Drugs, Murder and Mexico

Anonymous said...
I've seen a lot of things on various blogs, but this may be the worst. The individuals working for the cartels are heartless serial killers. These individuals need to be hunted down and executed on site! Forget giving a trial to people like this, as it would be a waste of time to allow them to breathe another moment on earth. You wouldn't slaughter an animal in this fashion, let alone a human being.

...

Again, I recommend Charles Bowden's Murder City. I didn't click on the pictures. Honestly, splashy violence/news makes the conflict feel more dramatic/vital/urgent, but it doesn't really do much beyond that. Certainly doesn't solve any problems to look at hacked up people.

Yeah, I know about shootings on the U.S. side, just nothing that comes close to the degree of violence in Mexico.

U.S. troops would have to find a "reason" to go in like Panama 1989 or something. Seems weird that there's this huge uncorrupted force amassed on the border doing nothing because the chainsaw executions are happening outside of their jurisdiction.

it seems to me that what we can do personally is choose not to be part of any kind of larger problem, cf what you mentioned iatee. like it's pretty easy for me to not do drugs and remove myself from that clusterfuck and i'm sure there are plenty of other people who have chosen to do the same for similar reasons. it's not enough to actively change things for the better, but i don't even want to bear the most infinitesimal amount of responsibility for that mess. kinda the same reason i stick to fair trade goods as much as possible and ditch things when i find out they're coming from sketchy sources.

i also recommend(ed?) "the daughters of jaurez" by teresa rodriguez, which grimly ties in with the drug war even though the overwhelming number of murders committed against women in juarez during the period depicted may not have to do entirely with drug cartels. it gives a sense of the environment in which those murders were allowed to occur with seemingly little law enforcement intervention and how such violence can be happening today.

The worst part is that you have no idea -- most citizens can't have any idea -- where the tentacles of this vast criminal organization go because it is an underwater monster. It's easy to say that you don't want to have anything to do with it, but harder, perhaps impossible, to truly extract yourself from the possibility of contributing when no one knows exactly where the flow of money begins and ends.

That's part of what makes this so disturbing, for me at least.

xp, the cartels deliberately keep things quiet on the US side in order not to provoke the police. It's apparently common for people to be kidnapped in Texas, or wherever, and taken back across the border to be executed. Perhaps the lack of intervention on the US side might be down, in part, to a fear of provoking the kind of retribution the Mexican army has seen.

omar little otm regarding recreational drug use.

la lechera otm. we really have no idea.

what's disturbing also about some of these recent stories about bloggers getting hunted down and killed is that the cartels must be actively tracking down people speaking out against them, and since those folks in all likelihood tried to cover their tracks you wonder how they were found out.

yeah I mean I guess there is still a line between this and fair trade or whatever, cause I mean buying folgers might indirectly make some peoples' lives worse but it's hard to imagine that you could buy coke without, on some level, contributing money to an organization that commits brutal murders on the reg. I'm not defending rec drug use just mentioning that I don't think we could make a real difference on the demand side even w/ some coordinated campaign.

Yeah, I know about shootings on the U.S. side, just nothing that comes close to the degree of violence in Mexico.

U.S. troops would have to find a "reason" to go in like Panama 1989 or something. Seems weird that there's this huge uncorrupted force amassed on the border doing nothing because the chainsaw executions are happening outside of their jurisdiction.

just declare them to be what they actually are: terrorists.

When you snort cocaine, you snort terrorism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/world/americas/mexican-teachers-push-back-against-gangs-extortion-attempts.html

scared as shit for them. but godspeed.

The popular revulsion over extortion has become so powerful that the New People gang, a rival battling the Zetas, took pains during a recent display of grisly hubris to distance itself from the practice. The gang dumped 35 bodies, believed to be Zetas, on a main road near the port city of Veracruz on Tuesday with a sign saying, “People of Veracruz, don’t let yourselves be extorted. Don’t pay any more ‘quotas.’ ”

what am I supposed to do here? cheer?

here are no due dates or late fees – ever! Try New People for FREE...

is coke still huge? i knew a bunch of ppl who snorted it/smoked crack in 2001-02, but afaict I know very very few habitual users these days...

(of course I'm a lot less in touch w/ the drug scene these days...)

How does it end? The U.S. will neither legalize nor stop buying drugs. How else will the violence stop?

I don't think there really is an answer. Really the only thing they can do is invade Mexico which obviously isn't going to happen. The Mexicans in power need to stop their war against the drug lords but to be honest I can't imagine their goverment being competant at all, from what I've heard the election/hiring process is ridiculously corrupt. It seems the criteria to get hired are like 1) Who you know, 2) What you look like, 3) Who you'll sleep with, and then like 1000) If you're actually qualified for the job. I don't see how things can get worse.

OUT

I've been to Ciudad Juarez. When I was about 10 years old my parents drove me and my sister across the border to it from El Paso. It made a strong impression. The INSTANT we were out of our big old, banged-up, no-air-con Ford LTD, we were surrounded by children selling Chiclets. We got an offer from a guy to "watch our car" in exchange for cash. We wandered around an ancient covered market full of dirt-cheap tourist tat. One woman begging for money was carrying what looked like a mummified baby. It was fucking horrific and depressing and I was on edge the entire time. And that was in the late 1980s. I would imagine my parents wouldn't do it again today.

is coke still huge?

yes coke is still huge

Right now it's really unsafe to even drive into there, I've heard plenty of stories of cars/buses just randomly getting shot up on the street, it's one of the worst places in the world to be right now. On the plus side, property there is practically free. It's surprising that all this stuff is happening primarily on border towns. The scary thing is that previously 'safe' areas down south are now getting all this violence. I'd heard that Merida was mostly free of drug violence, because that was where the drug dealers families lived! Last time I was there, armored tanks filled the streets with enough ammunition to destroy an entire city block. It's terrifying getting interrogated by a police officer in a language you don't fully understand when the guy is holding an assault rifle and is almost certainly corrupt.

is coke still huge? i knew a bunch of ppl who snorted it/smoked crack in 2001-02, but afaict I know very very few habitual users these days...

― i'm hearing Bowie sing this, and it's the best single of 1985 (Drugs A. Money), Monday, September 26, 2011 11:37 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(of course I'm a lot less in touch w/ the drug scene these days...)

― i'm hearing Bowie sing this, and it's the best single of 1985 (Drugs A. Money), Monday, September 26, 2011 11:37 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

A few years back, when I was 25 or so, my roommate and I were both ex-potheads. We were talking about the old days when we were 18, lol. I remember telling her something like "yeah, but I guess once you get to be our age people don't smoke pot anymore." WRONG. Just talking about observations you might have if you're out-of-touch with the drug scene.

I know lots of people who still smoke pot; a (not-quite-so-overwhelming-anymore) majority of the people I know still smoke pot. Some of them are on pills too, maybe even a few are still on meth...I mean, most of the folks I associated with are the working poor, so that probably explains a lot.

Just seemed like you guys know people irl who still do coke pretty regularly, whereas I don't (or if they do, I don't know about it).

Oh yeah, I know what you were saying. I have no idea who does what among most of my friends and acquaintances, just because I really don't party at all anymore. But if there's one thing I'm pretty sure of, it's that coke has not gone away.

look at any line outside any club, those people are coked to the gills

here's some ILX0rs that love cocaine

yeah i dont go to clubs Shakey; but still, good to know.

I dont know how much coke there is in the Midwest but I always assumed it was more of a southern thing. Here it's mostly prescription drugs that everyone is obsessed with.

it's so deeply ingrained in the culture now I kinda don't know how you would ever get rid of it - it's one of those things that codes as "glamorous"/"dangerous"/something you do if you're "young" and "wild" and "rich"

xp

much love for aerosmith as always but serious lolz at his "don't get all super-judgmental about cocaine when i am sure you have blood on your hands from SOMETHING in your life" stance on that thread. like i am pretty okay with "drawing distinctions" between the coke industry the shady and indefensible practices of certain aspects of food production because i have to eat to fucking stay alive, though i am not always happy with the choices available to me food-wise thanks to location or finances or hell just laziness, which makes me complicit, sure, but otoh i am pretty sure everyone who pays for a completely inessential-to-life mild powder-based buzz is helping to fund the mass murder of children for their fleeting pleasure, including me, back in the days when i did coke.

otoh i'd be pretty okay if humanity dried up and blew right off the planet, just for anyone who wants to beat me to the "well you dont HAVE to eat, either" zing. what can i say, life much like cocain use, a habit's a habit's a habit.

cokehead would say you're just addicted to food

learn to photosynthesize, asshole

I couldn't read Bowden's book. I hated the way it was written, or at least how the first few dozen pages were written.

One of the (naive?) best ways to help Mexico is to vacation there and help underscore that tourism dollars come easier than drug war money. There are vast hunks of the country relatively unaffected by the violence, at least for now.

strongo otm.

exactly where are the safe parts right now?

I couldn't read Bowden's book. I hated the way it was written, or at least how the first few dozen pages were written.

yeah, I had a similar experience but got about halfway through. writing style doesn't change drastically.

of course, I was hoping for a more historical breakdown and that just wasn't what the book was going for.

xpost It's a really big country, so the safe parts would be, I presume, most of Mexico. The worst stuff is by the border. But the Yucatan Peninsula is super safe, for example.

I dunno if you read my post upthread, but the Yucatan is definitely starting to get some of this. I was there last year for my now-wife's graduation and the party was cut short b/c there were threats to capture and kill people there. Some of her family members have been followed and have been threatened kidnapping if they haven't come up with some ridiculous sum of money. Most of it is just, threats but there have been a number of murders there and my wife fears that things are getting worse. As I mentioned, when I was there they were putting tanks on the streets and had a bunch of armed checkpoints on the highways. Merida was supposed to be a "safe haven" because apparently some gangs had families there, but I don't know how true that is now.

Yeah, Murder City is not historical -- like most of his books, it's pretty narrative in structure (I guess at the expense of dry facts?). I like the way he gives specific examples instead of blasting the reader with aggregate stats.

There are a lot of things I wish I could contribute to this thread but I just don't really feel like it's a good idea in a public forum.

but otoh i am pretty sure everyone who pays for a completely inessential-to-life mild powder-based buzz is helping to fund the mass murder of children for their fleeting pleasure

this does get kinda complicated though, bc people get pretty into cocaine, to a point at which the fact that it is inessential is not really relevant or can't be gauged. still otm, just saying. the whole thing does make you wonder whether a more mature attitude towards drugs would mean that there could be a conversation about it or an attempt to regulate it or for people to be better aware of the genealogy of it, but that obviously is not going to happen anytime soon.

also:

I've heard plenty of stories of cars/buses just randomly getting shot up on the street, it's one of the worst places in the world to be right now. On the plus side, property there is practically free.

lol

xpost Not the Yucatan, inland, but the Yucatan Peninsula, Cancun and south. I've been down there three of the last four years and it's been sleepy and safe. Going back in January, I'll let you know if it seems newly dangerous.

xp: oh, no, i didn't want that to come off as some kinda zero tolerance NO SYMPATHY FOR THE POOR WIDDLE ADDICTS thing.

but also i mean no one on that thread who was like "fuck yeah lines" on that thread struck me as someone who'd boosted their mom's tv to support their habit or anything. during my years as a nightlife reporter (cough) i knew a LOT of casual snorters and they were very much high-functioning it's-just-a-party types.

Veracruz is all right as long as you don't mind the occasional 35-body traffic jam.

http://www.travelweekly.com/uploadedFiles/MEXICOMAP4.pdf

there are twists and turns on the path from "buying cocaine from a bouncer at a club" to the money ending up in the hands of the people who are cutting the heads off anti-cartel bloggers, but the path certainly eventually leads there. i basically think that everything people do in life should be regarded from a certain moral standpoint but generally speaking i think there's no way in the current system for someone to be a moral cocaine dealer (or user, i suppose.) at least users can claim ignorance in many if not most cases.

Map of unsafe areas in the US (in grey):

http://www.va4u.com/images/maps/namerica/usa-blue.gif

and despite the fact that i haven't done any drugs except a couple of joints in the last four, five years, i still drink like a fish, so i hope it also didn't come off as attacking relaxation-via-mood/mind-altering-substances or even drugs as an idea. i'm no teetotaler. it's just that i don't tend to worry that, whatever the shit-ness of the industry, anheuser busch isn't gunning down school kids on the streets of delaware because they're worried dogfish head is cutting into their market saturation.

Phew, Josh. I live in one of the light-blue areas.