What do we make of the Mexican Drug cartels?

[RadioRaheem84]

The capitalist system has spawned really ugly forces before; Contras, street gangs, Islamic terrorists, rogue dictators, etc. But now it's spawned the most viscous and vile organization I've seen yet; the drug cartels of Mexico.

Beheadings, kidnappings, extortion, take over of small towns, bribes, drug smuggling, murder, burning down homes with people in them.

The Zetas are the worst. I've never in my life even thought the type of violence going on now in Mexico would be possible. I mean crime was always a part of the nation, but this level of violence is extreme and unlike I've seen for the nation.

When something like this happens, do we side or hope for the Feds to take care of it?

Is there a time where we support the State in taking care of it's worst elements?

This seems like a situation where changing the social order will not relieve us of these people.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I admit I'm not super knowledgeable about the drug cartels but I would say they are a product and an expression of the decomposition of capitalism.The alternative to capitalism isn't necessarily socialism, it just as well could be a more barbaric form of capitalism. This is what we are seeing.

These people, with all their brutality, are a product of the social order.We are witnessing the decomposition of a society, while the ruling class live in their high security communities. This is the future they have in store for all of us.

Should we side with the Federales in fighting the cartels? Possibly, although I do not know. I do not know of any peasant or urban based people's movement capable of fighting them.

How did the Columbian state deal with their narcotrafficantes (sp?)? Was this good or bad?

[RadioRaheem84]

Yes, they are a product of the social order, that much is evident.

What's not evident is what to do with them? Is this one of those cases where support for the government to weed them out is preferable?

[~Spectre]

The capitalist system has spawned really ugly forces before; Contras, street gangs, Islamic terrorists, rogue dictators, etc. But now it's spawned the most viscous and vile organization I've seen yet; the drug cartels of Mexico.

Beheadings, kidnappings, extortion, take over of small towns, bribes, drug smuggling, murder, burning down homes with people in them.

The Zetas are the worst. I've never in my life even thought the type of violence going on now in Mexico would be possible. I mean crime was always a part of the nation, but this level of violence is extreme and unlike I've seen for the nation.

When something like this happens, do we side or hope for the Feds to take care of it?

Is there a time where we support the State in taking care of it's worst elements?

This seems like a situation where changing the social order will not relieve us of these people.

The government created these groups, particularly Los Zetas. They were originally a death squad trained by the United State to fight the Zapatistas.

Finally, there seems to be support for certain cartels by the Mexican government itself (leaders being mysteriously busted out of jail despite warnings by agents that it would happen, etc).

I don't see how anything the capitalist state could do would improve this, other than legalize drugs, prostitution, and gambling.

[Iron Felix]

You're absolutely correct about that, but many of the original Los Zetas were members of CIA death squads in Guatemala as well(as training these guys killed animals and drank their blood)

[hatzel]

Finally, there seems to be support for certain cartels by the Mexican government itself (leaders being mysteriously busted out of jail despite warnings by agents that it would happen, etc).

I don't know if you could necessarily call this 'support,' assuming support implies some kind of approval. More a natural result of these cartels saying stuff like "hey hey hey if you do anything to get in our way we're seriously gonna kill you and your whole family and you totally know we will because that's what we do all the time." There's a reason so many police chiefs, mayors and other such officials turn up without heads when they decide they want to try to tackle the cartels, and it's the same reason quite a few more decide not to bother, and instead just yield to the cartels' demands and let them carry on 'business as usual.'

[~Spectre]

I don't know if you could necessarily call this 'support,' assuming support implies some kind of approval. More a natural result of cartels saying stuff like "hey hey hey if you do anything to get in our way we're seriously gonna kill you and your whole family and you totally know we will because that's what we do." There's a reason so many police chiefs, mayors and other such officials turn up without heads when they decide they want to try to tackle the cartels, and it's the same reason quite a few more decide not to bother, and instead just yield to the cartels' demands and let them carry on 'business as usual.'

I'm not talking about scaring police chiefs. I'm talking about the highest levels of the Mexican government gaining control over the drug game by backing a particular cartel.

[Seth]

Lumpen-bourgeois? :D

[RadioRaheem84]

I am not even sure a capitalist government could do anything.

Imagine the approval for millions of dollars going to agencies in the Mexican federal enforcement.

Imagine the massive amounts of aid from the US going to the Mexican government to battle these cartels and the money pouring back into the US to buy the weapons, tanks, guns and ammo needed to fight the cartels.

Fighting the cartels is just as much a racket as the cartels are themselves.

The State will probably try to take down the worst elements of the cartels that twant to overthrow the government, but it will certainly not take down the ones that can be co-opted.

[RadioRaheem84]

Jesus, did someone say the Zetas or some other cartels were left over death squads from the Cold War and the Zapatista uprising?

Is this another blow back scenario?

[Seth]

The Zetas have in their ranks a lot of former police, military, and paramilitary. So yeah.

They are able to assault an enemy compound as a SWAT team would, and they intentionally make themselves look like the police sometimes.

[Timebomb]

Support them,we're on the same side.

[RadioRaheem84]

Support them,we're on the same side.

Come again? :confused:

They're blowback contras.

[Magón]

Jesus, did someone say the Zetas or some other cartels were left over death squads from the Cold War and the Zapatista uprising?

Is this another blow back scenario?

Yes, the Los Zetas cartel/gang, are a collection of retired/corrupted special forces soldiers, who at one time were apart of the Mexican Government. They were formed from the most elite special forces group, Mexico has, known as GAFE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupo_Aeromóvil_de_Fuerzas_Especiales), by the Gulf Cartel leader(s) at the time, who needed some extra muscle that weren't necessarily apart of the Gulf Cartel itself. But after a bloody war, the two came to a head and Los Zetas broke away from the Gulf Cartel, and became one of their strongest and most dangerous enemies.

They're the ones who all the other Cartels, take after when it comes to things like killing people and hanging them, mutilating their bodies, etc. People in Mexico, have a real hard time, or just flatly won't, speak about the Los Zetas cartel, like they will others, because they're so vicious and dangerous.


Support them,we're on the same side.

You're obviously ignorant (or just a moron) on what's happening in Mexico, or the complete impact on what the Cartel wars are having on the Mexican people, so please, keep your mouth shut unless you actually have something knowledgable to say. We shouldn't support them, they're nothing worth supporting when they're so willing to kill innocent people, just to prove a point and spread fear.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

FARC is very involved in the drug trade... I really don't see how you can *support* it though, unless you're big on drug legalization.

[piet11111]

The crimes the zetas have committed are unforgivable and they deserve to hang for it.

Weird as it is but the bourgeois government is clearly preferable over a bunch of thugs that send bags filled with human heads to schools.

[Seth]

FARC is very involved in the drug trade... I really don't see how you can *support* it though, unless you're big on drug legalization.

But FARC isn't a drug cartel.

[RadioRaheem84]

The crimes the zetas have committed are unforgivable and they deserve to hang for it.

Weird as it is but the bourgeois government is clearly preferable over a bunch of thugs that send bags filled with human heads to schools.

Yes, the only thing worse than the capitalist State is the monsters that they create in their attempt to bring down progress.

From Saddam Hussein to Noreiga to the Contras to the Islamic fundamentalists, the number of violent ultra reactionary organizations that have sprung from their greedy loins is too much for people to take, so they tend to side with the government.

The same goes for street gangs at the local level. These organizations become vile and unpredictable, reeking havoc on the regular working class.

And what is connected to them? Drug smuggling by the CIA, no fucking joke. From the Golden Triangle to the drug cartels forged by former Contra guerrillas shipping into the States and distributing via gangs.

The blow back from US policy to keep corporate America alive is fucking brutal.

[blake 3:17]

Is there a time where we support the State in taking care of it's worst elements?

Yes.


This seems like a situation where changing the social order will not relieve us of these people.

Decriminalization of drugs would be a huge step forward. Prohibition is less than a hundred years old.

There is no way to stop all violence. We can work towards making a world where there is much much less of it.



FARC is very involved in the drug trade... I really don't see how you can *support* it though, unless you're big on drug legalization.

The Colombian economy is built on cocaine. The FARC control a small portion of that.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The drug cartels in Mexico are pretty powerful organizations. To give an example: there was a money laundering bust on a series of banks not to long ago, and the total amount of money that the feds estimated was laundered through by the cartels was around 300 billion dollars! They pack their money away in safehouses, with stacks of bills filling entire rooms. There was a news report of a Colombian "super cartel" a year or so ago that was making so much money that they didn't know what to do with it, so they just started burying it in the ground.

When you have that kind of income, you ARE the economy in many ways, and you don't really have a problem with political influence.

The cartels have also impressed (maybe not the right word, but...) me with their savagery, as well. Some marine in Mexico got killed with a grenade during a raid on a cartel compound, and right after his funeral cartel gunmen stormed the house of his family and massacred them. They make the Mafia look like slackers by comparison.

(Check out my thread on the situation in the latin america subforum < shameless self promotion :cool:)

[Os Cangaceiros]

I also wonder where ol' Chapo Guzman is hiding out. He's probably the most wanted man on the planet, now that Osama is gone.

If he doesn't have political connections reaching to some of the highest levels of the Mexican state, I'd be very suprised.

[blake 3:17]

There was a news report of a Colombian "super cartel" a year or so ago that was making so much money that they didn't know what to do with it, so they just started burying it in the ground.

Wow! I knew there was a problem with the Colombian nouveau riche BUT....

[Comrade-Z]

Drug cartels are an odd creature of modern capitalism.

From one vantage point, there's no reason why you'd expect them to exist at all.

You'd expect capitalists to be wholeheartedly in the business of selling hedonism for the greatest cold, hard profit, and to be engineering their servants in the State to allow them to do that. You'd expect all of these drugs to be legal...maybe minimally regulated, but legal and produced and sold in huge quantities by the likes of Pfizer, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, or even Nabisco.

And society would, in fact, not collapse if this were the case. Capitalism would even, in one sense, be healthier with this arrangement. The State would have to spend less on incarceration. The prison-industrial complex, while profitable for the clique of players who are in on it, is not necessary profitable for the capitalist class as a whole (when you factor in the taxes the non-players have to pay to finance the reproduction of the prison labor that the fortunate inside players get on the cheap). You'd have more respect for the "rule of law," less violent crime, and overall a more smoothly-functioning capitalism, with only marginally higher rates of drug abuse, loss of worker productivity, and systemic medical expenses.

The fact that the capitalist class allows the State to outlaw the capitalist class's legal participation in this hugely lucrative sector is, from a certain vantage point, astounding.

However, there are more farsighted factors at play:

The U.S. government needs sources of unaccountable "funny-money" for covert ops (mainly targeting threats to American imperialism in the third world), and the capitalist class understands this and allows the U.S. government to tap into the revenue stream of the drug trade for this purpose...and the drug trade needs to be illegal in order to create this black market that the U.S. government can dip into unaccountably.

Perhaps more importantly, the capitalist class perceives that the blatant, unbridled reign of capitalist values (the cold, rational, secular pursuit of profit) would actually not be healthy for capitalism. Too much of itself is corrosive to itself over time, and capitalism helps itself by propping up various pre-capitalist artifacts (like religion, and conservative morality). Drugs are corrosive to these pre-capitalist values. Psychedelics inspire alternative religions/weird mysticism stuff/rejection of mainstream, liturgical, non-experiential, hierarchical religion, and drugs in general promote an attitude of hedonism that effectively amounts to too much of capitalism's values for its own good.

Plus, there's a lot of pressure in favor of the drug war from below from the middle-class (especially, in the U.S., the white middle-class that sees the drug war as a way to keep blacks down and keep their children away from associating with that milieu), so even if the capitalist class wanted to end the drug war, they'd probably have to fight a lot of populist middle-class opinion. Indeed, there's a drug company that wants to market a cannabis-extract drug named "Sativex" in the U.S. Currently they can't, though...who will win?

My point is that there's nothing inevitable about capitalism per se that produces stuff like the Mexican drug cartels. It has to do with specific historical decisions that the capitalist class and especially its servants in the State have made in pursuit of a capitalism that maintains the support of pre-capitalist values against the assault of drug-fueled hedonism.

[Magón]

I also wonder where ol' Chapo Guzman is hiding out. He's probably the most wanted man on the planet, now that Osama is gone.

If he doesn't have political connections reaching to some of the highest levels of the Mexican state, I'd be very suprised.

According to wikipedia, as of the day Osama's death was told, Guzman is both the FBI's and Interpol's #1 most wanted now.

As to where he is? Your mind would be blown with all the conspiracies and rumors people come up with about Guzman. While I was in Mexico, before his wife or whatever gave birth in Los Angeles, I heard one story that he was in Cancun, treating himself to different tourists as a salesman. :lol:

[RadioRaheem84]

Has anyone noticed that a lot of the leaders of these cartels are white or more Caucasian?

Pablo Escobar for one, in Columbia, was white.

Not that this means anything but it seems like not all of these cartel kingpins were ordinary peasants.

[Reznov]

I admit I'm not super knowledgeable about the drug cartels but I would say they are a product and an expression of the decomposition of capitalism.The alternative to capitalism isn't necessarily socialism, it just as well could be a more barbaric form of capitalism. This is what we are seeing.

These people, with all their brutality, are a product of the social order.We are witnessing the decomposition of a society, while the ruling class live in their high security communities. This is the future they have in store for all of us.

Should we side with the Federales in fighting the cartels? Possibly, although I do not know. I do not know of any peasant or urban based people's movement capable of fighting them.

How did the Columbian state deal with their narcotrafficantes (sp?)? Was this good or bad?

You might be interested in looking at the Zapatistas of Mexico (Although I hear they have lost most of the momentum they had and have dulled out recently.)

[bricolage]

You might be interested in looking at the Zapatistas of Mexico (Although I hear they have lost most of the momentum they had and have dulled out recently.)
are you seriously suggesting what remnants there are of the zapatistas are in any way capable of fighting the cartels?

[piet11111]

Yes, the only thing worse than the capitalist State is the monsters that they create in their attempt to bring down progress.

From Saddam Hussein to Noreiga to the Contras to the Islamic fundamentalists, the number of violent ultra reactionary organizations that have sprung from their greedy loins is too much for people to take, so they tend to side with the government.

The same goes for street gangs at the local level. These organizations become vile and unpredictable, reeking havoc on the regular working class.

And what is connected to them? Drug smuggling by the CIA, no fucking joke. From the Golden Triangle to the drug cartels forged by former Contra guerrillas shipping into the States and distributing via gangs.

The blow back from US policy to keep corporate America alive is fucking brutal.

I know its because of capitalism's workings that they can exist but with monsters like the zetas i would find it very hard not to be happy when i would read a report that the mexican army gunned down a bunch of them in a firefight if no innocents where harmed.

Many of them probably have a proletarian background and got into this as a way to escape poverty but to me they crossed a line when they started to attack the population.

They are an obvious threat to society and as such i would have no problem with the death penalty when its proven that these people are responsible.