Mexico

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
i appreciate where Padraig is coming from, though i know none of us would disagree that violence in Mexico has leaped alarmingly recently (a 117% increase in murders there from 2007 to last year, for example).

nah I wouldn't disagree either, but it's not a radical departure from the past. there's always been violence - cartels, political, etc. - but very few ppl in the U.S. have payed attention, then the economy goes bad & of course the violence & instability increase & it's "oh it'll be a failed state". look by the criteria ppl are applying it's already half a failed state, it's just a matter of degree as mr. boshambles points out about how states try & fail to impose their authority. I noticed that quote "Mexico might have a drug runner as its next president" - & so? at least it wouldn't be another one of these techno/autocratic bastards Salinas/Zedillo/Fox/Calderon who sell huge chunks of their own country off to Yankees & Euros & then skip off to hide from extradition in Ireland or go work for fucking Coca-Cola. whatever I don't want to romanticize the narcos at all either, they're just as bad & probably worse.

also again I don't know from networks but if it became a "hollow state" wouldn't the cartels have to step in & provide some kind of order? it's not like Somalia I mean, there's a lot of $$$ to be in made & it's in their interest to have some kind of order. which would make it not a network, but a "narco-state". honestly a lot of this seems to be semantics - the govt is rich thugs who went to Harvard or it's rich thugs who directly traffic in narcotics. a pox on both their houses.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
honestly a lot of this seems to be semantics

well quite :D

re Somalia analogies, it must be said that the ICU provided (a kind of) order (the stability of the internment camp you might say) in areas when they were in charge before the interventions against them there
 

polystyle

Well-known member
There will be blood ... and drugs ...

Sorry to interject but ...
Interesting original question Vimothy,
great Williams quote about Gov's Vs networks , thanks BoShambles,
and imo I would almost always go with the intel from the ground from people who have actually been in there (Padraig) than the gas from 'tanks' who too often are projecting or
just plain making disinformation.

As usual it's almost all about making more dollars ,
and Citigroup of course as dirty as the Narco's.
Um, Citigroup that the US Gov. will soon own much of !
:mad:
An article from today's Times backs up your discussion pretty well , jury is out on actual verdict as the blood is still being cleaned up>
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/world/americas/01juarez.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
why? I think your point is interesting. Can you elaborate...

cheers!

i just thought i better make that clear as i didn't want it to look like i was making a direct analogy between any two situations.

it was nothing that Padraig or yourself or Vim haven't already volunteered: one cartel that may assume effective control of an area, hypothetically, will bring a measure of stability (vanquished rivals etc).

this recent spike in violence is extraordinary
:(
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and imo I would almost always go with the intel from the ground from people who have actually been in there (Padraig) than the gas from 'tanks' who too often are projecting or
just plain making disinformation.

As usual it's almost all about making more dollars ,

thanks for the vote of confidence but just tbc I haven't been there in 2 1/2 yrs & I don't want to set myself up as an authority (sounds like M. Boshambles has been there too) - just that as you allude to when I can I prefer to trust my own eyes/ears/instincts over these types of analytical pieces written on some abstract plain - not that they don't have value of course. & really I know I shouldn't get irked cause it's just realpolitik biz but it does piss me off that the only reason anyone cares is cos it might spill over in the U.S. proper. plus man this shit has been kicking off forever - what the hell do ppl think was going in the 80s when we were funding a slaughterhouse in Central America - & when NAFTA let heavily subsidized U.S. agrobusiness flood Mexico with cheap grains that undercut Mexican campesinos - yeah what a shock tons of ppl feel compelled to turn to drugs & the border's a goddam mess cause there's so much immigration pressure cos no one can make a goddam living.

I remember too when I was living in Cali there was hella media frenzy over Latin gang violence - which had some basis in truth - surprise surprise ex-guerrillas & soldiers & a whole generation of kids who grew up in the middle of unspeakably brutal civil wars came to the U.S. & formed gangs reflecting that brutality & violence. for real, you wanna see some messed up business Vimothy (kinda related to your original question) look into La Mara Salvatrucha...
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
I remember too when I was living in Cali there was hella media frenzy over Latin gang violence - which had some basis in truth - surprise surprise ex-guerrillas & soldiers & a whole generation of kids who grew up in the middle of unspeakably brutal civil wars came to the U.S. & formed gangs reflecting that brutality & violence. for real, you wanna see some messed up business Vimothy (kinda related to your original question) look into La Mara Salvatrucha...

yes, a few of us chatted a bit about the Mara Salvatrucha a few months back on this thread here.

Padraig, i think it would be neat for you to riff on your EZLN experiences if you want to on-thread! (well, if there's anything you'd feel like sharing and feel comfortable sharing; please ignore me if this is a bit icky for you.)
:)
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Padraig, i think it would be neat for you to riff on your EZLN experiences if you want to on-thread! (well, if there's anything you'd feel like sharing and feel comfortable sharing; please ignore me if this is a bit icky for you.)
:)

nah I wouldn't mind at all.

the summer after I graduated high school I went down & met up in San Cristobal de Las Casas with some friends (punks who were about 5-6 yrs older than me) who'd been travelling around Mexico/Central America for a while - there was a whole crew of us, like 11 or 12 - we spent about 3 weeks that time working for this NGO that built gravity flow water systems in EZLN villages. then the next yr I went to the WTO meeting in Cancun & afterwards I went back to Chiapas by myself & spent a few months working for the same NGO, until I got malaria.

it was run by a Mexican (anarchist really into Alfred Bonnano etc. - really cool guy, studied martial arts under him while I was there) & an American (trad lefty ex-union organizer dude) & it was really lo-budget DIY thing. the funding actually came, predictably enough, from some dotcom multimillionaire from Silicon Valley who was pretty much in the dark about the Zapatistas - thought it was just a humanitarian thing, which of course it was - there was actually a hilarious time when he came to visit once. there's a partially transient community of foreigners & educated urban (from DF/Guadalajara mostly) activists in San Cristobal - the water projects, there were like 3 or 4 then, were the stronghold of the anarchist/radical types, there were also more standard like indymedia & human rights groups that did good work as well.

the work itself was - alright we'd get contacted by like a regional committee on behalf of a village & then we'd go out to the village & meet with them & set up terms - how many men we'd need to work & for how many days (cause they'd had to manage their crops & such), also logistical stuff. then we'd go up & find a fresh water source at some higher elevation than the village itself, then a whole lot of math - you have to be able to figure out all this business about friction & gravity & pipe sizes & such. then the actual work itself where you'd go out, it took a few trips of 2-3 days each usually cause you had to dig a 3ft deep trench usually for miles in really hilly terrain & then lay the pipe & fill it in & also build big water tanks out of ferroconcrete. and then depending on how big the village was sometimes we'd also lay pipes to individual homes.

uh there's a lot more stuff but this post is already very long & I don't want to go on. perhaps if you or anyone else has more specific questions? or maybe someone else has experiences they wouldn't mind sharing.
 

vimothy

yurp
Tankonia

Not sure what this has to do with NAFTA.... Certainly Mexican GDP has grown at a significantly faster rate post the agreement than it did in the ten years before. Agriculture itself is a tiny portion of GDP (less than 5%). Exports are up. Mexico is running a large trade surplus with the US. Per capita income is up -- and now the highest in the region. Inflation and interest rates are at historic lows. The PRI are out of power. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, the Mexican government needs to do more to help with the adjustment to the global economy, particularly for the rural poor, but that's an extension of my argument, not the argument that it doesn't matter who is in charge. NAFTA is obviously not, given the subject of this thread, a panacea, but it's not the villain of the piece either.

Not sure whether people only care about Mexico because the violence might spill over into the US (although it seems that this is already happening). Certainly an American security analyst like Robb is always going to be Septic-centric and focus on worst case scenarios, because that's his job -- clipping the long tails. But then I've already said that I'm not as interested in intentions as output.

Also not sure whether the people writing these articles haven't been to Mexico themselves. Sure, the analysts may be projecting, the journalists may be lying, but (and all due respect) they're clear in what they say. And we also are all making our own assumptions. Moreover, the journos and analysts are not writing anonymously.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Not sure what this has to do with NAFTA....

look I'm not an economist, I'm not going to tussle with you on those grounds - I'm not sidestepping any of your points, to the contrary - but I met plenty of campesinos who could no longer make a living off their meager plots of land & who thus had to travel to big cities and/or the U.S. for work - doubtless this was going on before NAFTA as well - I'll tell you a lot of Mexicans are pretty well aware of NAFTA & pissed off about it - take for example the makiladora zone on the Mexican side of the border (which includes Juarez), essentially a slave labor force there, a NAFTA ting...surely you're going to cite more facts to refute this & fair play to that.

Not sure whether people only care about Mexico because the violence might spill over into the US (although it seems that this is already happening)....But then I've already said that I'm not as interested in intentions as output.

1) don't kid yourself - though as it pisses me off even though it shouldn't cause yeh it's their jobs to be dispassionate & 2) well I am interested in intentions so we'll just have to agree to differ

Also not sure whether the people writing these articles haven't been to Mexico themselves. Sure, the analysts may be projecting, the journalists may be lying, but (and all due respect) they're clear in what they say. And we also are all making our own assumptions. Moreover, the journos and analysts are not writing anonymously.

I'm not saying anyone's lying - I'm sure some of these dudes have been to Latin America, maybe even speak Spanish, whatever - the point is it's all a very abstract conversation about real things. which I suppose is largely what economists & security analysts do, so fine. also as I'm not being paid for anything I'm writing I don't see how anonymity is an issue - I'm sure you're smart enough to judge the value of things for yrself.
 

vimothy

yurp
Yeah, sorry -- that post comes off as more snarky than I intended it to be, but I plead exceptional circumstances: I have a severe hang-over and am struggling for words.

It seems to me that the two issues (violence and the effects of NAFTA) are related across the dimension of efficacious governance. Openness to the global economy implies shifts in demand across a variety of markets, and these shifts produce social effects/costs that I would not want to minimise. On net, I think that Mexico certainly has benefited from NAFTA, but nevertheless the proper role of government should include redistribution of some of the gains to those whose income is reduced thanks to increased competition. We can talk about good strategies (such as encouraging farmers to grow more profitable crops) if you like, though I realise that it's probably not that interesting...
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
no that's alright, didn't mean to get so worked up myself - it's a topic close to my heart, I dunno, plus it's just loaded for Americans on all sides. which I imagine is much the same for (illegal) immigration in the U.K.?

I don't doubt that NAFTA like any trade agreement, for that matter (as economists well know) any economic decision has had positive & negative benefits. it's about who it's been positive & negative for, isn't it. you cite the GDP & such, fair enough, but I have very hard time believing that any of that net gain is being distributed remotely equitably. I see that Mexico is tied for 72nd on Transparency International's latest index, which I guess isn't terrible. but, look man to me the Mexican government is Tlateloco & La Guerra Sucia that followed, it's Salinas robbing his own ppl blind, it's Zedillo privatizing the railroads & then buying in himself, it's every president & most of the senators are rich ladinos (white - & for that matter most of the faces on Mexican TV & billboards look like they could be from Sweden).

undoubtedly there's good stuff in there too - the higher education system is actually pretty good for one, health care is actually surprisingly good, better than the U.S. in a lot of ways, more affordable for sure - but man I think of the Mayans in Chiapas & the Yucatan - they were treated like cattle for 500 yrs & they still would be if they hadn't taken matters into their own hands (January 1st, 1994 - clearly NAFTA meant something to them), all the stuff in Oaxaca back in 2006, I think of ppl I know getting tortured in jail...so perhaps I'm not the best person to ask for an unbiased judgement.

getting back on topic tho - to the contrary I'd be very interested to hear about boring, functional things like strategies governments use to redistribute economic gains more fairly.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
it's about all about massive agrobusiness which can afford lobbyists & reps & senators isnt it.

bit off-topic (but also not) but for a economic ignoramus like myself one of the best 101-style reads wrt US subsidies i've caught in years are the early parts of Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.

Josef, chilling Rieff article. cheers.
certainly makes clear the recent up-turn in very, very serious things going down..
 

vimothy

yurp
I guess it's a replay of the first question a/the state needs to answer: how do you solve the problem of violence?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Josef, chilling Rieff article. cheers.
certainly makes clear the recent up-turn in very, very serious things going down..

sorry to continously belabor the point, but some of that article comes across pretty dodgy - Mexico is in "free fall", obligatory mention of the Revolution (hey & the Cristeros! bonus obscure reactionary points) the cartels have "made it abundantly clear" what they're trying to achieve - right. this actually strikes me, viz the Klein thread, as similar to foes of neoliberalism regarding capitalism as one unified beast. he even pins Camilo Mouriño on the cartels which is speculation at best (you don't get that high up in Mexican politics without making plenty of enemies - again I have to mention Colosio).

skim the comments & you'll see a healthy dose of skepticism- not that it's more or less valid than the writer's piece - someone even digs out that old Porifirio Diaz chestnut "poor Mexico, so far from God & so close to the United States".

some good points are raised - one of which goes directly to what you're talking about Vimothy - namely that govt power in Mexico is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy, mostly white elite who generally focus their efforts on keeping that power in their hands (this description of course could be applied to many countries) - hence the overall economic growth not meaning too much. also, what does it say about the strength of a govt in the first place if it is indeed susceptible to attack by drug cartels - good bit as well about the U.S. which was so concerned about a fair election in the Ukraine watching calmly as Mexican elections are repeatedly, blatantly rigged - I can't help but think that if the government were to "fail" its deserved lack of popular support would be a big contributing factor.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I guess it's a replay of the first question a/the state needs to answer: how do you solve the problem of violence?

tho in this case the govt is also a fairly serious perpetrator of violence against its own citizens. & not just in guerrilla wars either - Oaxaca recently, the Acteal Massacre of Las Abejas, all the way back to Tlateloco. I mean I think your question is still a valid one it's just complicated in this cos the govt is largely in the same business as the cartels - selling natural resources to foreigners & using hired thugs to keep the poor in line.
 
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