Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

As they often depend on advertising from private corporations or major banks, mainstream media are reluctant to question the legitimacy of some debts or to envisage their cancellation. Indeed they are in cahoots with creditors such as banks and large financial groups. Public mainstream media are also deeply influenced by the discourse of current leaders, who use public debt as a pretext to justify the austerity measures they implement.

Media thus support and promote the repayment of public debt and the implementation of austerity measures. Notions such as odious or illegitimate debt or debt auditing are never mentioned.

What negative impact did the media have in the case of Greece?

At an international level, when the media discussed the issue of the Greek debt, they offered a caricature of the Greek people supposed to be lazy, spendthrift and irresponsible, with big retirement pensions and no taxes to pay.[1] So while the Greek people are depicted as guilty and Greece as making the euro teeter, we good Europeans, in our infinite generosity, help them out so that their pensions can be paid and their hospitals run.

The media claim that Greece not repaying its debt would result in drastic losses for tax-payers in other European countries; this is meant to frighten the audience, for in fact it would hardly have any adverse consequences on tax-payers’ pockets in other countries. Mainstream media never mention feasible solutions to cancel public debt.