etc in the Nazi occupation.

And of course the Greek economy was ruined. 

The Greeks rebelled and created an underground resistance movement.

In 2011, the Germans are again dictating the terms of Greece's surrender in a sense.  

The austerity measures imposed by the German's have led to general strikes,  unemployment, stipping away of pension benefits and certainly a decrease in the Greek standard of living.

This may not really follow, but....

Are we in the age of a new form of invasion, political domination and/or exertion of influence of one nation over another?

Instead of guns and bombs the new armaments are in the form of international banking and finance.

Wasn't that really how the cold war ended?  Without a shot being fired the Soviets had to sue for peace to avoid economic collapse?

I don't get the feeling that the Germans are intentionally invading the Greeks in 2011.   I'm sure they would rather not have the headache.

But what happens to the U.S. when China starts calling in their ownership of the U.S. debt?