BS: I think Mexico is a failed state

Subject: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 12:27 AM

Monterey genertes 8-10 % of Mexicos GNP due to all of the US corporations that outsource there.
The Narco armies have attacked their prisons, police stations, markets and have taken the lives of so many officials and police that they are literally in control.

With the loss of Monterey I believe Mexico is a failed state in all but a symbolic goverment. Once the rails trucking and oil wells are breached there is complete anarchy.

Legalizing all drugs in this country would cripple the narco barons of Mexico and would have to go legitimate like the US mafia did in the 80's

The Mexican army does not seem to have a handle on the situation. They lose their soldiers to either bullets, machetes or a higher paycheck from the narcos.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 10:04 AM

What should I do about it?

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 12:53 PM

Make a hefty campaign contribution to the APP and get Chongo elected in 2012. He'll straighten things out!

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 01:11 PM

DOnuel:

Have you been anywhere in Mexico more than ten miles from the border?



A

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 02:08 PM

Lebanon today has no formal goverment yet there is not talk that it is a failed state.

AMos, have you ever been denied a passport because your name does not be found in any official records?

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:07 PM

Who did Mexico lose Monterrey to? Seems to me that the global corporations contribute to a country's growth.
VW's Mexican plant will supply motors to its U. S. chassis.
The VW Chatanooga plant building Passats in the U. S. was welcomed by the city's citizens.
My Jeep has window glass manufactured in Mexico, so do some other Chrysler products.

Toyota furnishes jobs at their plants in Alabama, California, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and two in Canada- and yes, a plant in Mexico (Tijuana).

Of course, Donuel also regards the U. S. and Canada as failed states.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:11 PM

Ironic that so many Americans derive much pride in the period of the US as a failed state - the Wild West.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:15 PM

I've never met anyone who regards Canada as a failed state, Donuel included. Canada is doing surprisingly well these days, considering general economic conditions out there. That seems to be mainly because we did not de-regulate our banks.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 07:33 PM

Richard please explain that to me. I don't understand your comment.

I wouldn't think of Canada or the US as failed states either. I guess I need to have a definition of a failed state. Do Cuba,Libya,Somalia, and North Korea meet the standard?

Don

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Slag
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 08:49 PM

Canada does well because the US is her trading partner, in spades. It makes me sick to think the the drug users in the US fund so much of the corruption and murder in Mexico. The Cartels are global now but would they have ever reached that level were it not for the US market? Legalization would be a great blow to the illicit trade but it would have a negative impact on the US nonetheless in terms of wasted human potential, dangerous conduct while intoxicated, broken homes, etc., etc. No, Mexico is not a failed state yet but dangerously close to it.

The so called "Wild West"? More crime goes on in just one major US city in a week than in the entire period of the westward expansion. Settlers pushed into areas where no state existed, no laws. Those settlers became all things necessary for the settlement of the west and when bad people fled the law in the civilized areas, those same settlers had to rely on themselves to handle the bad folks as well as any other problems. And they succeeded! Failed? No, not hardly.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 08:55 PM

Slag, I'm so glad you have guarded optimism. IT seems all the peacful bordertowns are now a battle ground.

A journalist that spent the last 7 years in Iraq went to Mexico to do a story. He said "I felt much safer in Iraq, and I don't mean the green zone."

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 09:32 PM

Hi Slag

'More crime goes on in just one major US city in a week than in the entire period of the westward expansion'

That is true. Many people thought that because the west was largely
wide open that the criminals from the east could get away with it in the west. And many tried but few were as successful as Hollywood would
have us all believe.

The way I read your comment is you feel that it is America's fault that
Mexican criminals are successful at selling drugs to addicts on this side of the border. And that all the money however obtained goes into Mexico to fuel the business. Is this correct?

Don

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Slag
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 09:55 PM

If the market exists there will be those who supply and those who buy. Those who buy fuel the corruption in Mexico as well as the corruption in the US. Legalization and controls in the US would deny they market to the cartels. They would have to take their wares elsewhere or become legitimate providers. Pricing would have to insure that no blackmarket would fill back in the void.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 01:05 AM

@Don Meixner

During the later parts of and after the US civil war, during the period of "the Wild West" the US government was not capable of enforcing law and order throughout much of the USA - even the parts not under rebel control. Local "warlords" - various outlaw gangs - were beyond the effective power of of law enforcement. Citizens could have no confidence in the rule of law nor the power of the law. To my mind, during that period, the USA was a "failed state".

Yet there is much popular affection for the myths of that period. The imagery of the USA returns constantly to that period, the era of the gunslinger. Arguably that plays a part in the refusal of the USA to accept the controls of a civilised state on offensive weapons.

That is the irony. The USA is at present the greatest military power in teh world. It has until recently been the greatest economic power in the world and is still the largest economy. Its cultural values (if that is the right expression) effectively colonialise the globe even where its military writ has difficulty running. It writes "long arm" laws to extend its rule into other jurisdictions and its legal systems and the models of its laws are reflected worldwide and imposed via international treaties (eg WIPO). It sees itself as global policeman and seeks to impose rule on failed states and on the states whose governments it dislikes. Yet less than 200 years ago it was a failed state.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: Slag
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 01:52 AM

Now you are making a distinction. Perhaps Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, would qualify as Western and also as participants in a most general sense, in the Civil War but the vacuum of many necessities created by the conflict included law enforcement and a uniform system of justice (which one may argue is yet to be fully realized). So I would concede that there was a period following the Civil War where it was woolly and rough. California also had an involvement in that conflict. But beyond the major towns and cities there wasn't much in the way of civilization or anything else for that matter. What you see as a failed state, I see as a growing state or rather growing states. The filling in of the map included the filling in of jurisdictions and law. The vast majority of westerners wanted, demanded law and law enforcement. As for those open places where nothing existed each person by necessity was a law unto himself and the natural law of survival was first and foremost. Such is always the case in that type of situation. Steady growth, no failure.

If the settlers had limited means of dealing with law breakers it was because everything was limited. It was raw and the justice meted out was raw but effective. Contrary to Hollywood's version of perpetual duels in the streets there are only a couple of documented cases of showdown type gunfights. Ambush and assasination, both by desparadoes and law enforcement was the prefered means of taking someone out, you know, kinda like today.

You see a failed state, I see a growing state. Mexico has gone through several periods of revolution or internal conflict and it has never been a place of consistent egalitarian society. There has always been risk of outlawry and corrupt officials associated with travel there. Conditions there are deteriorating and that is what I think of when I hear the term "failed state".

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 12:12 PM

I'm in Slag's camp on this one. The period after the Civil War in the territories directly affected by the war clearly had their "time".
But through the rest of the Continent where local took the law into their own hands so to speak the law was pretty much based on morality and the consitution of the US. Even tho' those territories were not ratified as states in most cases they behave as states.

Subject: RE: BS: I think Mexico is a failed state
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 12:40 PM

Some that was sent before I had finshed but the gist is there.