Officials in central Mexico say a drug cartel has kidnapped 14 local residents in apparent retaliation for an uprising by angry farmers who killed 10 cartel gunmen earlier this month.
From the outside looking in it seems that open war is the only thing that would stop the cartels, the bigger question being even if you did fight that war what do you plug the power vacuum with?
… even if you did fight that war what do you plug the power vacuum with?
That’s the million dollar question, 'cause it’s like cutting off one of Hydra’s heads but there’s still 8 left to fill the hole.
But I gotta give it to some of the local sheriffs, judges and farmers who put their lives on the line to do what no one else will. I hope they win in the end.
Yeah, I really don’t have a sufficient answer for that question either…
One thing I do believe is that the only effective way to combat the really dangerous and addictive drugs (fentanyl & meth mostly) is to increase the social safety nets that give people a no questions asked way to exit that life. People hate this reality in the United States because as someone very wise once told me, “people don’t like seeing other people get free shit”, especially if they view those people as weak-willed criminals. The problem with that thinking is it is significantly more expensive economically to allow the cycle of abuse to continue rather than effectively subsidizing their way out of it as soon as possible.
The reason we have these problems on such a profound scale in the United States is precisely because of the fact that we live in a society that is overcome with closeted hopelessness. No access to universal healthcare, higher education, or a sense of community that doesn’t revolve around either work or fundamentalist religion. I could go on for days about this issue, it’s causes, and potential solutions. But ultimately what it boils down to is that it is the symptom of a profoundly sick society that for mutliple generations has prefered to sweep the problem under the rug, while simultaneously trying to punish its way out rather than dealing with the root causes. Until we are willing to try something new the cartels will only get stronger and more savvy, while the drugs get more sophisticated and addictive.
From the outside looking in it seems that open war is the only thing that would stop the cartels, the bigger question being even if you did fight that war what do you plug the power vacuum with?
That’s the million dollar question, 'cause it’s like cutting off one of Hydra’s heads but there’s still 8 left to fill the hole.
But I gotta give it to some of the local sheriffs, judges and farmers who put their lives on the line to do what no one else will. I hope they win in the end.
Yeah, I really don’t have a sufficient answer for that question either…
One thing I do believe is that the only effective way to combat the really dangerous and addictive drugs (fentanyl & meth mostly) is to increase the social safety nets that give people a no questions asked way to exit that life. People hate this reality in the United States because as someone very wise once told me, “people don’t like seeing other people get free shit”, especially if they view those people as weak-willed criminals. The problem with that thinking is it is significantly more expensive economically to allow the cycle of abuse to continue rather than effectively subsidizing their way out of it as soon as possible.
The reason we have these problems on such a profound scale in the United States is precisely because of the fact that we live in a society that is overcome with closeted hopelessness. No access to universal healthcare, higher education, or a sense of community that doesn’t revolve around either work or fundamentalist religion. I could go on for days about this issue, it’s causes, and potential solutions. But ultimately what it boils down to is that it is the symptom of a profoundly sick society that for mutliple generations has prefered to sweep the problem under the rug, while simultaneously trying to punish its way out rather than dealing with the root causes. Until we are willing to try something new the cartels will only get stronger and more savvy, while the drugs get more sophisticated and addictive.