Those skyrocketing tortilla prices are rather troubling, but the quality of food is still top notch. All things considered, I'd give it a 6 on the comestible scale.

I read this title as Enocrash. I think I would have preferred that thread.

alandeus wrote:Those skyrocketing tortilla prices are rather troubling, but the quality of food is still top notch. All things considered, I'd give it a 6 on the comestible scale.

Mexicans do eat a lot of beans, though.

I'd say it's more like a 7 or an 8.

Rick Reuben wrote:

The U.S. State Department has issued an alert, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" is taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico and that Americans are being kidnapped and murdered there.

"Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," said the State Department alert.

"Confrontations have taken place in numerous towns and cities in northern Mexico, including Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua," reads the alert. "The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted."

Forget Juarez; it's dangerous alright, but the real norte cartel shit has been going down in Nuevo Laredo over the past few years. I-35 comes right to the border where Nuevo Laredo is, and it's a major cocaine artery through the US. There are still a few (relatively) safe border towns, such as Matamoros and Progresso, but you still might as well forget going to Mexico by car.

This has been brewing for a couple of years. I think there was this thing a couple of years ago where Mexican soldiers were seen unloading drug trucks weaing uniforms.

It seems like things are getting out of control. Guess the war on drugs will be done with real soldiers now.

This thread starts with four different issues all confused.

1. The drug related violence. This stuff is out of hand, it really comes down to mafia style organized crime that runs those slummy border towns. It's really sad that a bunch of innocent citizens are in danger because of two different kinds of moral corruption (the drug lords, and the policia).

2. The rising price of food. Generally bad deal all around.

3. Chiapas. The state of Chiapas has changed a lot since the mid nineties. There still is such a thing as Zapatistas who still have grievances, but the area is much safer than before. It is a popular vacationing spot for Mexican, European and American families.

4. Immigration. Still going to happen and it's going to take a much bigger economic disaster in the U.S. before anyone will think twice about coming here. There are still jobs to fill and people willing to fill them. There is a fascinating elasticity between the national unemployment rate and people's ability to procure crappy jobs if the want them bad enough.

The thing that I have learned in my, and my friend's travels around that country is how much regionalism plays in to the Mexican picture. Talking to people in Jalisco about the border areas is like talking to someone from St. Paul about gang violence in Philly. They sort of say "Yeah. I heard about that, it's really crazy. That's why I wont move there." That doesn't create less of a need for people to fix up some seriously messed up scenarios, it just shows how an atrocity in one city doesn't make for a ruined country.

The problems in Mexico is sestemic in the institutions and the goverment there. By which I mean a class system where the goverement is a institution by which the upper class (the ultra rich) uses to keep the poor in line.

The system is corrupt it is centered arround money (legal or illegal) directly controls the institutions of goverment (military, police, and services).

I think that the attemps to clean up the system by the goverment is kind of a schitzophrenic move as the goverment in order to end corruption has to attack itself which is the perpetuater of the power structure that is corrupt. Now the military and police powers will probibly do a Coup to get control away from the free market folks who are trying to clean things up as window dresssing to the US to make more money for the upper classes but there will be little change as the upper class will be catered to no matter what.

About that drug war. What would happen if all those coke heads would clean up their acts and would stick to alcohol?

The issue with illegal immigration that the US faces is a parallel image to the influx of illegal substances: As long as there are employers willing to hire, undocumented workers from Mexico will keep coming. As long as there are all night partiers with coke habits, the local dealers will make sure the drugs get up here. Both of these are businesses (supply and demand).

Rick Reuben wrote:

jcamanei wrote:As long as there are all night partiers with coke habits, the CIA, the money-laundering banks, the corrupt cops, and the private prison industry will make sure the drugs get up here.

FYP

That's exactly what I meant by 'local dealers'. Do you buy that Google's satellite map thing allows you to see the color of your neighboors' lilies but somehow that technology is not used to patrol the border?

Rick Reuben wrote:

jcamanei wrote:That's exactly what I meant by 'local dealers'.

Strange way of saying it. About seven other things have to go right in the supply chain before a 'local dealer' gets his hands on cocaine, and they occur in places that aren't local.

Sorry boss, but a cokehead ain't gonna call his local 'corrupt cop' to score some shit.