NOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU DON'T FIGHT WARS BY HELPING THE BAD GUYS
Haven't you been paying attention? This has been US foreign policy for 30 years at least. Give a bunch of guys who want to kill us guns or money and hope it all works out.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
You do, however, fight drug wars by following the money all the way to the top.
And not by just busting the low level guys.
Well yeah, but this thing screams Gunwalker-esque screw-up. I really really hope they keep good records on this, otherwise the cartels are getting free money and guns.
It's basically impossible to track money underground without insider information, so it's not prima facie a terrible thing..
But if they were laundering funds with no positive investigative outcomes, well.. derp de derp.
adytum on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Could we not play a little economic war in Mexico here?
Like, if we could flood Mexico with money and jobs and shit, wouldn't the power of the cartels get lessened? Not to mention that if Mexico was a safer, more competitive country immigration would normalize.
Because it's not really the same as prohibition, is it? When we got rid of that, we we're getting our booze from Canada or something and we had a functioning government, law enforcement agency, and economy.
Basically, what I'm interested in looking at is what we're trying to do in Afghanistan only without bullets and bombs we use dollars and jobs. Honestly, that'd probably help Afghanistan, too...
Might be a bit of an unworkable solution, but maybe in conjunction with other approaches?
Could we not play a little economic war in Mexico here?
Like, if we could flood Mexico with money and jobs and shit, wouldn't the power of the cartels get lessened? Not to mention that if Mexico was a safer, more competitive country immigration would normalize.
Because it's not really the same as prohibition, is it? When we got rid of that, we we're getting our booze from Canada or something and we had a functioning government, law enforcement agency, and economy.
Basically, what I'm interested in looking at is what we're trying to do in Afghanistan only without bullets and bombs we use dollars and jobs. Honestly, that'd probably help Afghanistan, too...
Might be a bit of an unworkable solution, but maybe in conjunction with other approaches?
Congress will not spend money to improve economic opportunities in the US, why would you think they would do so for another country?
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Could we not play a little economic war in Mexico here?
Like, if we could flood Mexico with money and jobs and shit, wouldn't the power of the cartels get lessened? Not to mention that if Mexico was a safer, more competitive country immigration would normalize.
Because it's not really the same as prohibition, is it? When we got rid of that, we we're getting our booze from Canada or something and we had a functioning government, law enforcement agency, and economy.
Basically, what I'm interested in looking at is what we're trying to do in Afghanistan only without bullets and bombs we use dollars and jobs. Honestly, that'd probably help Afghanistan, too...
Might be a bit of an unworkable solution, but maybe in conjunction with other approaches?
Congress will not spend money to improve economic opportunities in the US, why would you think they would do so for another country?
Thank you, for a useful response.
They would do so for the same reason they'd do it in the US; public pressure.
Sure, it'd be hard to get going but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the implications, apply some debate and discourse to the problem perhaps. A little blue sky thinking. Otherwise, what's the point of these forums?
I can't really disagree with the above post. Trying to dislodge the idea that "Harsh Drug Laws= Good" from the heads of the current crop of politicians would require a sledgehammer. A 50 pound sledgehammer. :x
The police themselves are all for the harsh drug laws. All those man hours and dollars equal jobs. Jobs that would vanish if legalization were to happen.
This depends on who you ask. Police doing police work will tell you its a huge fucking waste of their time policing marijuana and there is always things for them to do as legitimate police work if the laws weren't in place. anyone in the higher ups who swear its absolutely necessary, usually admit its because these laws are the only thing giving them real funding for equipment and manpower they need(you see this with anti terrorism training in super small towns as well). either way there not actually for the laws for the intended reason.
The money has shifted to anti terrorism training(see above), so that funding will always come from somewhere. even if the war on terror and drugs finished they would pick up the money as a "war on violence".
Could we not play a little economic war in Mexico here?
Like, if we could flood Mexico with money and jobs and shit, wouldn't the power of the cartels get lessened? Not to mention that if Mexico was a safer, more competitive country immigration would normalize.
Because it's not really the same as prohibition, is it? When we got rid of that, we we're getting our booze from Canada or something and we had a functioning government, law enforcement agency, and economy.
Basically, what I'm interested in looking at is what we're trying to do in Afghanistan only without bullets and bombs we use dollars and jobs. Honestly, that'd probably help Afghanistan, too...
Might be a bit of an unworkable solution, but maybe in conjunction with other approaches?
Congress will not spend money to improve economic opportunities in the US, why would you think they would do so for another country?
Thank you, for a useful response.
They would do so for the same reason they'd do it in the US; public pressure.
Sure, it'd be hard to get going but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the implications, apply some debate and discourse to the problem perhaps. A little blue sky thinking. Otherwise, what's the point of these forums?
It would've made sense to do this 4-5 years ago, but I'm not sure it would make sense now. The drug trade is so entrenched in many areas that I'm not sure you could dislodge it with simple economic competition. You might even wind up funding it.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I can't really disagree with the above post. Trying to dislodge the idea that "Harsh Drug Laws= Good" from the heads of the current crop of politicians would require a sledgehammer. A 50 pound sledgehammer. :x
The police themselves are all for the harsh drug laws. All those man hours and dollars equal jobs. Jobs that would vanish if legalization were to happen.
This depends on who you ask. Police doing police work will tell you its a huge fucking waste of their time policing marijuana and there is always things for them to do as legitimate police work if the laws weren't in place. anyone in the higher ups who swear its absolutely necessary, usually admit its because these laws are the only thing giving them real funding for equipment and manpower they need(you see this with anti terrorism training in super small towns as well). either way there not actually for the laws for the intended reason.
The money has shifted to anti terrorism training(see above), so that funding will always come from somewhere. even if the war on terror and drugs finished they would pick up the money as a "war on violence".
The nice thing about having Ron Paul running, is there are least one voice in the republican debates with a sane stance on drug laws, and the audience is almost always vocal in their support. I mean, it's coming from uncle crazy, but I can't help hoping that in some way, someone making clear, cogent statements a few feet away might rub off on whoever wins the nom', the talking heads and the viewers at home.
It certainly did. In fact, the term 'marijuana' grew out of a racial slur.
Please source this fact, I can find no proof of it anywhere.
Also, how Chomsky manage to call eating red meat substance abuse and not get a reaction out of anybody? I'm amazed anyone outside the ivory tower takes him seriously. I think his definition of substance abuse is a bit flawed, yeah? Not to mention his nicely worded conspiracy theory. "Because the effects are obvious to me, and bad in my opinion, the explanation must be malice and conspiracy on the part of those pursuing the policy".
Yeesh.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It certainly did. In fact, the term 'marijuana' grew out of a racial slur.
Please source this fact, I can find no proof of it anywhere.
Also, how Chomsky manage to call eating red meat substance abuse and not get a reaction out of anybody? I'm amazed anyone outside the ivory tower takes him seriously. I think his definition of substance abuse is a bit flawed, yeah? Not to mention his nicely worded conspiracy theory. "Because the effects are obvious to me, and bad in my opinion, the explanation must be malice and conspiracy on the part of those pursuing the policy".
Yeesh.
I think they called it marijuana to create a (negative) association with Mexicans, as the majority of pot in the US comes from there.
I mean, there's no reason to call it by a Spanish name as it originates from Asia.
Maybe because it was being imported from Spanish-speaking nations, and the Mexican importers called it "marihuana"?
Also, "they"? Which "they"? I mean, you're going to need to source the idea that "they" popularized the name for your explanation to work, and your "they" needs to be the sort of "they" that could maliciously impose a Spanish sounding word on an ignorant American population for the purpose of stigmatizing the drug. Also you'll need to explain why a Spanish word would stigmatize the drug more than an Asian word, to an American from the 50s.
I don't want to sound snide, but I'm waving a very large [citation needed] sign here.
spool32 on
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
The "they" is law enforcement. I know it's Wikipedia, but this is a good place to begin.
Although the spelling "marijuana" is more common in current usage, the correct spelling in the Marihuana Tax Act is "marihuana". "Marihuana" was the spelling most commonly used in Federal Government documents at the time.
In addition, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 legitimized the use of the term "marijuana" as a label for hemp and cannabis plants and products in the US and around the world. Prior to 1937, "marijuana" was slang; it was not included in any official dictionaries.[24] The word marijuana is probably of Mexican origin. Mexico itself had passed prohibition for export to the U.S in 1925, following the International Opium Convention.[25]In the years leading up to the tax act, it was actually in common use in the United States, "smoked like tobacco", and called "ganjah", or "ganja".[26][27] Considerable issues existed involving illegal immigration of Mexicans into the United States, and the one thing Mexicans were identified as being in possession of was cannabis, aka marijuana.[28] The southern border states called for action.[28] After the enactment, illegal immigrants and U.S. citizens could be arrested for possession of cannabis.
Also, for anyone who hasn't seen Ken Burns' documentary on Prohibition, I highly suggest it. You can see some extremely scary parallels between then and now, more than just the obvious ones.
Vanguard, that says nothing about the term originating as a racial slur. Also, the wikipedia source is a History Channel documentary. I obviously can't check the source material, but it's the same channel that runs Ancient Aliens documentaries. Not to mention the obvious logical flaw... illegal immigrants can be arrested for being illegal immigrants. You don't need to come up with a new crime as an excuse to deport them.
So, yeah. Not really helpful at all.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Maybe because it was being imported from Spanish-speaking nations, and the Mexican importers called it "marihuana"?
Also, "they"? Which "they"? I mean, you're going to need to source the idea that "they" popularized the name for your explanation to work, and your "they" needs to be the sort of "they" that could maliciously impose a Spanish sounding word on an ignorant American population for the purpose of stigmatizing the drug. Also you'll need to explain why a Spanish word would stigmatize the drug more than an Asian word, to an American from the 50s.
I don't want to sound snide, but I'm waving a very large [citation needed] sign here.
Harry Anslinger is the one who popularized the term in the US. It had been known by a couple of slang names but he popularized the term marijuana. Which wasn't done by accident.
Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, jazz musicians, and entertainers. Their satanic music is driven by marijuana, and marijuana smoking by white women makes them want to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others. It is a drug that causes insanity, criminality, and death — the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.
“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
Are both quotes from articles he wrote. He waged a long campaign against marijuana as the head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau. And part of that war was to link marijuana to minorities and present it as a threat to white society.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU DON'T FIGHT WARS BY HELPING THE BAD GUYS
A very conservative estimate is that Mexican cartels pull in about 30 billion a year - no one knows for sure - they don't exactly file a 1040A with the IRS. 30 billion is roughly 3% of Mexican GDP - that's 3% of of their total economy as a nation. The cartel's aren't stupid. They're very very smart about hiding the money in banks all over the world. And if you want to know how they do it, you have to get dirty to find out. Yes, it's the suck for people who don't want to launder their blood money, but it's a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited December 2011
I wasn't arguing that it originated as a racial slur. I was arguing that they called it marijuana for law enforcement purposes due to racist profiling. They are connecting it to their profile of the average marijuana user, an illegal Mexican immigrant.
You could also, you know, do some more googling on the Marijuana Tax Act and probably come up with more evidence.
A very conservative estimate is that Mexican cartels pull in about 30 billion a year - no one knows for sure - they don't exactly file a 1040A with the IRS. 30 billion is roughly 3% of Mexican GDP - that's 3% of of their total economy as a nation. The cartel's aren't stupid. They're very very smart about hiding the money in banks all over the world. And if you want to know how they do it, you have to get dirty to find out. Yes, it's the suck for people who don't want to launder their blood money, but it's a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite.
A lot of those profits are then reinvested into legitimate businesses, both as a money-laundering exercise and alternative sources of income. There's a lot of evidence that the explosion of modern malls, Costcos, middle-class suburban developments and the like in the Yucatan, and probably elsewhere, are reinvested drug profits.
Give it a generation or two and the children of the cartel leaders will be the legitimate businessmen running Mexico.
I'm not disputing that criminalizing and stigmatizing marijuana had a large racist component to it. Ender claimed the term grew out of racial slur, and I see no evidence of that anywhere. More believable is that the Narcotics Bureau wanted to leverage racist fear to inflame people against the drug, and preferring Spanish name when you're trying to associate it negatively with Mexicans is pretty racist (and cynical). But that's not what he said! This is the sort of thing that leads stoned pseudo-sages to lay around in a dorm and go "Duuude, did you know Marijuana is a racial slur? It's like the n word in some parts of Peru, for real."
A very conservative estimate is that Mexican cartels pull in about 30 billion a year - no one knows for sure - they don't exactly file a 1040A with the IRS. 30 billion is roughly 3% of Mexican GDP - that's 3% of of their total economy as a nation. The cartel's aren't stupid. They're very very smart about hiding the money in banks all over the world. And if you want to know how they do it, you have to get dirty to find out. Yes, it's the suck for people who don't want to launder their blood money, but it's a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite.
A lot of those profits are then reinvested into legitimate businesses, both as a money-laundering exercise and alternative sources of income. There's a lot of evidence that the explosion of modern malls, Costcos, middle-class suburban developments and the like in the Yucatan, and probably elsewhere, are reinvested drug profits.
Give it a generation or two and the children of the cartel leaders will be the legitimate businessmen running Mexico.
Hell, at least the cartels are investing in their home communities. The traditional Mexican elite certainly haven't bothered doing that, preferring to seed their dollars on the global winds.
That's probably not an accident. If the murderers are the ones that spend their money on their neighbors, the neighbors are going to protect the murderers. It's the traditional path for terrorists, criminals and rebels to win hearts and minds and eventually political power.
Phillishere on
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm not disputing that criminalizing and stigmatizing marijuana had a large racist component to it. Ender claimed the term grew out of racial slur, and I see no evidence of that anywhere. More believable is that the Narcotics Bureau wanted to leverage racist fear to inflame people against the drug, and preferring Spanish name when you're trying to associate it negatively with Mexicans is pretty racist (and cynical). But that's not what he said! This is the sort of thing that leads stoned pseudo-sages to lay around in a dorm and go "Duuude, did you know Marijuana is a racial slur? It's like the n word in some parts of Peru, for real."
For sure, but there's a reason it's called marijuana when it could just as easily be called cannabis. And that reason is racist.
As of lately, I've been doing a great deal of research on the shit storm down in Mexico. The OP, while awesome, maybe misinterprets some things
First, Los Zetas.
They don't all worship Santa Muerte, and they aren't a death cult of Christian killing maniacs. That's not their M.O., and as far as I can tell, never has been. Their senior leadership are highly trained ex military (most were U.S. trained). When they left the Gulf Cartel, they started targeting ex-military and ex-cops for recruitment, and even as of 2005, had boot camps set up to train their civilian recruits. They also trained the senior leadership of La Familia (which isn't mentioned in the OP, but is a large up and up and coming cartel). La Familia ended up leaving Los Zetas, and they're in a war, since La Familia has seized territory and killed more than a few Zetas in the process. La Familia is more of a cult than any other Cartel, but that's another post.
Santa Muerte (Saint Death, or Holy Death) is another thing though, and she is worshiped in Mexico as a puesdo-saint. Of course, the RCC denounces it as satanical, but most poor Mexicans could care less. The parish priests teach heavenly riches after death, and Santa Muerte promises to help you here and now, fuck the afterlife. It's not a cartel specific pesdo-diety either. She's worshiped by cops, politicians, drug dealers, whomever. Santa Muerte is always stylized as a grim reaper-esque woman - do a google image search, you'll find plenty of pictures. Santa Muerte is a blend of Catholic and Aztec/Meso deities. Death has always played a big deal in religion in south and central America, and for a long time, the RCC tolerated Santa Muerte has a way to add members to the church by tolerating local beliefs. But when the drug war picked up, the RCC went full bore in denouncing Santa Muerte, and it hasn't stopped or let down. If you hit up any local shops in the poorer cities of Mexico, you'll find plenty of vendors selling tiny shrines or images of her to pray too. In Mexico city there is a full on church/shrine, though must just go to pray and rosary, and then leave offerings to her in cigarettes and beer.
Jesus Malverde is also a huge deal in Mexico, with one very popular and prominent shrine near the Sinaloa mountains. He's pretty much the Mexican Robin Hood, and is prayed too in the same vein as Santa Muerte, and is quite popular with the cartels. He could be a huge post in of itself.
I think what Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde both emphasize within Mexican society, is that the poor idolize cartel members because they bootstrapped themselves up from poverty to fuck the system that fucked them for so long. The saints they worship embody those beliefs more than anything in their culture, and in turn, many idolize the cartels. Shit, in the Sinaloa mountains they call cartel members "Los valientes" or the Brave Ones, and they're treated like rebels fighting the good fight against the federal government and the Americans.
A very conservative estimate is that Mexican cartels pull in about 30 billion a year - no one knows for sure - they don't exactly file a 1040A with the IRS. 30 billion is roughly 3% of Mexican GDP - that's 3% of of their total economy as a nation. The cartel's aren't stupid. They're very very smart about hiding the money in banks all over the world. And if you want to know how they do it, you have to get dirty to find out. Yes, it's the suck for people who don't want to launder their blood money, but it's a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite.
A lot of those profits are then reinvested into legitimate businesses, both as a money-laundering exercise and alternative sources of income. There's a lot of evidence that the explosion of modern malls, Costcos, middle-class suburban developments and the like in the Yucatan, and probably elsewhere, are reinvested drug profits.
Give it a generation or two and the children of the cartel leaders will be the legitimate businessmen running Mexico.
As of lately, I've been doing a great deal of research on the shit storm down in Mexico. The OP, while awesome, maybe misinterprets some things
First, Los Zetas.
They don't all worship Santa Muerte, and they aren't a death cult of Christian killing maniacs. That's not their M.O., and as far as I can tell, never has been. Their senior leadership are highly trained ex military (most were U.S. trained). When they left the Gulf Cartel, they started targeting ex-military and ex-cops for recruitment, and even as of 2005, had boot camps set up to train their civilian recruits. They also trained the senior leadership of La Familia (which isn't mentioned in the OP, but is a large up and up and coming cartel). La Familia ended up leaving Los Zetas, and they're in a war, since La Familia has seized territory and killed more than a few Zetas in the process. La Familia is more of a cult than any other Cartel, but that's another post.
Santa Muerte (Saint Death, or Holy Death) is another thing though, and she is worshiped in Mexico as a puesdo-saint. Of course, the RCC denounces it as satanical, but most poor Mexicans could care less. The parish priests teach heavenly riches after death, and Santa Muerte promises to help you here and now, fuck the afterlife. It's not a cartel specific pesdo-diety either. She's worshiped by cops, politicians, drug dealers, whomever. Santa Muerte is always stylized as a grim reaper-esque woman - do a google image search, you'll find plenty of pictures. Santa Muerte is a blend of Catholic and Aztec/Meso deities. Death has always played a big deal in religion in south and central America, and for a long time, the RCC tolerated Santa Muerte has a way to add members to the church by tolerating local beliefs. But when the drug war picked up, the RCC went full bore in denouncing Santa Muerte, and it hasn't stopped or let down. If you hit up any local shops in the poorer cities of Mexico, you'll find plenty of vendors selling tiny shrines or images of her to pray too. In Mexico city there is a full on church/shrine, though must just go to pray and rosary, and then leave offerings to her in cigarettes and beer.
Jesus Malverde is also a huge deal in Mexico, with one very popular and prominent shrine near the Sinaloa mountains. He's pretty much the Mexican Robin Hood, and is prayed too in the same vein as Santa Muerte, and is quite popular with the cartels. He could be a huge post in of itself.
I think what Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde both emphasize within Mexican society, is that the poor idolize cartel members because they bootstrapped themselves up from poverty to fuck the system that fucked them for so long. The saints they worship embody those beliefs more than anything in their culture, and in turn, many idolize the cartels. Shit, in the Sinaloa mountains they call cartel members "Los valientes" or the Brave Ones, and they're treated like rebels fighting the good fight against the federal government and the Americans.
Yes, this is more like it, I'm glad I didn't have to write this.
The cartels have branched out enough that there is a very real possibility they'd be self-sustaining without revenue from narcotics.
This caught my attention, because in a way, you're right. They dabble in so many things, they make tons of money, not necessarily drugs or illegal activity.
The problem is that the profit margins are so god damn high with drugs. It costs maybe $80 to process one kilo of cocaine in Columbia, and after it's turned into it's powdered form it can sell for around $3000 dollars to a Mexican cartel, who then sell it for $30,000-40,000 in the U.S., less if it's in a major urban center, more if it's the 'burbs or a rural area. The Colombian drug smugglers will sell to the Mexicans, who then ship it to America - in a way, they're just using the Mexican's for product delivery. As the saying goes, the Colombians make it, the Mexicans ship it, the Americans snort it. This isn't to say Colombians don't ship direct - we've all seen the submarines they use to smuggle drugs with, but for the most part, the Mexican corridor is much less risk to them, in what I can assure you is a very risk averse business.
And that's just them trafficking coke, a lot of stuff they grow right in the Sinaloa mountains, and don't have to deal with Colombia about. Opium and cannabis flourishes quite nicely in the rural hilly areas of Sinaloa, and they to a person all hate the federal government. Cannabis is actually native to the area, but opium came over during the early 1800's with the Chinese immigration surge during the boomin' west. The DEA sells the Mexican government a ton of helicopters and drug spotting planes, but there's just too much land, and not enough planes or black hawks to find the areas, and when they do, it's just a slash and burn usually, with someone else coming back later to regrow the crops.
Also, I very much want to dispel the myth of Colombian cocaine cartels. It's catchy, it's alliterative, and rolls right off the tongue, and that's the way the DEA wants it. The Colombian 'cartel's worked together sometimes, and more often than not, didn't. They didn't even really fit the definition of the world 'cartel' to begin with, but it's so ingrained, that it stuck, even when it didn't apply.
Each 'group' was basically it's own smuggling operation, and they just smuggled drugs, not as this massive organization they'd have us believe. The cartels line was spun so they could nail traffickers with RICO - you can't prosecute someone in a conspiracy, if that conspiracy didn't exist in the first place. And dammed if Uncle Sam didn't do that very thing. They've got one or two very high profile traffickers in the Colorado SuperMax with terrorists and the worst of the worst, so RICO got'em good.
Also, how Chomsky manage to call eating red meat substance abuse and not get a reaction out of anybody? I'm amazed anyone outside the ivory tower takes him seriously.
You'd be less amazed if you weren't intent on taking potshots at his statements that he can't directly rebutt while posting anonymously on the internet. Once / if you have your rehortical ass handed to you and are left looking stunned and stupid in the middle of an auditorium (like, say, Mr. Buckley), you might take on a greater appreciation for why 'anyone outside the ivory tower' takes him seriously.
Also, there's the matter of his linguistics papers.
As of lately, I've been doing a great deal of research on the shit storm down in Mexico. The OP, while awesome, maybe misinterprets some things
My information on the Santa Muerte worship of the orginal 30 Los Zetas commandos comes from a first-hand witness (apparently the Zetas had, at various points in time, left little shrines to Santa Muerte, decorated with spent shell casings and victim trophies). Could you share where you've done your own research? My information is probably out of date, but I don't doubt my source at all (I verified his claims at the time through news from Mexico City), which suggests that yes, when the Zetas first broke off, they were definitely part of the death cult, and according to some victim testimony they were killing people for wearing crucifixes, having Bibles on their person, etc (though, in fairness, they were probably looking for any excuse they could to inflict violence).
La Familia, as far as I was aware, had all but been destroyed when their primary warehouse had been bombarded with incindiary grenades and the spouse of their leader had went missing. Is this not the case?
I have to admit that I'm not as well versed in the old Colombian drug lords as I should be, but it seems like a stretch to say that there were no cartels in the country. What of the Colombian civil war? Was that not being carried out against the government by narco militias?
I'm not disputing that criminalizing and stigmatizing marijuana had a large racist component to it. Ender claimed the term grew out of racial slur, and I see no evidence of that anywhere. More believable is that the Narcotics Bureau wanted to leverage racist fear to inflame people against the drug, and preferring Spanish name when you're trying to associate it negatively with Mexicans is pretty racist (and cynical). But that's not what he said! This is the sort of thing that leads stoned pseudo-sages to lay around in a dorm and go "Duuude, did you know Marijuana is a racial slur? It's like the n word in some parts of Peru, for real."
For sure, but there's a reason it's called marijuana when it could just as easily be called cannabis. And that reason is racist.
Marijuana being called marijuana for racist reasons != marijuana is a racial slur
Marijuana being called marijuana for racist reasons != marijuana is a racial slur
...This is considered a controversial claim, now?
'Marijuana' is likely derived from the Spanish word 'mallihuan' (that's according to Oxford English press). The English-speaking community picked-up the term around the 1930s (Source: Martin Booth's "Cannabis: A History"), when Harry Anslinger went on his crusade and started using it as a primary means of taking cheap jabs at Spanish speakers (he had heard someone say either 'mallihuan' or something similar-sounding, and used it - slurred and distorted by his own accent - as a vehicle for ridicule. Like someone making fun of the way a disabled person might speak, for example). The term 'marijuana' (in various spellings) began to be conflated with the drugs Anslinger was lobbying against, and the anti-drug movement was happy to profit from the confusion, given that people reacted much more negatively to the Spanish-sounding term than the traditional English term, Cannabis.
As of lately, I've been doing a great deal of research on the shit storm down in Mexico. The OP, while awesome, maybe misinterprets some things
My information on the Santa Muerte worship of the orginal 30 Los Zetas commandos comes from a first-hand witness (apparently the Zetas had, at various points in time, left little shrines to Santa Muerte, decorated with spent shell casings and victim trophies). Could you share where you've done your own research? My information is probably out of date, but I don't doubt my source at all (I verified his claims at the time through news from Mexico City), which suggests that yes, when the Zetas first broke off, they were definitely part of the death cult, and according to some victim testimony they were killing people for wearing crucifixes, having Bibles on their person, etc (though, in fairness, they were probably looking for any excuse they could to inflict violence).
I have to admit that I'm not as well versed in the old Colombian drug lords as I should be, but it seems like a stretch to say that there were no cartels in the country. What of the Colombian civil war? Was that not being carried out against the government by narco militias?
Hi Ender - sorry on the delay in getting back to you. Finals and school and all that.
I'm just not sold about your sources, I apologize if that sounds like me being a goose - it's not my intent I assure you. Los Zetas are a secretive group - everyone in that line of business usually is. So while I don't want to cast dispersions on your sources, they do seem to be at odds with mine. I've used several books for my research, but my go to guy is Ioan Grillo - he's a reporter for the Global Post, and he's done a fair amount of work for Time Magazine and other publications. I felt your statement about Santa Muerte and Los Zetas was a bit off, as it seemed to be incredulous to believe a cartel would wholly be involved in something that strange. I actually brought this up to Ioan, and he was kind enough to give me his opinion:
Here are my thoughts on it, although in the hidden world of a group like the Zetas it has very hard to have all the answers. It is proven that some Zeta members venerate the Santa Muerte through arrests and finding of shrines in their houses. However, I have not seen evidence that this is an institutional thing by the whole group. This could be the choice of individual members and Santa Muerte worship is very common across Mexico. I have not seen clear evidence of the leaders venerating Santa Muerte.
The Zeta leader Heriberto Lazcano funded two Catholic churches in Hidalgo. They actually had plaques with his name.
Most people who venerate Santa Muerte in Mexico still consider themselves to be Catholic - even though the Catholic church rails against the symbol.
So considering this, I find the idea that Zetas would attack people for having crucifixes extremely unlikely.
Again, as I say it is hard to know all the answers with a clandestine group like the Zetas, and more evidence needs to come out on this issue, bit those are my thoughts.
I can buy that some psychopaths killed people because of a loose affiliation with Santa Muerte - but I can't see Los Zetas as a whole doing that, and Ioan is right - Santa Muerte and the Catholic Church are tied together at the hip, whether or not the RCC likes it or not. Attacking Christians just doesn't jive.
Re: Colombian Cartels.
I imagine now, currently, we have something that resembles dyed in the wool Mexican cartel business model operating in modern-day Colombia. But I recall the older days of Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros - where the term 'cartel' didn't really apply, but the DEA made it stick. That was the wane of Colombian 'cartels', and the rise of the Mexican ones. So I guess I was in error there, semantics aren't my strong suit - although I would love to understand the collaboration of current supply to demand with respect to U.S. main land distribution, and Mexican smuggling/delivery. That dynamic has changed, but I'm not sure how just yet.
As for the narco militias - they still operate in Colombia, but it's less ideology fueled warfare, and very much a business operation fueled warfare. I like to use the term 'criminal insurgency', which I also think applies to Mexican cartels. Most narco-militas are just in it for the ridiculous amounts of money - kidnapping, human smuggling, and drugs are their stock and trade - some say to fuel the 'war effort', but I think it's the other way around personally. You still have your major players like FARC, and the rural areas of Colombia are still astonishingly third world. I think any place you have mass crippling poverty, you'll always have some form of armed insurgency.
Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the former head of Los Zetas, was arrested by the Mexican armed forces. He's being held in a secret location and awaiting trail.
Given the amount of information Morales is likely to have, this could very well bring about the end of Los Zetas. Absolutely incredible.
It's not nearly the end of the violence in Mexico, but it's a fantastic development anyways. If anyone was in a position to threaten the stability of the state's government, it was Morales.
Posts
You do, however, fight drug wars by following the money all the way to the top.
And not by just busting the low level guys.
Haven't you been paying attention? This has been US foreign policy for 30 years at least. Give a bunch of guys who want to kill us guns or money and hope it all works out.
Well yeah, but this thing screams Gunwalker-esque screw-up. I really really hope they keep good records on this, otherwise the cartels are getting free money and guns.
But if they were laundering funds with no positive investigative outcomes, well.. derp de derp.
Like, if we could flood Mexico with money and jobs and shit, wouldn't the power of the cartels get lessened? Not to mention that if Mexico was a safer, more competitive country immigration would normalize.
Because it's not really the same as prohibition, is it? When we got rid of that, we we're getting our booze from Canada or something and we had a functioning government, law enforcement agency, and economy.
Basically, what I'm interested in looking at is what we're trying to do in Afghanistan only without bullets and bombs we use dollars and jobs. Honestly, that'd probably help Afghanistan, too...
Might be a bit of an unworkable solution, but maybe in conjunction with other approaches?
Congress will not spend money to improve economic opportunities in the US, why would you think they would do so for another country?
Thank you, for a useful response.
They would do so for the same reason they'd do it in the US; public pressure.
Sure, it'd be hard to get going but that doesn't mean we shouldn't explore the implications, apply some debate and discourse to the problem perhaps. A little blue sky thinking. Otherwise, what's the point of these forums?
This depends on who you ask. Police doing police work will tell you its a huge fucking waste of their time policing marijuana and there is always things for them to do as legitimate police work if the laws weren't in place. anyone in the higher ups who swear its absolutely necessary, usually admit its because these laws are the only thing giving them real funding for equipment and manpower they need(you see this with anti terrorism training in super small towns as well). either way there not actually for the laws for the intended reason.
The money has shifted to anti terrorism training(see above), so that funding will always come from somewhere. even if the war on terror and drugs finished they would pick up the money as a "war on violence".
It would've made sense to do this 4-5 years ago, but I'm not sure it would make sense now. The drug trade is so entrenched in many areas that I'm not sure you could dislodge it with simple economic competition. You might even wind up funding it.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The nice thing about having Ron Paul running, is there are least one voice in the republican debates with a sane stance on drug laws, and the audience is almost always vocal in their support. I mean, it's coming from uncle crazy, but I can't help hoping that in some way, someone making clear, cogent statements a few feet away might rub off on whoever wins the nom', the talking heads and the viewers at home.
Please source this fact, I can find no proof of it anywhere.
Also, how Chomsky manage to call eating red meat substance abuse and not get a reaction out of anybody? I'm amazed anyone outside the ivory tower takes him seriously. I think his definition of substance abuse is a bit flawed, yeah? Not to mention his nicely worded conspiracy theory. "Because the effects are obvious to me, and bad in my opinion, the explanation must be malice and conspiracy on the part of those pursuing the policy".
Yeesh.
I think they called it marijuana to create a (negative) association with Mexicans, as the majority of pot in the US comes from there.
I mean, there's no reason to call it by a Spanish name as it originates from Asia.
Also, "they"? Which "they"? I mean, you're going to need to source the idea that "they" popularized the name for your explanation to work, and your "they" needs to be the sort of "they" that could maliciously impose a Spanish sounding word on an ignorant American population for the purpose of stigmatizing the drug. Also you'll need to explain why a Spanish word would stigmatize the drug more than an Asian word, to an American from the 50s.
I don't want to sound snide, but I'm waving a very large [citation needed] sign here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_Tax_Act
Also, for anyone who hasn't seen Ken Burns' documentary on Prohibition, I highly suggest it. You can see some extremely scary parallels between then and now, more than just the obvious ones.
So, yeah. Not really helpful at all.
Harry Anslinger is the one who popularized the term in the US. It had been known by a couple of slang names but he popularized the term marijuana. Which wasn't done by accident.
Are both quotes from articles he wrote. He waged a long campaign against marijuana as the head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau. And part of that war was to link marijuana to minorities and present it as a threat to white society.
A very conservative estimate is that Mexican cartels pull in about 30 billion a year - no one knows for sure - they don't exactly file a 1040A with the IRS. 30 billion is roughly 3% of Mexican GDP - that's 3% of of their total economy as a nation. The cartel's aren't stupid. They're very very smart about hiding the money in banks all over the world. And if you want to know how they do it, you have to get dirty to find out. Yes, it's the suck for people who don't want to launder their blood money, but it's a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite.
You could also, you know, do some more googling on the Marijuana Tax Act and probably come up with more evidence.
Edit: beat'd.
A lot of those profits are then reinvested into legitimate businesses, both as a money-laundering exercise and alternative sources of income. There's a lot of evidence that the explosion of modern malls, Costcos, middle-class suburban developments and the like in the Yucatan, and probably elsewhere, are reinvested drug profits.
Give it a generation or two and the children of the cartel leaders will be the legitimate businessmen running Mexico.
Worked for the Kennedy's.
Hell, at least the cartels are investing in their home communities. The traditional Mexican elite certainly haven't bothered doing that, preferring to seed their dollars on the global winds.
That's probably not an accident. If the murderers are the ones that spend their money on their neighbors, the neighbors are going to protect the murderers. It's the traditional path for terrorists, criminals and rebels to win hearts and minds and eventually political power.
For sure, but there's a reason it's called marijuana when it could just as easily be called cannabis. And that reason is racist.
First, Los Zetas.
They don't all worship Santa Muerte, and they aren't a death cult of Christian killing maniacs. That's not their M.O., and as far as I can tell, never has been. Their senior leadership are highly trained ex military (most were U.S. trained). When they left the Gulf Cartel, they started targeting ex-military and ex-cops for recruitment, and even as of 2005, had boot camps set up to train their civilian recruits. They also trained the senior leadership of La Familia (which isn't mentioned in the OP, but is a large up and up and coming cartel). La Familia ended up leaving Los Zetas, and they're in a war, since La Familia has seized territory and killed more than a few Zetas in the process. La Familia is more of a cult than any other Cartel, but that's another post.
Santa Muerte (Saint Death, or Holy Death) is another thing though, and she is worshiped in Mexico as a puesdo-saint. Of course, the RCC denounces it as satanical, but most poor Mexicans could care less. The parish priests teach heavenly riches after death, and Santa Muerte promises to help you here and now, fuck the afterlife. It's not a cartel specific pesdo-diety either. She's worshiped by cops, politicians, drug dealers, whomever. Santa Muerte is always stylized as a grim reaper-esque woman - do a google image search, you'll find plenty of pictures. Santa Muerte is a blend of Catholic and Aztec/Meso deities. Death has always played a big deal in religion in south and central America, and for a long time, the RCC tolerated Santa Muerte has a way to add members to the church by tolerating local beliefs. But when the drug war picked up, the RCC went full bore in denouncing Santa Muerte, and it hasn't stopped or let down. If you hit up any local shops in the poorer cities of Mexico, you'll find plenty of vendors selling tiny shrines or images of her to pray too. In Mexico city there is a full on church/shrine, though must just go to pray and rosary, and then leave offerings to her in cigarettes and beer.
Jesus Malverde is also a huge deal in Mexico, with one very popular and prominent shrine near the Sinaloa mountains. He's pretty much the Mexican Robin Hood, and is prayed too in the same vein as Santa Muerte, and is quite popular with the cartels. He could be a huge post in of itself.
I think what Santa Muerte and Jesus Malverde both emphasize within Mexican society, is that the poor idolize cartel members because they bootstrapped themselves up from poverty to fuck the system that fucked them for so long. The saints they worship embody those beliefs more than anything in their culture, and in turn, many idolize the cartels. Shit, in the Sinaloa mountains they call cartel members "Los valientes" or the Brave Ones, and they're treated like rebels fighting the good fight against the federal government and the Americans.
It already happens.
Yes, this is more like it, I'm glad I didn't have to write this.
This caught my attention, because in a way, you're right. They dabble in so many things, they make tons of money, not necessarily drugs or illegal activity.
The problem is that the profit margins are so god damn high with drugs. It costs maybe $80 to process one kilo of cocaine in Columbia, and after it's turned into it's powdered form it can sell for around $3000 dollars to a Mexican cartel, who then sell it for $30,000-40,000 in the U.S., less if it's in a major urban center, more if it's the 'burbs or a rural area. The Colombian drug smugglers will sell to the Mexicans, who then ship it to America - in a way, they're just using the Mexican's for product delivery. As the saying goes, the Colombians make it, the Mexicans ship it, the Americans snort it. This isn't to say Colombians don't ship direct - we've all seen the submarines they use to smuggle drugs with, but for the most part, the Mexican corridor is much less risk to them, in what I can assure you is a very risk averse business.
And that's just them trafficking coke, a lot of stuff they grow right in the Sinaloa mountains, and don't have to deal with Colombia about. Opium and cannabis flourishes quite nicely in the rural hilly areas of Sinaloa, and they to a person all hate the federal government. Cannabis is actually native to the area, but opium came over during the early 1800's with the Chinese immigration surge during the boomin' west. The DEA sells the Mexican government a ton of helicopters and drug spotting planes, but there's just too much land, and not enough planes or black hawks to find the areas, and when they do, it's just a slash and burn usually, with someone else coming back later to regrow the crops.
Also, I very much want to dispel the myth of Colombian cocaine cartels. It's catchy, it's alliterative, and rolls right off the tongue, and that's the way the DEA wants it. The Colombian 'cartel's worked together sometimes, and more often than not, didn't. They didn't even really fit the definition of the world 'cartel' to begin with, but it's so ingrained, that it stuck, even when it didn't apply.
Each 'group' was basically it's own smuggling operation, and they just smuggled drugs, not as this massive organization they'd have us believe. The cartels line was spun so they could nail traffickers with RICO - you can't prosecute someone in a conspiracy, if that conspiracy didn't exist in the first place. And dammed if Uncle Sam didn't do that very thing. They've got one or two very high profile traffickers in the Colorado SuperMax with terrorists and the worst of the worst, so RICO got'em good.
Christ, I went off on a tangent. Still. *shrug*
You'd be less amazed if you weren't intent on taking potshots at his statements that he can't directly rebutt while posting anonymously on the internet. Once / if you have your rehortical ass handed to you and are left looking stunned and stupid in the middle of an auditorium (like, say, Mr. Buckley), you might take on a greater appreciation for why 'anyone outside the ivory tower' takes him seriously.
Also, there's the matter of his linguistics papers.
My information on the Santa Muerte worship of the orginal 30 Los Zetas commandos comes from a first-hand witness (apparently the Zetas had, at various points in time, left little shrines to Santa Muerte, decorated with spent shell casings and victim trophies). Could you share where you've done your own research? My information is probably out of date, but I don't doubt my source at all (I verified his claims at the time through news from Mexico City), which suggests that yes, when the Zetas first broke off, they were definitely part of the death cult, and according to some victim testimony they were killing people for wearing crucifixes, having Bibles on their person, etc (though, in fairness, they were probably looking for any excuse they could to inflict violence).
La Familia, as far as I was aware, had all but been destroyed when their primary warehouse had been bombarded with incindiary grenades and the spouse of their leader had went missing. Is this not the case?
I have to admit that I'm not as well versed in the old Colombian drug lords as I should be, but it seems like a stretch to say that there were no cartels in the country. What of the Colombian civil war? Was that not being carried out against the government by narco militias?
...This is considered a controversial claim, now?
'Marijuana' is likely derived from the Spanish word 'mallihuan' (that's according to Oxford English press). The English-speaking community picked-up the term around the 1930s (Source: Martin Booth's "Cannabis: A History"), when Harry Anslinger went on his crusade and started using it as a primary means of taking cheap jabs at Spanish speakers (he had heard someone say either 'mallihuan' or something similar-sounding, and used it - slurred and distorted by his own accent - as a vehicle for ridicule. Like someone making fun of the way a disabled person might speak, for example). The term 'marijuana' (in various spellings) began to be conflated with the drugs Anslinger was lobbying against, and the anti-drug movement was happy to profit from the confusion, given that people reacted much more negatively to the Spanish-sounding term than the traditional English term, Cannabis.
Hi Ender - sorry on the delay in getting back to you. Finals and school and all that.
I'm just not sold about your sources, I apologize if that sounds like me being a goose - it's not my intent I assure you. Los Zetas are a secretive group - everyone in that line of business usually is. So while I don't want to cast dispersions on your sources, they do seem to be at odds with mine. I've used several books for my research, but my go to guy is Ioan Grillo - he's a reporter for the Global Post, and he's done a fair amount of work for Time Magazine and other publications. I felt your statement about Santa Muerte and Los Zetas was a bit off, as it seemed to be incredulous to believe a cartel would wholly be involved in something that strange. I actually brought this up to Ioan, and he was kind enough to give me his opinion:
I can buy that some psychopaths killed people because of a loose affiliation with Santa Muerte - but I can't see Los Zetas as a whole doing that, and Ioan is right - Santa Muerte and the Catholic Church are tied together at the hip, whether or not the RCC likes it or not. Attacking Christians just doesn't jive.
Re: Colombian Cartels.
I imagine now, currently, we have something that resembles dyed in the wool Mexican cartel business model operating in modern-day Colombia. But I recall the older days of Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros - where the term 'cartel' didn't really apply, but the DEA made it stick. That was the wane of Colombian 'cartels', and the rise of the Mexican ones. So I guess I was in error there, semantics aren't my strong suit - although I would love to understand the collaboration of current supply to demand with respect to U.S. main land distribution, and Mexican smuggling/delivery. That dynamic has changed, but I'm not sure how just yet.
As for the narco militias - they still operate in Colombia, but it's less ideology fueled warfare, and very much a business operation fueled warfare. I like to use the term 'criminal insurgency', which I also think applies to Mexican cartels. Most narco-militas are just in it for the ridiculous amounts of money - kidnapping, human smuggling, and drugs are their stock and trade - some say to fuel the 'war effort', but I think it's the other way around personally. You still have your major players like FARC, and the rural areas of Colombia are still astonishingly third world. I think any place you have mass crippling poverty, you'll always have some form of armed insurgency.
Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the former head of Los Zetas, was arrested by the Mexican armed forces. He's being held in a secret location and awaiting trail.
Given the amount of information Morales is likely to have, this could very well bring about the end of Los Zetas. Absolutely incredible.
It's not nearly the end of the violence in Mexico, but it's a fantastic development anyways. If anyone was in a position to threaten the stability of the state's government, it was Morales.