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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Actually, the Mexican police have been stepping up their action for some time now, some with the help of the US military. This is one crazy-ass war, that is for sure.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 03:50pm PT
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k-man, the police can't handle it. Just yesterday a car bomb detonated at a police station killing a commander and maiming 30 others. The military needs to be involved (and they are now).
Everyday a police commander is executed by these rats. I haven't heard of US Mil participation other than Nat'l Guard on 'observation' missions at the border.
I do know that multiple Predator drones will be deployed (unarmed) for surveillance. There are one or two up right now.
Bottom line? The Mexican military needs to confront these jokers. The bad boys are highly trained para-military with good firepower. Right now the do as they please. But the Mex Mil is stepping up. That's good.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 04:16pm PT
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Funny, AC, they were running BP enlistment ads on right wing radio...I considered it.
They were also running free chopper-pilot training if signed on to the company who would hire you. All the Viet-Nam era guys are retiring and they need pilots.
I was leaning towards BP, but the location was a deterrant. And I was never a fan of military-style 'boot-camps'. I could prolly suck it up and do it, but it ain't for me. I'll stick to manufacturing. If they re-state a shortage of good rednecks, I may reconsider.
What do you think of the recent violence by the Zetas down there?
Today's violence;
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=304811&D=2010-09-04&SO=&HC=1
Only 2 commanders shot dead....
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 04:25pm PT
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Well see, this is part of the problem. Every time a BP agent fires his weapon, HE is investigated as an aggressor. Everyone knows people coming across the border illegally are the aggressors.
They don't necessarily need to all be shot, but I think the BP should have a bit more faith from the DOJ and authorities as to why they fired a weapon.
F*#king bullshit ROE again.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 04:32pm PT
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AC, I don't think you understand the types that are crossing our border other than the ones 'doing the work Americans won't do".
These are bad guyz. You almost need special ops guys down there to dominate their skills. They have .50 sniper rifles, man! That's about a mile accuracy if you relatively trained on it.
You need to fight fire with fire, bro. Put some SEALS down there, maybe 2 teams. Seek and destroy mission.
The Zetas are tough guys. Think of them as mercenaries. Let's quit f*#king around and just do them!
This too;
Terrorists across the border?
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=299408&D=2010-06-22&SO=&HC=2
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Yeah, the narcos (as the Mexican locals call 'em) don't seem to have a problem with beheading the Chief of Police, or anybody else who appears to have a chance to cross them. The local papers don't report on the happenings any more because they shoot up everybody at the paper if any type of account comes out--even if it's just to say shots were fired.
When I was down at EPC in March, there were 15 beheadings in Acapulco in a week, police captians, judges, laywers, etc. The whole deal with dissolving bodies, it's rowdy.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Yes, "lets". Good to know you "thought about" joining the BP, I'm sure those actually patrolling are in awe of your "almost, sorta kinda, thought about it", heroism and patriotism.
Yet another armchair warrior, screaming into the void between bouts of wiping away the Cheetos crumbs.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 04:49pm PT
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Will, f*#k you! I have other duties in OUR system. I was never meant for LEO, even though i respect those dudes.
Why is it guys like you reject that? I support LEO but that's not my place in society. I'm a producer and manufacturer. Is that hard on you????
I perpetuate production of gear. i support our guys though.....
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 04:54pm PT
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It's always amazing how you rule out people....
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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second from right, has to be Locker?
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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The ARE the South American mafia, quite literally. Last I knew, Mexico was in North America! (flame)
Gringos are so ethnocentric that they don't even know where the USA is on a world map! I'd bet that you think you are an American, and that citizens of Mexico are not Americans. There is a proper Spanish word for citizens of the USA - "estadounidense" ("estadounidenses" plural). Yanquis are so ethnocentric that there isn't even a word for it. One would have to use the phrase, "Citizen of the United States of America" to be accurate.
(end of rant)
The latest numbers being commonly quoted on the Mexican "drug war" are 26,000 killed, since late 2006 when President Calderón stepped it up. Today I read 28,000. Those stats are no doubt highly inaccurate and used for political purposes. Nevertheless, that is an astonishing toll. That's almost half way to the 58,000 estadounindenses killed in Vietnam.
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pc
climber
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If you smoke dope or consume other illegal drugs, you're part of the problem. Take personal responsibility.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Drop in the bucket compared to Vietnamese losses JM.
pc--- Buy domestic!
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pc
climber
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Ron, I certainly support local growers. Just not "that" type of grower.
cheers,
pc
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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The only way to stop the drug cartels is to remove the monetary support. The only way to do that is to legalize everything and have our gov't sell it cheaper than the cartels could. In order to keep people from being stoned immaculate in public is to set up "stone zones" across the country where you can go and get wasted without worry of doing damage to others. Sort of like dizzyland for deadheads (actually, that was the beauty of dead concerts...).
I propose we use one of the channel islands right off our coast, the black rock desert, an island in Puget Sound, etc as these areas, make people sign liability waivers, and let concessions set up to sell whatever is needed to conduct the pursuit of happiness.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 08:14pm PT
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Last I knew, Mexico was in North America! (flame)
Gringos are so ethnocentric that they don't even know where the USA is on a world map! I'd bet that you think you are an American, and that citizens of Mexico are not Americans. There is a proper Spanish word for citizens of the USA - "estadounidense" ("estadounidenses" plural). Yanquis are so ethnocentric that there isn't even a word for it. One would have to use the phrase, "Citizen of the United States of America" to be accurate.
(end of rant)
The latest numbers being commonly quoted on the Mexican "drug war" are 26,000 killed, since late 2006 when President Calderón stepped it up. Today I read 28,000. Those stats are no doubt highly inaccurate and used for political purposes. Nevertheless, that is an astonishing toll. That's almost half way to the 58,000 estadounindenses killed in Vietnam.
Do you have point??? WTF are you saying?
And skepty's solution is legalize everything? Do you really think that'll work? They still grow and produce the coke there. By legalizing it you do what??? Just make more junkies?
Do you idiots think of consequences???? Or do you just want to have fun unrelenting, with no regard???
Fools.
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Do you have point??? WTF are you saying? Yes bluering, I have a point. Sarcasm is wasted on the people who can't understand that Mexico is in North America, not South America.
Mexico is part of N-O-R-T-H America.
So, Mexican narcotraficantes are not "South American mafia." Clear enough?
Btw, sorry for the attitude. I should be climbing this holiday weekend. Or surfing. Anything but sitting here overlooking the fog on the beach :(
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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The cartels of mayhico are just like the corporations of america wreaking havoc on its' citinzenry while calling the shots for the government....viva la corporati.....rj
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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WE DIDNT CROSS THE BORDER
THE BORDER CROSSED US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 09:33pm PT
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Yes bluering, I have a point. Sarcasm is wasted on the people who can't understand that Mexico is in North America, not South America.
Mexico is part of N-O-R-T-H America.
Now you're just splitting hairs. Everyone considers North America to be the US and Canada and South America to be everything south of our loose border...
You probably know this too, but would rather dabble in stupid subtleties rather than take on the issue.
And yeah I did do geography with Mexico, Central America, and the SOUTH AMERICA, but us gringos use a generic term for everything SOUTH of our border.
SOUTH America!!!
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Everyone considers North America to be the US and Canada and South America to be everything south of our loose border...
If "Everyone" means citizens of the USA, then you have just made my point about ethnocentrism. Thank you.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Weird, I was taught geography in Communist Russia that North America included everything down to even south of PANAMA.
Here is a map of North America, from free world maps http://www.freeworldmaps.net/northamerica/
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Since providing only one source can be questioned as being biased,
here is wikipedia's map of North America
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Everyone?
Maybe everyone stupid.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 09:47pm PT
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If "Everyone" means citizens of the USA, then you have just made my point about ethnocentrism. Thank you.
Well, I don't call it that, but if you have an official name, that's cool.
You are also walking away from the reality of this thread without remarking on it. What say you?
As for your ethnocentrism, do Mexicans behave in an ethno-centric manner? Do they have a term for NORTH of the border peolples??? Or are they innocent of classifying peoples?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Fatty, I have not only been shot AT, but I have been SHOT.
I see no reason, like you do, to bring it up like it is something to brag about. It's NOT, it HURTS.
Why don't you join the REAL military and "serve" if you think you are such hot stuff.
Fuking three old.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Fatty, grow up.
People who really do have something to brag about, DON'T.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Buy domestic!
Like the "domestic" they were growing in Yosemite?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:25pm PT
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Funny, or not surprising, a right-winger mentions violence on the border and is called a racist and maybe soon a xenophobe...
I'm not surprised, just wondering when people on the other side get tired of this. It ain't racism. It's border control and stability. How do you run a country with no border controls????
It's insane! And anarchy!!!!!!!
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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By legalizing it you do what??? Just make more junkies? Do you idiots think of consequences???? Or do you just want to have fun unrelenting, with no regard???
Oh, I'm definitely voting for the fun! But I think your calling us idiots is a bit beyond the pale. I've refrained from name-calling and I would appreciate it if you would too, but maybe that's beyond your maturity level.
You seem to think that people have the inability to control themselves. Perhaps that's true for you, but most of the people I personally know don't suffer from that problem. You might want to research some of the recent studies (The Portugal Policy is one of many) that show when "junkies" are given unlimited access to pure drugs, they eventually wean themselves off and have less health problems because they aren't being exposed to the adulterants used to cut the drugs. Right now drugs are available to anyone who wants them precisely because there is so much money involved in the distribution. Take that away and people will find something else to peddle. Maybe gold coins...
You might also want to look into the history of the prohibition of drugs. There you'll find that the laws (Harrison act, et al.) were largely enacted as a result of racial fear-mongering.
We have laws against public intoxication that would cover people being stoned in public. We have employment drug screening to prevent people being stoned at work. Alcohol by most metrics is more dangerous than most recreational drugs and smoking is responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people each year, both of which are legal.
Is that enough "thinking about the consequences" for you, or do you need someone to show you which buttons to push on your keyboard to do some actual research on the consequences of legalization?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:29pm PT
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What also pisses me of is all the lurkers here who would normally agree with me, remaining silent!
This is a problem in our country. People bitching and feeling down privately, yet not speaking out!
Speak out!~!!!!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:32pm PT
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You seem to think that people have the inability to control themselves.
Are you actually condoning the legalization of coke??? Heroin?
EDIT;
Being the pratical person I am, and to show you I'm not a leftist loon, I say build the dang fence, and be down with it
Smartest thing you ever said.....we have found common ground. High five!!!!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Bluey....i kinda agree with you on eliminating the CAR Tell but tremble at the thought of a brow-beating from Norton...rj
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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Did you not read my post? Give it a try, it's in English. And click on the link & read that article too. You might just learn something.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:37pm PT
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Did you not read my post? Give it a try, it's in English. And click on the link & read that article too. You might just learn something.
Why don't you summarize and tell me what you found interesting.??? I don't read sh#t at someone's whim. Tell me your point, and provide a link to document any 'facts' you mention....
Are you new here?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Fatty: Again, try to get this. No one, but you, gives a sh#t.
RottenJohhny: Forgive me as I grew up in Communist Russia, what is a CAL?
Dumbshit Norton.
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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Wow. I don't know how to make the link I embedded in the post any more easy. Read the post and when you come to the blue text, that's the link (which is the evidence I'm citing to support my point). Move your cursor over it, click the mouse and the article will "magically appear" in a new window (if that's how you've configured your browser). Then read the article, which is exactly what you are asking me to produce.
Edit: Wait, are you really Lois?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:44pm PT
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I think he's referring to a CARtel, Norton.
I do have solutions to all this too...shall I explain??? Other than killing bad guyz!!!
Serious!
EDIT: Skepty, why not tell me what's there first? What is the crux?
Is that so hard?
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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You are also walking away from the reality of this thread without remarking on it. What say you? Okay, I'll bite: It's a horrendous situation that Mexico is in. The USA too, as it is a problem which greatly impacts both countries. I feel for the law abiding Mexican families who are caught in the crossfire. I know many people on both sides of the border who have suffered.
US citizens are shocked by the open cruelty of the cartels. What happens on the US side of the border is no less evil, but they have become desensitized to that. The violence from drug distribution affects every city. Our prisons are overflowing; many or most of the offenses are related to drugs. Countless billions of dollars have been spent since Reagan proclaimed a "War on Drugs" in the mid-eighties. There does not seem to be any hint of success, by either Federal Government, to stem the use, distribution, or violence.
I work with recovering addicts and their children on a daily basis. There is very little money spent on treatment programs. While the demand exists for illegal drugs, there will always be dealers, cartels, and violence. Clearly, the USA is "barking up the wrong tree" with the money spent to wage war on drugs and failing to fund treatment for addiction. If the USA diverted just 50% of the money toward treatment and prevention, I think it would make a significant dent in the problem.
Mexico has a different situation. The government is fighting highly organized and heavily armed cartels for control of the local, state, and federal governments, police, politicians, judiciary, etc. The stakes are high. That seems to qualify Mexico's war on drugs as a "civil war."
As for your ethnocentrism, do Mexicans behave in an ethno-centric manner? Do they have a term for NORTH of the border peolples??? Or are they innocent of classifying peoples? Sure, there is ethnocentrism everywhere. My observation is that Mexicans aren't silly enough to think that the world revolves around Mexico. There is a lot of national pride, which is not the same thing.
Yes, there are names for citizens of the USA: yanqui (Yankee), gringo (not derogatory as it once was), estadounidense (formal), gabacho (derogatory slang).
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:51pm PT
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Everyone take note.. AC, is geographically correct. Wow!!! You're a better man than me.
(Even though he prolly calls Mexico and Central Americans, South Americans too. But he's superior, so it's cool....)
fags..
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 10:55pm PT
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Juan, I appreciate your honesty!
I actually agree with you on many things. I think Mexico may be on a good cycle of recovery.
Let me list my solutions....
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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"fags"
Why are they fags?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 11:01pm PT
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Norton, STFU!!! I w3as kidding!
The solution is jobs. The US should be doing more business with Mexico and SOUTH America and less with China....
We get a two-for. Less illegal immigration and closer shipping. There are way more benefits, but I won't list them...those are enough.
Once Mexico has a good manufacturing base, drugs become unnecessary. Bring them from drug supplier to manufacturing supplier. It's right there!!!!!
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Bluering, STFU yourself. I am a fag, and I am not kidding.
Add that to your list of what I am.
1) a DEVIL
2) A Communist
3) a Fag
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
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Blue- I don't know how to make it any more clear than it was in the original post
You might want to research some of the recent studies (The Portugal Policy is one of many) that show when "junkies" are given unlimited access to pure drugs, they eventually wean themselves off and have less health problems because they aren't being exposed to the adulterants used to cut the drugs.
I'm guessing that you just want to spray rather than read. Have at it.
Edit: your post below is proof in point.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2010 - 11:20pm PT
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So , Skepy, you say let's have it it!!!! Free drugs for all???
Jim, NAFTA ain't right.....
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kbstuffnpuff
Sport climber
State of Confusion
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Mexico Drug Wars ain't got nuthin' on California Drug Peace.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Once Mexico has a good manufacturing base, drugs become unnecessary
Mexico does have a good manufacturing base.
And while I'm fairly sure that plenty of Mexicans take a toke now and again, the drugs that fuel the narco business are for the US, not Mexico. As long as people in the US want drugs, there will be a drug trade. It really has very little to do with whether or not Mexico has the capability to manufacture auto parts or electronics. US citizens, like your pot-smoking self, are the reason for the drug trade.
If you didn't want your pot, or your neighbor didn't want her coke, there would be no Mexican gangs smuggling drugs into the US. Why is this so hard to understand? Why do you want to bomb Mexico for a problem that is caused by your desire for drugs?
And, for what it's worth, nobody I know calls Mexico "South America." Well, except you. Some people in the US and Canada lump Mexico into a group with the countries immediately to its south under the term "Central America."
If you're looking for a term to encompass all the world south of the Rio Grande, try "Latin America."
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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This discussion is like Jerry Springer without the chairs...
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Norton...you are a satanic , communistic , evolutionist homo....eastman , do you still ski race?...rj
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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I occasionally do a race but try to ski as much as possible and stay half-way fit. Recovering from foot surgery so climbing might be more fun in the future. TWACK!
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Can anyone provide some hard information as to the incidence of violence in Mexico, perhaps broken down by state, over time? As compared say to the US? Surely there are statistics as to exactly how many violent crimes and deaths there are per 100,000 population per year. A bunch of lurid deaths are great tabloid fodder, but don't necessarily mean much.
It's pretty clear that there are some places in Mexico where there is considerable violence, some of it random. And that a good part of the problem is based on money received from Americans who buy drugs.
The news media up here loves to portray US cities, particularly inner cities, as homes to grotesque violence and crimes. Does that make it true?
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Quote PC: If you smoke dope or consume other illegal drugs, you're part of the problem. Take personal responsibility.
Bears repeating. No demand. No drug lords.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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It is super scary how bad things have gotten down there.
Disclaimer. I don't smoke pot, drink or do any other recreational drugs.
The prohibition on most of these drugs has caused us far more social and economic problems then the actual drugs.. It's a no brainer to at least legalize and regulate weed. The best way to put a real hurt on the narcos is to hit them in their pocket books. Cheap legal drugs would be devistateing to them.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 12:11pm PT
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Dingus, for this discussion everything south of the US border is SA.
It makes the discussion easier. The drugs are largely produced in true SA and brought through Central America and trafficked though Mexico.
Let's just call it all SA for the sake of the discussion, esse.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Around these necks of the woods , rumor has it , that heroin has become the recreational drug of choice for the youngsters.....i'm assuming the heroin comes from mexico and that heroin is more dangerous than pot...so maybe bluey has a good point about the cartels being squished but good luck succeeding with that task in corrupt mexico...rj
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 12:58pm PT
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My second answer was to get these kids an education.
I had a feeling there was more to the story...Good for you for helping these deadbeats find a life. I mean that. That's all they need, another way that is less violent.
Same goes for some Islamists, but that's another thread.
If you read back at my solutions for Mexico and SA in general, it revolves around the US moving it's manufacturing base from f*#king ASIA to our brothers down south!!! (Sorry, I get worked up because this seems so obvious to me).
We'd have less illegal migration and more work for our Southern bros AND we don't have to ship stuff across the ocean.
Seems so obvious to me....
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Captain...or Skully
Big Wall climber
Transporter Room 2
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Where have YOU been, Blue? Lots of manufacturing in Mex.
It's STILL cheaper in Asia.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
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And bluy, saying mexico is south america is just dumb- own it and move on..
I did, I redefined it for the sake of this thread...
Skully, that's my f*#king point!!!!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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After some coffee , i remembered that pain killers have also become one of the drugs of choice for the recreationist....the danish heroin parks failed because the rides were too scary for the users...rj
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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If you read back at my solutions for Mexico and SA in general,
Dude, you don't even know what f*#king CONTINENT Mexico is on...and you pretend that you have some insight and "solutions" for them?
The ongoing dearth of self awareness is stunning. It's almost like you enjoy being stupid.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Voter competency test?
The Republican party would be out of business, you would lose the entire south.
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sandstone conglomerate
climber
sharon conglomerate central
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I only smoke locally grown, medicinal grade marijuana LEB. I find a good, lung crushing hit inspires me to do all sorts of things..climb hard, bike hard,run rivers hard, clean hard, whatever. I don't smoke mexican bullsh#t, as probably most of the smokers on here don't either. You want to support cartels, start messing with heroin or blowing coke. enough people grow locally there is not a dearth of good, north of the border ganja. let people grow legally and see how much changes in mexico. probably not much at all.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 5, 2010 - 08:26pm PT
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dude, you don't even know what f*#king CONTINENT Mexico is on...and you pretend that you have some insight and "solutions" for them?
The ongoing dearth of self awareness is stunning. It's almost like you enjoy being stupid.
When did I ever claim Mexico was on a diff continent? WTF are you talking about?
You know, f*#king morons like you have nothing else intelligent to say but to whine about my self identified geography.
WTF?
That's you're big problem is that I didn't include Mexico and Central America with SA???
WTF???
Is it so hard to understand that the problem I refer to is one that occurs SOUTH of our border?
Can you you see the connection now????
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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You can also see russia from Wasilla , Alaska in case you didn't already know....rj
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 12:38am PT
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What, did this turn into a f*#king geography thread???
Where's Honduras, anyways? Largozuela? Donde esta?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 01:13am PT
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I got no updates, gf, it all must be really casual down there...'till tomorrow.
It's a news-cycle thing....
Newsflash!!! I think I broke my little toe today whilst climbing!!!!!
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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i'm on weed right now.
i'm part of the problem.
i also got the bluster high and he fell down and busted his toe.
again,
i'm part of the problem.
i should just kill myself.
and return to life.
and commit acts of murder.
at funeral homes.
is that possible?
i want dead bodies transformed back to life.
all law enforcement and military shall recieve a heavy blow to the skull.
kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 01:36am PT
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My toe's actually purple now....Hahahaahhha!!!!!
Kick ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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what about those hard body bikini chicks,
was that sweet, or what?
that was some serious pound cake, right there,
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 01:58am PT
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Sometimes ya get softballs thrown at ya....
It was nice.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Watched Las Vegas Jail on Tru TV last night. Interesting how all the cases that they highlighted involved alcohol. Booze messes people up. certainly many of these drunks may have done other drugs as well that they did not admit to but the common denominator by far was good old booze. One idiot swilled 2 quarts of Vodka... then they end up in LV jail with DWI and resisting arrest, etc,etc charges.. pretty crazy stuff.
On annother note I listened to an NPR interview with a guy who studyed street heroin addicts. While there was no doubt that Heroin was a huge factor in them ending up street people the substance that was killing them was not the opiats. It was alcohol and tobacco. Literaly all of the hard core street heroin addicts were also heavy alcohol and tobaco users and all were suffering and eventualy dying from alcohol and tobaco related illness.
Not sure how this fits into the equasion but there it is..
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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we didn' get that baked,
Bridwell taught me this trick of smoking high grade shake.
you can smoke it all day long, it's cheap, and you don't get as jittery on the 5.9
if you buy over 100 bucks worth of hi-grade at the meridian co-op, they throw in a pre rolled for free.
rolled out of natural hemp paper.
then, after the climbing day is done, you have a good snack and then break out the hi grade and watch it's a mad mad mad mad world.
see how we work the PG?
this is the Hippy Lettuce thread, right?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 02:20pm PT
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So, using tradman's logic, tobacco and alcohol should be illegal and weed and coke legal?
It ain't the substance, it's the person! Trust me, I know. I did a couple laps around the block with coke, heroin, and meth.
It's about the person and their willpower, or lack thereof.
But this isn't the issue of this thread. It's the violence that concurs with the drug biz. And it's f*#king brutal. I'm talking beheadings, burning people alive, limb-chopping, etc...
It's real. And it's coming home.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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You can buy tasers at the gun show at the cow palace.
i bought two for the face lift, just in case...
were campin with fatty, right?
i don't want him breaking into my weed at night.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Blue not sure what my logic on that one was. just bringing up the fact that the legal drugs/booze are pretty darn brutal.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 02:38pm PT
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just bringing up the fact that the legal drugs/booze are pretty darn brutal.
They can be. They are even deadly. But so can water if drunk in mass quantities.
Everything in moderation. Especially the toxins!
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Gene
Social climber
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Let's see. Going north to south....
North America
South America
Central America
Bluey,
You are a genius.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Intersting that tobaco and alcohol are both more deadly in long term use than heroin....
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 6, 2010 - 03:02pm PT
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Intersting that tobaco and alcohol are both more deadly in long term use than heroin....
That is a fact!
Heroin does not really impair judgement, except for the nodding off, and doesn't implicity induce cancer.
Good point. And awesome drug...just kills off your nerve endings. So ya can't feel anymore.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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remember ol blu, that toe is on the Outside.
so thats the first toe to get whacked.
can you post a pic of that sucker?
it's national injury day at the taco, did you see that fish hook?
sheist!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Not suggesting that it would be a good idea to get our mainstream populance hooked on smack but at the same time it is absurd to put people in jail who really need rehab and mental health care.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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and the most monagamous relationship they will ever be in, with bubba,
biggggg bubba,
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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They get drug counseling in jail. That is mostly myth (referring to County jails).
In the CDCR (California) prisons, some inmates get 12-Step self-help support groups, voluntarily, and only if they request it. There are some treatment programs, but the parolees whom I have counseled said that it was not available to them or not available in their facility.
Intersting that tobaco and alcohol are both more deadly in long term use than heroin.... In total numbers, yes, alcohol and tobacco take a greater toll. That is not a case for heroin being safer than alcohol and tobacco!
Heroin addicts don't seem to live long. In addition to HIV, Hepatitis B&C, there are blood infections from dirty needles. Heroin is stepped on/cut several times to a fraction of it's purity. When the addict gets a strong batch, it's an overdose. The big killer seems to be when an addict is abstinent for a period of time and then relapses. Their tolerance has diminished. Injecting their former dose is an immediate and deadly OD.
Oh, and then there are the ones who are getting methadone maintenance and continue to abuse H, another setup for an OD. There is the tendency to abuse every other narcotic, including Oxy. That's quite deadly when mixed with alcohol.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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The people this guy studied were long term heroin users. He stated quite clearly that the long term heroin use in and of itself was not what was killing them. they were dying from liver and kidny failuer from drinking their brains out as well as heart related failures brought on by tobacco and alchohol. Not saying that heroin is good for you. Just repeteing this guys observation that alcohol is super bad when abused.
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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anxiety is what all the ex junkies talk about.
keeping a steady flow of heroin coming in can be tough, especially if you are moving around a lot,
and if you run out for just one day, bad news,
have to hit the bottle Hard until you can score.
post traumatic score syndrome. thats why you drink after kicking the big H.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Swimming in LEB tears.
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Fatty said They get drug counseling in jail.
Man, you are really out of touch.
And bluey there is nothing "heating up" about the situation in Mexico. It's been red, red hot for a long time now. Also, prohibition was proven ineffective nearly 100 years ago. We are just reproving it. And if you really think that drugs aren't a major source of income for those cartels then you're missing the whole reason that there is so much violence south of the border to begin with.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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What a sad world bluering lives in. Terrified of, in no particular order: Democrats. Socialists. Communists. Marxists. Hugo Chavez. Mexicans. Muslims. Non-Christians. And on and on. Essentially, anyone who isn't an American of the variety that he prefers.
That part of the Republican strategery that counts on keeping people frightened works too well at times. Pretty pathetic, a strategy based largely on fear, greed, and plutocratic populism.
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Papillon Rendre
climber
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MH:
Silly me, I thought you were discussing the social and political landscape of Kansas, and pondered momentarily why you left out "gay".
-PR
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Coz, don't be disheartened. The people you're trying to convince here are only willing to listen to opinions that support their POV, despite any evidence to the contrary.
Funny thing is that when drugs are decriminalized and available through the gov't, junkies generally get well. They don't have the crap that's used to cut the drugs floating around in their veins, they don't have to steal to get the drugs, and they get counseling, all of which reduce the cost to the taxpayer. Bingo, billions of dollars saved, thousands of lives saved, narcoterrorists out of jobs, a whole arm of the gov't out of business. (hey, isn't that one of the big points the Republicans want- less gov't?).
Let the geographically challenged, myopic trolls have their little party. They'll soon tire of it.
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Do they have jobs now? The gov't programs I'm aware of give the drugs to the addicts, so they don't have to beg/steal. And it's much cheaper than the crap offered on the street anyway.
What's the incentive for them to stop? They eventually decide it's no way to live. That comes through maturity and/or counseling. Most junkies would stop if they could if they've been doing it for any length of time. Of course there will be those who won't, but that's a small percentage of them.
As a whole, providing free, pure drugs and counseling to those who want it is hugely cheaper than waging a non-productive war on the problem. Of course the drug companies probably would not want that because it will cut into their profits.
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Papillon Rendre
climber
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Coz:
In theory your logic is spot on, but one problem with having these "drugs" more accessible could potentially lead to increased "hard" drug use among our youth.
Legalizing heroin and cocaine could open up a Pandora's Box that we are unable to close, and lead to more severe consequences here in the USA.
-PR
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Papillon Rendre
climber
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Tami:
I do not have scientific data, but I am making an observation based on the mentality of some of our youth. They're curious, lack experience and they do experiment.
The examples you have used are indeed extreme.
It seems as if each generation finds some new drug of choice.
Just glad mine was grass roots.
-PR
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dirtbag
climber
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Coz, don't be disheartened. The people you're trying to convince here are only willing to listen to opinions that support their POV, despite any evidence to the contrary
Pot, I made up my mind long ago should be legalized.
I'm actually pretty open minded about other "harder" drugs. I tend to fall slightly into the "keep it illegal" camp but I can definitely be persuaded to switch because the keep it illegal viewpoint isn't working all that great.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Order of post: NAFTA, continent, Mexico
Coz, why pick on just Clinton, Bushie Sr was also for it apparently.
From that outstanding research site (with a pinch, or is that grain, of salt): Wikipedia
Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1986 between the three nations, the leaders met in San Antonio, Texas, on December 17, 1992, to sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. The agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch.
Before the negotiations were finalized, Bill Clinton came into office in the U.S. and Kim Campbell in Canada, and before the agreement became law, Jean Chrétien had taken office in Canada.
So, Coz, if Bushie Boy Sr was (re-)elected over Clinton, NAFTA still would have been signed. Clinton inherited the politico part from the previous generation.
As for what defines a continent – there are five models/definitions – one seven continent model, two six continent, one five continent and one four continent. But in all of those models, Central America is still part of North America (and I think that Europe is just a panhandle of Asia, hence Eurasia).
Now back to Wikipedia (if it seems I make disparaging comments about the site, it is a great place to start researching something, but - especially with contentious, controversial and contemporary issues – much of the content should be questioned (ie given a second opinion, I suppose, by another source).
Okay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent
The seven-continent model is usually taught in China and most English-speaking countries. The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, Russia, the former states of the USSR, and Japan. The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, and most parts of Europe including Germany[citation needed], Greece[citation needed], Italy[citation needed], Portugal and Spain. This model may be taught to include only the five inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica)[20][21] — as depicted in the Olympic logo.[22]
So, depending on where and how you were educated all five models make sense.
But to the thread topic, I read about the cartel (and other) atrocities in Mexico and shed a tear for the country. So much mayhem and death it seems.
Media bias? (Remember I’ve been a journo for some 37 years in five countries, and I have no illusions about the “profession”). Most of my news comes from the Irish media, BBC, CNN, International Herald Tribune Forbes occasionally (for business), sometimes Christian Science Monitor and Wall Street Journal, various US paper websites. How much bull and spin am I being fed? That is why I do try various news sources. I have even watched Faux news, it reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live show.
I have no solutions for Mexico, the Middle East, Afghanistan (where my nephew/godson is at the moment with his Marine unit), Mexico drug cartels, nor for other conflicts further from US shores that receive less media treatment, such as Central Africa (Congo etc – kidnapping young children and turning them into “soldiers”), Sudan, and despot regimes like Burma.
I have my ideas, and beliefs, my politics on such issues but solutions? Unfortunately, none.
As for alcohol, I have now seen first hand its damaging effects - Korsakoff's Syndrome (Psychosis) (also Vitamin B1 Thiamine deficiency) on my most loved one. However, the damage has been stopped and now the process of hoping to reverse it.
And it amazes me how some people, even some health/medical professionals, think that alcoholism is a lifestyle choice. It is an addiction, an illness. Perhaps I learned that much too late and should have kept the other half more from the bottle than I did (BIG guilt trip there). Now the hard work of recovery begins. It has also hit our finances hard, as I am now her full-time carer, though the local health board is giving me some relief.
(Perhaps some of the above is better on another thread or new one.)
Am I off topic?
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Interesting Coz, I was actually starting to write that Clinton must have liked NAFTA too in order to sign it into law but I deleted that point. I guess I should have left it.
Of course there is little difference between Bush, Clinton and Obama US policy wide, much the same as since the end of WW2, in fact arguably since the Spanish-American War, if not earlier.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Thanks Sully, but on a regular basis countries such as Finland and the Czech Republic are rated heavier drinkers than the Irish, but yeah, but there is some truth in part of the stereotype. I had a couple of beers starting when I was like 12 or so, with older brothers or family approval. I never turned it in to an addiction and illness.
But kids nowadays, at least in Ireland, are bingeing starting at the age of 11 or so. A couple of beers once or so a week when an adolescent back home in Cali, under supervision is one thing (or wine, my friends in Provençe that I worked for at Chateau Montaud, used to water down wine for their kids, but not much wine. Moderation is the key.
Bingeing on a naggon of spirits (vodka usually, with some Red Bull or such), as well as drinking five or six beers at a time and several times a week plus? At 13-18? But it is not only a problem that Ireland has.
Now back to the Mexican Drug Wars. Next...
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Thanks Jeff, she is slowly healing.
But what about Doug MacArthur as well with those other two?
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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wow... bluey admitting he knows little about this subject...
good call Bluering.
Nice map too.
I ponder a question: How many billion $$ industry is this?
Let's call it 50 billion to be on the safe side.
Now I ask: How do they get that product into the country?
If I believe my newspaper, of media, I'd believe that it comes in on the backs of Illegal immagrants who are coming to do the jobs americans won't do... 50-80 lbs at a time...
Then I think "Wait... that don't make sense... 50 billion.. on the backs... of .. still don't make sense..."
Then I think back to NAFTA...
Now there is a machine that can get some work done..
Businesses in the US can now send trucks over the border, pick up some shirts made in south america.. hide a few thousand pounds of "product" and then turn around and get it back into the US, without to much of a problem....
That would add up to the 50 billion, on the safe/short side...
Then I look at the real #'s.. way more than 50 billion, as far as I've been told....
you do the math... Is it really 50-80 pounds at a time? or would you be more apt to believe trcuk loads at a time?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I thought Clinton signed NAFTA into existence?
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Gene
Social climber
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As an addenda to DMT's Hershey story.......
Modesto and Oakdale are in Stanislaus County which happens to be one of the world leaders in the production of almonds. Hershey liked almonds. It liked lots of them. The almond trade here got its boost with bunches of $$$ sent to the US of A by the late great Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, aka, the Shah of Iran and King of Kings. His henchman purchased a gazzillion acres on the county's east side with the Shah's tainted bucks. It was a way for the Shah et al to allow a smooth landing if things went bad, however, the plan did not work out as well as they expected.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2010 - 11:20am PT
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Cool video Juan!
An update;
http://rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=305235&D=2010-09-10&SO=&HC=1
I found this interesting;
Two unidentified men were found early Thursday morning an area usually used by organized crime to dump their victims, according to Mexican news reports. The find was made in a vacant lot near the intersection of Vicente Guerrero and Bermudez where the victims were found nude with plastic bags tied around their heads, and messages on their person. One message read "For selling heroin to children", while the other read "For working with the old". In a related development, a message was scrawled on a wall near a nursery near the intersection of calles Children Heroes and Panama which warned for the return of a kidnap child, or else. Reports do not say who has been kidnapped.
Vigilantes???
An apparent kidnapping attempt was thwarted by an alert woman in her 60s who shot one armed suspect to death and wounded another. The abduction attempt took place at a residence on calle Ramirez Calderon, where the woman upon seeing the two suspects walk into the house, pulled a .32 revolver and fired at them repeatedly, killing one suspect and wounding the other.The surviving suspect fled the area and was later caught with a 9mm pistol by Juarez police units. The woman's husband, the presumed intended abduction victim, was hit in the shooting as well.
Nice shootin', Mom!
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BrianH
Trad climber
santa fe
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A government that criminalizes behavior that millions of its citizens engage in, risks its legitimacy. A government without legitimacy will eventually lose the ability to govern effectively and in the overall public interest.
This drug war is an attack on legitimacy.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:57pm PT
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Easy to conflate and confuse drug killings and kidnappings, though, as both are common and sometimes happen at cross purposes. But straight kidnappings that have nothing to do with the drug war are incredibly common across the region for the same economic reasons as in the Gulf of Aden.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 07:40pm PT
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Global Hawk surveillance over Mexico. Sweet! These babies can loiter at 60,000 feet altitude and gather lots of intelligence without your even knowing they're there.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/03/16/mexico.us.drones/#
These are also being used in Japan for the humanitarian mission after the big quake.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 08:00pm PT
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Makes you feel all fuzzy inside; don't it, Bleuy?
Oh, you betcha! Don't you?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 08:09pm PT
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Amazing that those little things can fly all the way to South America, and still accomplish absolutely nothing.
Maybe you haven't been following the drug wars. Zetas are going down on a daily basis. The transit routes go through Mexico, through the hands of all the different cartels, including the most powerful and deadly, Zetas.
No need to fly to the sources if you can intercept them in Mexico. We are only flying the GH's over Mexico and relaying the intel, as well as probably montoring the situation if the Federales don't act.
Charlie Sheen better find a new source.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 08:19pm PT
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GH's are strictly surveillance. No arms that I know of. Mexico would never allow that anyway.
Glanton, I'm not sure what cretanous behavior of mine is worthy of this discussion.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Mar 16, 2011 - 08:44pm PT
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Result? Not one iota of change in transportation of drugs into the US.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 09:02pm PT
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OTE, not yet. It has just started last year. SHould be give up hope now because it is 'ineffective' as of yet? Lets go back to doing nothing? Let's go back to shooting bean-bags at drug smugglers?
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Mar 16, 2011 - 09:05pm PT
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Dunno, but every other escalation in the war on drugs has resulted in more violence and more drugs. If it's not working why waste money on it?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 09:05pm PT
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glanton, I think I know who you are, and frankly, you're a f*#king pussy for changing your avatar. Really weak, dude.
And you always come off as anti-pussy in the past...lame. Keep hiding.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2011 - 09:55pm PT
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Dunno, but every other escalation in the war on drugs has resulted in more violence and more drugs. If it's not working why waste money on it?
Silly arguement.
#1 - There is more violence because LEO is pursuing these rats in mexico and on ther border, and even within our borders. Specifically coke.
#2 - Waste money on it? How much money do we waste on rehabing these losers to no avail?
Stop the flow. Make it more expensive. People stop doing it.
(then we deal with the war on alcohol as a result...hehe, sad but true).
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Mar 16, 2011 - 11:19pm PT
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Stop/slow the flow, increase demand and increase profits- just makes for more sophisticated trafficing and motivation to control lucrative routes. How does that solve the problem?
It's all just an unpleasant and violent version of Econ 101.
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wildone
climber
Troy, MT
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Not to nit-pick you bluey, but near your op, you said something about the narcos having .50s with mile accuracy and I just had to say, the Barrett M-82 (which is most likely what they have of the Barrett family) is a 2 MOA weapon. So, at a mile, we're talking about a 32 inch group with match ammo and no wind. And allowing the barrel to fully cool before taking a follow up shot, which is unlikely. Good enough accuracy to hit an engine block of a gigantic truck, but not anti personnel at that range.
Carry on.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Mexico, unlike the US, has strong gun laws. These laws have effectively kept guns out of law abiding citizens hands and the criminals just ignore them. A couple years back I had read an interview with the assistant deputy director of the FBI answering the question: (I'm paraphrasing here) "why do we still have a drug problem after so many of the FBI's (and other government)resources had been committed to the war on drugs". The answer shocked me. "Because about half of our drug investigations end up showing that the CIA is involved." WOW~! I'd heard previously from various people that the CIA was the largest illegal drug dealer in the country, but until that time had not believed a word of it. The CIA has been alleged to be involved in smuggling large scale amounts of drugs, and with the drug money the drug runners in Mexico buy firearms and grenades.
Then the crooked Mexican police sell weapons to drug lords and other crooks to make a few extra bucks and to cap off the disaster the United States ATF agency has been illegally trying to get as many US guns as possible down there coupled with repeated newspaper articles they are instigating about this so as to blame honest US gun owners as being part of the problem and thus lead to the US finally getting Mexico style gun control up here.
Google "Operation gunrunner" for the tip of the iceberg. That we are paying and allowing our government agencies to continue to break all these laws anytime they wish for what ever reason they want is a national disgrace.
There isn't a damn thing any of us can do, it's big money and too far entrenched. Hanging on your own guns and living an honest life is the best you can hope for.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2011 - 02:46pm PT
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Well said, couchmaster, but I think there something we can do. Keep talking about it until we get a politician with the balls to tackle the issue honestly.
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splitter
Trad climber
Hodad surfing the galactic plane
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Feb 17, 2012 - 10:20am PT
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Us to surf Baja.
Nada anymore.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 12:46pm PT
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Coz, sure the tourist areas are largely ok but the fact you enjoyed two weeks
trouble-free is no more illustrative than whatever CNN puts up. Vera Cruz
is a veritable war zone, Acapulco has seen many a major gun battle, and
the kidnapping situation spirals out of control.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 17, 2012 - 12:47pm PT
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Actually I heard "word on the street" in Mexico is;
Leave coz the fuk alone as he's got too many navy seal friends ......
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 17, 2012 - 01:06pm PT
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HaHaHa! Yeah, I doubt that Coz looks an easy mark.
Interestingly the Mexican Tourist Board just the other day noted that
2011 was a record year! Good for them. Too bad that doesn't mean the same
for the average Mexican. Plenty have been caught in the crossfire and, as I
said, the kidnapping is really getting bad even if you only appear middle-class.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 17, 2012 - 02:21pm PT
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I heard a special on NPR a month or so ago calling it a narco insurgency..
leagalize weed in the USA and that will hit them herd. Won't cure the problem but it would be a big hit for the narcos.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 07:19pm PT
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Scott, you're right about the south being much less violent. Most of the violence over the past 2 years has been focused on the northern areas just south of us.
Us legalizing weed will not really change the problem either. Why do you think the cartels are growing Dutch high-quality strains on our lands?
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Gary
climber
That Long Black Cloud Is Coming Down
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Feb 17, 2012 - 07:37pm PT
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Why do you think the cartels are growing Dutch high-quality strains on our lands?
Because it's illegal?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 07:59pm PT
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Because it's illegal?
No, it's 2-fold. They avoid dragging it across the border, and they can sell to/compete with the quasi-legalized smoke-houses in Cali.
Bottom line? The cartels still make cash, and compete for the cash.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 17, 2012 - 08:00pm PT
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To say that legalizeing weed would not hit the narcos hard in the bank is absurd..
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 17, 2012 - 08:05pm PT
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blue, you miss the point. make it really legal like beer, lower the price to the point that it becomes more of a pain in the ass to produce illeagaly than it is worth.. wall mart the f*#kers right out of buisness..
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Feb 17, 2012 - 08:08pm PT
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BTW I am NOT a stoner. have not had a weed habbit since the 70's and do zero drugs or alcohol.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 08:19pm PT
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You're right maybe about legalization, but that will never happen right now. Decriminalization would indeed allow cash to flow to cartels.
And there's coke to consider also, in addition to meth, pills, and heroin.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Feb 18, 2012 - 01:04am PT
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i took this picture sometime in january of a Panga. i posted the video on my FB of the fire crew cutting it in 1/2 just to get it outta the beach.
edit: here is the story about this panga boat
http://neglectedwar.com/blog/archives/11151
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 19, 2012 - 11:00am PT
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As I said earlier the average Mexican is in more danger than tourists.
60% of businesses have faced extortion threats which are a by-product of the
drug wars. Today's LA Times:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
In Mexico, extortion is a booming offshoot of drug war
Almost every segment of the economy and society, including businesses, teachers and priests, has been subjected to extortionists who exploit fear of cartels.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
March 18, 2012, 5:22 p.m.
Reporting from Mexico City—
No taco stand was too small for Juan Arturo Vargas, alias "The Rat."
Every week, Vargas would shake down the businesses in Nicolas Romero, a working-class town an hour outside the Mexican capital. His take: anywhere from $25 to several hundred dollars. His leverage: Pay up, or your kids will get hurt.
The Rat, police and prosecutors say, worked at the low end of a vast spectrum of the fastest-growing nonlethal criminal enterprise in Mexico: extortion.
From mom-and-pop businesses to mid-size construction projects to some of Mexico's wealthiest citizens, almost every segment of the economy and society has been subjected to extortion schemes, authorities and records indicate. Even priests aren't safe.
Extortionists have shut entire school systems, crippled real estate developments, driven legions of entrepreneurs into hiding or out of the country.
And although it is not considered a violent crime, violence readily engulfs victims: When a casino in the industrial city of Monterrey failed to pay off extortionists last year, the place was firebombed, killing 52 people, primarily middle-aged women playing bingo.
Extortion has grown as the largest drug-trafficking cartels consolidate power, leaving many of the smaller groups searching for new sources of revenue.
And it is a crime that feeds on the climate of fear that the drug war has created across wide swaths of Mexico. Anyone can pretend to be a member of the notorious Zeta criminal gang, for example, and easily make money off the target's panic. There is no overhead and little risk for the extortionist.
Mexico's soaring drug-war violence (more than 50,000 people killed in a little more than five years) and incidents such as the casino arson "make the threats seem very credible; that's its success," said Edna Jaime, head of Mexico Evalua, a Mexico City think tank.
"This is a very pernicious crime," she said. "It is underreported and does terrible damage" to society and the economy.
Genaro Garcia Luna, the nation's public safety secretary and head of the federal police, said his officers have investigated 283,000 extortion complaints since the drug war was launched in December 2006. But that's not the full extent of the problem. Experts say probably two-thirds of extortion cases aren't reported to authorities.
Bribe-paying has always been a part of Mexican society. But it is only within the context of the drug war that outright extortion has exploded, in part because perpetrators could emulate ruthless traffickers. Security experts trace the sudden surge in extortion to 2008, when a crime until then largely limited to Mexico City spread across the nation.
"That's when it grew brutally," said Carlos Seoane, general director in Mexico of the private security firm Pinkerton. "Like a swine flu epidemic."
Although complete figures are hard to come by because of the underreporting, the National Citizens' Observatory, a group that compiles crime statistics, estimates that extortion has soared by 180% in the last decade.
The crime generally falls into two categories. The majority of shakedowns are by telephone — as many as 2 million a year — and many of those are made by inmates using throwaway cellphones. In a call or text message, the extortionist pretends to have kidnapped a relative, or threatens to do so, or claims to be outside a business or home, prepared to open fire.
"The bad guy controls the victim like a puppet," said Seoane, who has handled hundreds of extortion cases. "You don't know who's talking, and it generates terror."
In these scams, the extortionist actually has little or no real information about the target and could easily be calling from hundreds of miles away. He counts on fear and in fact poses little real danger. Still, people pay.
"We can do this the peaceful way, or we can go the way of the machine gun," one extortionist told his victim, according to a call recorded by security personnel and made available to The Times.
The more ominous scheme involves gangs who have control over a territory and make their threats in person. They show up at a store, business, factory or construction site to demand "quotas," or derecho de piso, a kind of protection money. You can't operate if you don't pay.
These territory-based extortionists enjoy the advantage of having done enough reconnaissance to know key details about the victims and thus can enhance the threat. The Rat, for example, who is awaiting sentencing, watched his targets long enough to know how many kids they had and where they went to school; he then allegedly used that information to terrorize his victims.
The owners of a very hot nightclub in Cancun decided it was worth the price when goons showed up expecting to be paid about $800 a week. That went on for a few months. Then the extortionists doubled their demand. And now, said a security consultant involved in the case, the price tag is nearly $4,000 a week.
"Now they realize it will never end," the consultant said. "They feel like prisoners."
(Government and private security experts discussed several cases with The Times on condition that the victims not be identified.)
At the Ciudad Juarez store of a big international hardware chain, extortionists called the manager and demanded $50,000. He quickly left the store, only to be intercepted by the callers and held in the trunk of their car for three hours before being released.
"Next time, we kill you," they told him.
Instead of paying, he did what many entrepreneurs are doing: He closed the store and left the country.
The number of Mexican businessmen transplanting themselves, and often their businesses, to the United States has grown enormously in the last five years, as measured by so-called investment visas issued by the U.S. government to wealthy Mexicans, and by the millions of dollars those Mexicans are investing in new enterprises north of the border.
Businesses' flight represents a serious blow to Mexico's struggling economy, in terms of lost investment, lost tax revenue and lost jobs.
A study last year by the Bank of Mexico found that more than 60% of Mexican businesses said they had been hurt by the national climate of lawlessness, with extortion counting as one of the prime factors. Production losses totaled 1.2% of gross domestic product, the study found.
The construction industry is also suffering.
At a shopping mall under construction on the outskirts of Mexico City, the extortionists knew to hit their target on a Saturday: pay day.
With the masons, electricians and plumbers cowering at the back of the site, the extortionists, claiming to be members of the notorious La Familia cartel, said they would open fire on anyone who tried to leave unless they were paid. In that case, according to people involved, the police arrived and arrested the assailants, a rarity. More often, construction foremen routinely make payments to a bag man who arrives weekly or monthly.
Jose Eduardo Correa Abreu, president of the Mexican Chamber of Construction Industry, said the problem has become so bad that in some states, such as violent Guerrero, builders have stopped taking on certain projects.
It's not just the business sector.
Last month, priests from 19 Roman Catholic parishes in the state of Mexico, which surrounds this capital, went to authorities to beg for protection from gunmen who appeared at their churches and demanded monthly payments.
"They were terrified," said David Castańeda, mayor of Atizapan. Threatening priests "is a sensitive point for society."
The priests, from the area where The Rat was working, had reason to be terrified: A couple of weeks earlier, Father Genaro Avińa was found beaten and shot to death in the sanctuary of his Immaculate Conception Church. The extortionists warned that Avińa was the example.
Local authorities installed "panic buttons" in the churches for the priests to call for help next time the gunmen showed up.
A year earlier, priests and evangelical preachers in Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon's home state, reported that they were forced to pay extortionists in order to hold religious holiday festivals.
In Acapulco, thousands of schoolteachers refused to report to their classrooms last fall after extortionists demanded that they fork over part of their salaries. The threats came in letters delivered to the teachers, on signs hung outside the schools and, in a few cases, from men who burst into schools. Much of the school system was paralyzed for months, until the federal government sent troops into the region.
"As a crime, extortion has become totally indiscriminate," Seoane, of Pinkerton, said. "In a country like Mexico, it's easy to trade on fear."
wilkinson@latimes.com
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
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TFPU
Sport climber
Idaho
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Jul 19, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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Cos-
I completely agree with you that Blue is a f*#kwad but I have to respectfully disagree with you about the media hype. Read Mexican newspapers every morning, not US one's and you will see there is an enormous amount of violence in Mexico right now. Here's the thing; beaches are relativlly safe. but inland it's a slaughter house. Los Zetas and their allies and the Sinaloa Federation are destroying everything as they fight eachother.
Wildone- didn't know the Barrett was only a 2 MOA weapon. I find that interesting....go .338 Lapua!!!
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TFPU
Sport climber
Idaho
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Jul 19, 2012 - 07:16pm PT
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My condolonces Silver. In relative terms the beaches are safer is what I was trying to convey, but then again look at what is happening in Aculpolco. You're right about the police force, not all but most are corruptded. El plato o el plomo...silver or lead is the choice they are given and for most its no choice at all. That's a bad story you have there, I've read many times of young men and women being "arrested" then turning up dead the next day with the police saying we never had them.
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sandstone conglomerate
climber
sharon conglomerate central
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Jul 19, 2012 - 07:20pm PT
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Grow your own, problem solved. With all the medicinal floating around, who the fuk still buys shitty, seedy mersch?
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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Jul 19, 2012 - 08:29pm PT
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My wife has an Aunt that lived in Michoacán, and she got the hell out because she was having to pay the cartel a "protection" fee.
I will add that I go to Mexico City twice a year, by car, and I've never had any problems at all.
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Juan Maderita
Trad climber
"OBcean" San Diego, CA
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Jul 19, 2012 - 09:48pm PT
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This article and map/illustration is worth a look:
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-graphic-shows-what-mexican-cartels-and-drugs-come-to-your-town-2012-7
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next six years. President Calderón, the first opposition party (PAN) president, is out. He started, or at least escalated, the "drug war" beginning in 2006. The new President is from the long-time ruling PRI party. Will the Federal government, under PRI direction, continue to use their military to fight the cartels? It seems that State and municipal law enforcement agencies are "bought and paid for" by organized crime.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Saturday's LA Times - Mexico spirals deeper into anarchy.
Zetas cartel occupies Mexico state of Coahuila
The aggressively expanding and gruesomely violent Zetas group dominates territory by controlling all aspects of local criminal businesses.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
November 3, 2012
SALTILLO, Mexico — Few outside Coahuila state noticed. Headlines were rare. But steadily, inexorably, Mexico's third-largest state slipped under the control of its deadliest drug cartel, the Zetas.
The aggressively expanding Zetas took advantage of three things in this state right across the border from Texas: rampant political corruption, an intimidated and silent public, and, if new statements by the former governor are to be believed, a complicit and profiting segment of the business elite. It took scarcely three years.
What happened to Coahuila has been replicated in several Mexican states — not just the violent ones that get the most attention, but others that have more quietly succumbed to cartel domination. Their tragedies cast Mexico's security situation and democratic strength in a much darker light than is usually acknowledged by government officials who have been waging a war against the drug gangs for six years.
"We are a people under siege, and it is a region-wide problem," said Raul Vera, the Roman Catholic bishop of Coahuila. A violence once limited to a small corner of the state has now spread in ways few imagined, he said.
What sets the Zetas apart from other cartels, in addition to a gruesome brutality designed to terrorize, is their determination to dominate territory by controlling all aspects of local criminal businesses.
Not content to simply smuggle drugs through a region, the Zetas move in, confront every local crime boss in charge of contraband, pirated CDs, prostitution, street drug sales and after-hour clubs, and announce that they are taking over. The locals have to comply or risk death.
And so it was in Coahuila. One common threat from Zeta extortionists, according to Saltillo businessmen: a thousand pesos, or three fingers.
With the Zetas meeting little resistance, wheels greased by a corrupt local government, there was little violence. But the people of Coahuila found themselves under the yoke of a vicious cartel nonetheless.
"It was as if it all fell from the sky to the Earth," said Eduardo Calderon, a psychologist who works with migrants, many of whom have been killed in the conflict. "We all knew it was happening, but it was as if it happened in silence."
The "silence" ended in rapid-fire succession in a few weeks' time starting mid-September. Coahuila saw one of the biggest mass prison breaks in history, staged by Zetas to free Zetas; the killing of the son of one of the country's most prominent political families (a police chief is the top suspect); and, on Oct. 7, the apparent slaying of the Zetas' top leader by federal troops who say they stumbled upon him as he watched a baseball game.
"Apparent" because armed commandos brazenly stole the body from local authorities within hours of the shooting. The military insists that the dead man was Heriberto Lazcano, Mexico's most feared fugitive, acknowledging that he had been living comfortably and freely in Coahuila for some time.
"He was like Pedro in his house," former Gov. Humberto Moreira said, using an expression that means he was totally at home and could go anywhere.
The Zetas had such confident dominion over the state that Lazcano, alias the Executioner, and the other top Zeta leader, Miguel Angel Trevino, regularly used a vast Coahuila game reserve to hunt zebras they imported from Africa.
Since their formation in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a paramilitary bodyguard for the then-dominant Gulf cartel, the Zetas operated primarily in Tamaulipas state on Mexico's northeastern shoulder and down the coast of Veracruz and into Guatemala.
For most of that time, Coahuila, rich in coal mines and with a booming auto industry, was used by cartels as little more than a transit route for drugs across the border. The Zetas maintained a presence limited to Torreon, the southwestern Coahuila city that served as a bulwark against the powerful Sinaloa cartel that reigned in neighboring Durango state.
In 2010, the Zetas broke away from the Gulf cartel, triggering a war that bloodied much of Tamaulipas and spilled over into neighboring states. Coahuila, with its rugged mountains and sparsely populated tracts, became a refuge for the Zetas, and they spread out across the state, including this heretofore calm capital, Saltillo.
Even if the violence hasn't been as ghastly as in other parts of Mexico, nearly 300 people, many of them professionals, have vanished in Coahuila, probably kidnapped by the Zetas for ransom or for their skills.
The man in charge of Coahuila during most of the Zeta takeover was Moreira, the former governor. After five years in office, he left the position a year ahead of schedule, in early 2011, to assume the national leadership of the Institutional Revolutionary Party on the eve of its triumphant return to presidential power after more than a decade.
But scandal followed Moreira, including a debt of more than $3 million he had saddled Coahuila with, allegedly from fraudulent loans. He was eventually forced to quit the PRI leadership, dashing what many thought to be his presidential aspirations.
Tragedy followed when Moreira's son Jose Eduardo was shot twice in the head execution-style in the Coahuila town of Acuna early last month. Investigators believe that most of the Acuna police department turned Jose Eduardo over to the Zetas as a reprisal for the killing of a nephew of Trevino. The police chief was arrested.
Killing the son of a former governor — and nephew of the current one, Humberto's brother Ruben — was a rare strike by drug traffickers into the heart of Mexico's political elite.
In mourning, Humberto Moreira gave a series of remarkably candid interviews in which he accused entrepreneurs from Coahuila's mining sector of sharing the wealth with top drug traffickers who in turn used the money to buy weapons and pay off their troops. They killed his son, he said.
Mining in Coahuila is huge and notoriously dangerous, with companies routinely flouting safety regulations and workers dying in explosions and accidents. The depth to which drug traffickers have penetrated the industry is being investigated by federal authorities.
The question on the minds of many Mexicans was: If Moreira was so aware of criminal penetration, why didn't he stop it?
Critics suggest that during his tenure, he was happy to turn a blind eye to the growth of the Zetas as long as he could pursue his business and political interests. He denies that now and says fighting organized crime was up to the federal government; the federal government blames state officials, in Coahuila and elsewhere, for coddling the drug lords.
"The northern governors have long cut deals with the cartels that operate in their domains. The pattern in the north is cooperation," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico scholar at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., who has written extensively on the Zetas and Mexican issues.
"The Coahuila police are among the most corrupt in all Mexico."
The extent to which the Zetas' tentacles had penetrated state government became clear this year when federal authorities discovered a protection racket that dated well into Humberto Moreira's administration and was led by none other than the brother of the state attorney general. According to the federal investigation, he and 10 other state officials were being paid roughly $60,000 a month by the Zetas to leak information to the gang.
The nearly 3 million residents of Coahuila, meanwhile, find ways to survive and accommodate.
In rural areas where the Zetas are most commonly seen on the streets, people have learned to be mute and blind. In cities such as Saltillo, they change their habits, don't go out at night, send their children to school in other cities.
A businessman whose family has lived here for generations said, "We are in a state of war, without realizing when or how we got there."
wilkinson@latimes.com
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Jan 23, 2013 - 11:11am PT
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Vigilante groups spring up in Mexico in fight against cartels
AYUTLA, Mexico – The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer.
Haltingly, he told how his cousin's body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.
"There isn't one of us who hasn't felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back," said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as "just another representative of the people of the mountain."
Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.
Vigilantes patrol a dozen or more towns in rural Mexico, the unauthorized but often tolerated edge of a growing movement toward armed citizen self-defense squads across the country.
"The situation Mexico is experiencing, the crime, is what has given the communities the legitimacy to say, 'We will assume the tasks that the government has not been able to fulfill,'" said rights activist Roman Hernandez, whose group Tlachinollan has worked with the community forces.
The young man and his masked cohorts stop cars at a checkpoint along the two-lane highway that runs past mango and palm trees to Ayutla, a dusty, sun-struck town of concrete homes with red-tile roofs. Pigs, chickens and skinny dogs root in the dirt while the mountains of the Pacific Coast range loom above.
The men wear fading t-shirts, leather sandals and most are armed with old hunting rifles or ancient 20-gauge shotguns hanging from their shoulders on twine slings as they stop cars and check the IDs of passing drivers.
The reach of drug gangs based in Acapulco, about 45 miles (75 kilometers) away, had intensified to the point that they were demanding protection payments from almost anybody with any property: truck and bus drivers, cattle ranchers, store owners. In a region where farmworkers make less than $6 per day, the situation grew intolerable for everyone.
"When they extorted money from the rancher, he raised the price of beef, and the store owner raised the price of tortillas," said a short, stocky defense-patrol commander who wore a brown ski mask and a black leather jacket. Because the patrols are not formally recognized by the courts, the law or the government — and they fear drug cartel reprisals — most members wear masks and refuse to give their full names.
An example of the danger came in late July when the city's official police chief was found shot to death on the edge of town.
It was another attack by criminals that sparked the movement in Ayutla: In early January, gang members kidnapped a commander of an existing community police force in a nearby town.
"Maybe they wanted to intimidate us, but it backfired. They just awakened the people," said one of the older vigilantes, a straw-hatted man without a gun.
Since then, the upstart self-defense movement has spread to other towns and villages such as Las Mesas and El Pericon. On a recent day, Associated Press journalists saw 200 to 300 masked, armed men patrolling, manning checkpoints and moving around in squad-size contingents. Some had only machetes, but most had old single-shot, bolt-action rifles.
Waving guns, they stop each vehicle, and ask for driver's licenses or voter IDs, which they check against a handwritten list of "los malos," or "the bad guys." They sometimes search vehicles and frisk the drivers.
The commander of the Las Mesas vigilantes explains their motives. "We are not against those who are distributing drugs. That's a way for them to earn a living. Let anyone who wants to poison themselves with drugs do it. What we are against is them messing with the local people."
The movement so far seems to be well-accepted by local residents fed up with crime that plagued this stretch of mountain highway.
"In less than a month, they have done something that the army and state and federal police haven't been able to do in years," said local resident Lorena Morales Castro, who waited in a line of cars at a checkpoint Friday. "They are our anonymous heroes."
One vigilante passed sheepishly down the line of waiting cars with a jar asking for donations. Some people tossed in coins or small bills.
Housewife Audifa Miranda Arismendi showed up at the vigilante checkpoint in El Pericon with a vat of chilate, a local beverage made of rice, cocoa beans and cinnamon, for the masked men. "It's good to help out here, because this is for the good of all," she said.
Some officials, too, have cautiously approved of the do-it-yourself police. Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre offered to supply them with uniforms so they wouldn't be confused with masked gang members, but he also said he is trying to eliminate the need for vigilantes by beefing up official forces.
Community and indigenous rights activists often see citizen patrols as a good alternative or addition to standard rural police forces that are considered corrupt or repressive.
But clearly, the vigilante squads here present problems even in their first few weeks. The vigilantes in Guerrero are holding, by their own account, 44 people accused of crimes ranging from homicide to theft. Nobody outside the village of El Zapote, where they are being held in a makeshift jail, knows what conditions they are being held in, or what charges, if any, there are against them.
When the head of the Guerrero state Human Rights Commission, Juan Alarcon Hernandez, showed up to check on the prisoners' condition, he was met by about 100 angry villagers who said they didn't want anyone to visit the prisoners. "No, no, no. We want justice!" the crowd shouted.
"We wanted to see what condition these people are in, as a human rights issue and as a humanitarian issue," said Alarcon Hernandez. Eventually, he and his aides turned around and left, unsure how to proceed, because the self-defense squads exist in legal limbo.
Still, the idea of citizen patrols is spreading in Mexico.
In 2011, townsfolk in the pine-covered-hill town of Cheran in neighboring Michoacan state began armed patrols in the face of what they said were the killings of farmers by illegal loggers in league with drug traffickers. In the northern state of Chihuahua, a community of farmers and ranchers known as Colonia Lebaron — most of whom hold dual U.S. citizenship — set up self-defense squads following the 2009 killings of two of its members.
And in the drug-plagued northern state of Sinaloa, the mayor of Concordia, Jose Elijio Medina, responded to a massacre, which forced everyone in a remote hamlet to flee, by calling for the Mexican army to revive the Rural Self Defense Corps, units of armed farmers it once helped train and supervise. While the army did not respond to requests to say how many of the units remain, local media have reported the army has been trying to wind down the few remaining units.
Since 1995, about 80 villages in Guerrero state have organized legal "community police" forces in which poorly armed villagers detain and prosecute people.
With their own jails, "courts" — actually village assemblies that can hand down verdicts — and punishments that can include forced labor for the town or re-education talks, the community police are recognized by state law, though rights activist Hernandez said there is still friction when community rules intersect with the formal legal system.
He pointed to one incident in 2012 where a judge and a detective in the Guerrero town of San Luis Acatlan arrested a community police leader for exceeding his authority. Villagers responded by arresting the judge, the detective and an assistant.
Members of the vigilante squads in Guerrero say what they want from the government is some kind of salary, not modern weapons. What counts, they say, are their ties to the community and resistance to corruption.
"When the people are united, it doesn't matter if it's a .22, a 16-gauge shotgun or 20-gauge. It's that when we are united, not even bullets from an AK-47 can defeat us," said the self-defense commander in Las Mesas. "They can't kill us all."
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ground_up
Trad climber
mt. hood /baja
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Jan 23, 2013 - 11:27am PT
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What a mess.. i really want to get down to do some climbin
there again . Canon Tajo (sp?) is one of the coolest places
I have been ... seems kinda sketchy now ?
What is the answer to their problem ? Indeed it is not a
simple one.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
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Jan 23, 2013 - 11:39am PT
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Vigilantism isn't a good answer. If the Mexican police and army can't stand up to them, these guys will get blown away. Particularly if the police are ineffective because of corruption, the vigilantees will have no protection.
In Colombia different parts are controlled by different criminal organizations, that fight over turf continuously. There are no communities that can kick all of them out. Perhaps this is cultural, Mexico seems to be heading down the road Colombia did in the early 90s, and I think the situation in Colombia has improved mainly because the problem moved somewhere else.
The only answer I can see is legalization, something the ex- Mexican Ambassador Jorge Castaneda always advocates. Legalize it and let the rich gringo drug addicts solve their own problems.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 23, 2013 - 12:05pm PT
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It wouldnt be THAT difficult. Probably EASIER than dealing with the taliban.
Step 1 ) SEAL the border. REMOVE the avenues of trafficking. Then Send in the troops starting a mile into Mexico. Then advance that by a few miles every day.. Yep i said the USA needs to occupy Mexico for a while.
Gee Ron, that does sound easy......
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ground_up
Trad climber
mt. hood /baja
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Jan 23, 2013 - 12:10pm PT
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Ron...that was my first thought also , our
military seems to police the world , why not
in our backyard (mexico) ? We put alot of
resources into border patrol why not keep
headin south and start cleanin house ?
I agree in the " legalize it " attitude also.
it will be interesting to see what plays out
over the next years ...
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 23, 2013 - 12:16pm PT
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When your government becomes corrupt and or othewise truly ineffective then others will step into the void.
Thus how the orginal mafia came to exist. Same in Mexico
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 23, 2013 - 01:00pm PT
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Towns like Ciadad Juarez are now missing half of the population which has been butchered..
Ummm, not.
Juarez has a population of around 1.3 million?
10,000 deaths is way too many, but doesn't quite equal "half."
Any idea what it would take to control a city that size and still bump up the consulate in Benghazi?
Plus, if you haven't noticed, the violence has been on the decline, at least in Juarez.
Ciudad Juárez, notorious for its drug-cartel violence, has lived up to its nickname – “The Murder Capital of the World.” However, the war, which has resulted in over 10,000 deaths, may have finally reached its conclusion.
Ciudad Juárez has been a front for one of the most brutal drug wars in history. Beginning in 2008, the four-year-long war has produced a horrifying number of recorded (with several unrecorded) casualties – 1,623 in 2008; 2,754 in 2009; 3,115 in 2010; 2,086 in 2011 ; and – thus far – 542 casualties in 2012. According to Juarez municipal officials, this past August recorded 34 murders – which is the lowest monthly death toll recorded in five years.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 23, 2013 - 01:07pm PT
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If violence is truly on the decline, and not just being unreported, it is because they've killed
everybody they needed to and the rest are now in abject obeisance.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 23, 2013 - 01:19pm PT
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then why do they flood across the border?
BECAUSE THEIR ECONOMY HAS SUCKED FOR GENERATIONS!!
The flood did not start with drug wars. Jeez how old are you anyway?
Occupying Mexico will NOT stop their economy or government from SUCKING, it will NOT stop our appetite for drugs and it would NOT stop Mexicans from wanting to come to the USA.
An invasion just sucks as an idea, sorry man.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Jan 23, 2013 - 01:22pm PT
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Definitely no point to invading Mexico, or in other words not enough financial incentive.
The USA only goes to war in these modern times if it involves National Security. ie Business
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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Interesting map I found online. Sure looks like the Mexican Government is running things with some help.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jan 25, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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Powerful documentary. Hardcore intractable problems. It seems to be a theme that has played out repeatedly in the course of humanity: brave idealists rising up to make a better world because they've almost got nothing left to lose, and somehow when things get rolling, the wheels start coming off and others with less ideals figure out how to milk the new system and it goes to sh!t.
Maybe there are just not enough people who are resistant to the corrupting influence of power for any organization to scale up to a national (or even state/regional) level. Or the ones who are willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power are not the ones we want to end up in power.
What would be an "engineering" approach to understand the different problems/dynamics and really begin to fix it?
 Reduce the drug demand in USA that creates an incentive and the financial means for organized crime?
What drives drug demand? Poverty? Unemployment? Inability to cope with life stresses? What are the life stresses? Hopeless financial ruin, inability to support a "traditional" life, family disintegration in the wake of financial/work/health pressures... these aren't all, but they are a good chunk
Are we raising children now in a way that they can cope with the realities of the world, face adversity with courage, accept personal responsibility for our circumstances and do what needs to be done to tolerate and improve them without stepping on other people in the process? Or is this a fairytale naive ideal, and the reality is we are in a war for limited resources, too many of us fighting for a charmed life that we can't all have, and all the ills in the world are the side effects of people fighting for the left-over scraps? We take our good life and pray with thanks that we aren't the ones getting screwed somewhere else for it?
How much and how soon this war encroaches on our civilization comes back to the balance between rich and poor, and (I swear I didn't see this coming, didn't mean to make it about USA politics) is why I'm voting for Bernie. He is the only one putting his finger on the core issues at the heart of sustaining a civilization.
You can be a knee-jerk reactionary talking about sealing the borders (as effective as putting a band-aid on an abscess), or you can look deeper at what caused the infection and try to treat that. Everybody does what is within their grasp for their own sanity. But as best as I can ascertain, Bernie's policies would make the most meaningful change in these issues.
Imagine for a moment how much less money would flow into the hands of drug dealers- rich/powerful folks in general- in Mexico, how much less incentive and means they would have to permit/incite atrocious acts, if residents of USA had guaranteed healthcare, free preschool for kids so parents can work, free university for anyone who wanted it. Imagine how much hopelessness that would take away in the USA, how much it would lower demand drugs. Ignoring Mexico for the moment, I wonder if paying for all of that costs the USA more or less than the war on drugs, the prison contracts, and all the losses that individuals incur from drug-related crime? Even if it does cost more to make the better world vision- isn't it worth paying and working toward it to make it happen?
Folks who want to cut off programs like this just don't seem to have enough vision. Or maybe I just am not sufficiently jaded yet to give up hope for civilization. But if you give up on that, life boils down to Mad Max dystopia. It boils down to Cartel Land dystopia. That outcome is not acceptable to me. I'll fight with my intellect for civility before I give up and fight with my body. The fight is about educating people what the end state is of their policy visions, and this is the only hope of us keeping the wheels on, keeping people acting in a manner that leads us to promote general Welfare.
Ha, see how even the word "Welfare" has been coopted into a negative thing for more than half of our country. It flies in the face of the virtue of self-reliance. But the reality is we are all individually affected by the circumstances of others, and we need to think about how to manage these collective circumstances for our selfish sakes! But the doublespeak is a tool that undermines our civilization: "War is peace." "Love is hate." Recognize it and fight it!
Socialism is not evil.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jan 25, 2016 - 06:01pm PT
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Drug wars pfffft, c*#k fight shootouts is where the action is today
Cockfight Turns Into Gunfight: Four Killed In Mexico
Ensenada, Mexico, Jan 25 (EFE).– Four people, including two children, were killed and 15 others wounded in a shooting at a cockfight in Ensenada, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California, over the weekend, prosecutors said. Several masked gunmen entered the Palenque Poker building looking for a man they were ordered to kill, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office said. About 500 people were attending a cockfight at the establishment when the ...
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Jan 25, 2016 - 07:43pm PT
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Nutjob glad you enjoyed.. i liked it when they capture these NUTZ.. as for a GOLDEN border..best bet to show those people were done time for them to get to WORK..
WORK meaning safe Tourism because they can make alot of MONEY build a better country..
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jan 25, 2016 - 08:22pm PT
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Watched Cartel Land a few days ago. Really well done, and lots of material to think about.
When we were in Jalisco in early Jan, we walked past many c*#k fighting farms housed at know drug dealers estates. No fear, but a lot to consider given the rests of their business. I'm sad for MX. There are no easy answers.
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