By Con
George-Kotzabasis August 19, 2014
The Greek economic crisis has brought on its heels a moral and
intellectual crisis and “prostitution” of its media. The Fourth Estate in
Greece has been transformed into a “red-light” district where a populist
seraglio of colorful journalistic harlots has assembled to hustle their
“quickies.” Only with few exceptions, such as Babis Papadimitriou, whose
analyses of current economic events in Greece are illustriously admirable and
an example for imitation, most of the media spoke persons and journalists in
Greece are wallowing in the putrid waters of populism and from that position
are publishing their disheartening, gloomy, and misleading comments about the
economic and political situation of the country. But while it is easy to please
and mislead the hoi polloi it will not be easy for these commentators
to erase the mark of shame that they have self-inflicted upon themselves and
their intellectual integrity.
To the incomparable achievements of the Samaras government in
restructuring the economy, making it more competitive and freeing it from the dead
weight of the public sector–which was a major cause that had brought Greece to
the precipice of default and its citizens close to absolute poverty–that were
the prerequisites for keeping the country within the European Union and with
the latter’s financial help saving it from economic collapse that would have thrown
its people, for at least a generation, into the hungry fangs of poverty, the
Greek media, almost in toto, has not emitted one word of praise toward
this remarkable performance of the government.
This accomplishment is unprecedented in the history of nations, that in
a short period of two years any political leadership was able to accomplish and
salvage their countries from bankruptcy. The Greek media, however, did not make
one twit about this great accomplishment. On the contrary, it criticized the
government, and often condemned it, of being responsible for the immiseration
and economic suffering of its people, and of being the puppet of the European
political elite, especially Chancellor Merkel of Germany. In a chorus of
tragicomedy its commentators reproached and blamed the coalition of the Samaras
government for accepting and implementing the austere policies of the second
Memorandum, that were imposed by the European Commission as a condition for
Greece’s continued financial assistance by the former, as being the cause of
the calamitous economic blight that has scourged a major part of the population
in the last two years. However in this prejudiced and populist castigation of
the government by the media analysts, they studiously ignored the fact that the
real culprits for this economic disaster were the leaders of past governments
who had created a false and unsustainable economic prosperity, fuelled by loans
and debts and passing the latter to future generations, and by creating a
gargantuan flabby and totally inefficient public sector for the purpose of
ensconcing their political clientele in leisurely unproductive jobs at the
expense of the public purse. Hence, it was not the Memorandum that had brought
the economic crisis and the level of unemployment to stratospheric heights, but
the imprudent and foolhardy policies of past governments that led the country
to the brink of insolvency that had brought the Memorandum with its inevitably
austere remedies, and just as inevitably some errors in its policies, but which
were tragically essential for Greece’s economic recovery. As is often the case
throughout history, nations and men/women in great dangers can only be saved by
the most severe measures.
The Samaras government did not flinch before this formidable
responsibility and carried this hard task with the characteristic moral
strength and intellectual astuteness of its leader. It surmounted the
mountainous populist waves that a petty and completely incompetent, and by now,
a historically obsolete amalgam of ex-communists and socialists, who compose
the Opposition, Syriza, stirred among the populace with the aim to get rid of
the government. And despite the fact it had the unions and its strikes on its
side and using them as a battering-ram to overthrow the government, nor the
fact that the media in general took a neutral stand and did not decry this
disgraceful and dangerous action of the Opposition that would lead to the
political destabilization of the country and would put in jeopardy all the
successes of the government in pulling the country out of the crisis, the
Opposition failed ignominiously in its goal.
Antonis Samaras, like Theseus, is finding Greece’s way out of the
labyrinth of its economic crisis while the Greek media inexorably demeans
itself by polluting its readers and viewers in a rancid flood of populist biased
misleading comments and information, that puts the great accomplishments of the
government and its exit from the crisis at an immense menacing risk.
I rest on my
oars:Your turn now!
