Quote: (12-21-2015 04:55 PM)DamienCasanova Wrote:
Cross posted from the Trump thread
"Cartel Land"
http://cartellandmovie.com/
I was just blown away by the real talk in this movie, it's highly recommended viewing for everyone here, especially anyone with any doubts about the problem and the depths of corruption in Mexico right now. It makes you realize just how much the government is fully complicit and is backing and funding everything, all the way down to the guys who cook meth in the fields at night. They have their own custom government uniforms on while they are making the drugs! Even a grassroots movement by the people who oppose the cartels was quickly co-opted and turned into a whole new cartel enforcing the narco trafficking. It's amazing to see how true it is that power corrupts, and how quickly and effectively that can happen to even seemingly good men. An amazing documentary, and a very harrowing view of humanity probing our morality, it will make you wonder what kind of a price do you put on morals and values.
Second this. Absolutely fantastic. Great to watch along with reading some of William S. Lind's work on 4GW tactics and strategies.
It ends with two contrasting views about whether the "cycle" can be broken. The story supporting the optimistic view is a touching analogy but not practical. But one can reason about the underlying causes and possible avenues of breaking the cycle. In fact, I would argue if you look at the sufficiently large picture it's not a cycle at all, it's a one-way sequence. The key problems:
1. Thriving US Black Market for Drugs.
2. Government corruption and incompetence.
3. The drug cartels themselves.
Unmet US Demand for drugs => stimulate creation of cartels => cartels gain wealth and power but lack legitimacy => rely on violence and bribery to compete and survive in the unregulated market => cartel money goes into the economy but culture and community are destroyed => cartels diversify based on what they're good at: violence, intimidation, and smuggling => communities suffer even more => government doesn't fight back because it's corrupt and intimidated => Mexicans from destroyed communities are trafficked (by cartels) to the US => US doesn't care => wages go down, real estate value goes up, demand for food goes up as profit margins increase from the cheap labor.
It all starts with the demand. That is the hardest thing to address. The only real option is to get go Singapore with punishments for simple possession. The downsides here should be obvious. It's politically unpalatable and ripe for abuse.
If you can't address demand you can go the opposite direction and address the legal conflict. If you legalize it, as is happening with marijuana already, then you give virtuous citizens opportunities to compete in the market. Once the thugs and warlords start to weaken and their armies start to wither, you go in and take them down. Downsides here are standard drug abuse issues: adverse affects on productivity and family cohesion, increases in motor vehicle accidents, healthcare costs, and petty crime. While I don't think legal heroin would be the disaster some think it would, it also wouldn't be all the sunshine and roses that libertarian left would tell you either.
Encouraging individual vigilante defense as depicted in
Cartel Land is another potential avenue, but at the current scale is likely a really bad idea as it would mean the state has failed to enforce the rule of law. Self-defense is one thing, but if citizens are arming themselves to fight off cartels that are slaughtering innocent people for the sake of fear and intimidation, it means the state has failed its duties.
If you address demand or legality, fighting corruption just becomes a matter of vigilance and transparency. If demand and legality remain as they are, corruption is a much tougher nut to crack. Corruption stems from circumstances (
silver or lead) and from cultural deterioration and loss of virtue and integrity in a ruling class. Individual instances of corruption can be addressed and dealt with, but if it's society-wide it may be impossible to recover.
Finally, you do have to defeat the violent cartels and destroy the distribution networks. However if you do this without addressing the core economic or state-level corruption, then it will be difficult and another cartel will simply take its place.