Comments on: Literature on Mexico’s Drug War You Can Read, Sort Of

By: Robert Scofield

Robert Scofield — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:03:38 +0000

I was looking for more books on the drug war in Mexico and found this.I read The Plaza by Guillermo Paxton recently, and even though it is fiction, it is based on fact, and I would say mostly fact. It was a quick read and I could not put it down until I finished it. It is an eye opener, to say the least.

By: kopkejaime

kopkejaime — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:42:24 +0000

You cover a certain amount of interesting articles and it seems like a pretty good little rag, topics are controversial,I got a look at this due to an article on “ANSWERS” from Yahoo. THe Mecican thing is classic abuse of National borders…
Used to enjoy partying when I was a kid but after looking at all the death just for smuggling, Reefer isn’t even worth the high anymore when you think about all the young kids that died so it is undetected by government officals, If I wanted to play roulette I would get a six shot revolver, when I was playing was in the late sixties and seventys. Some of the movies cut trying to portray the aspects of the reality seem to fall short of the truth to the American public with lack of impact, as if it were propagated as opposed to understated.
Personally if I were tryingto relax I don’t need the heat of potential homicide barking up my ass. Makes you wonder if the government shouldn’t leagalize it(reefer) just for monitoring and the revenue angle, might help cut down on the contraban murdering that is taking out premisquous kids. That in itself is worth a form of boycot. It would take some brainstorming but…

By: russiandyev

russiandyev — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:39:38 +0000

I am looking forward to the “W” film review if the drugs are not the only thing that may interest eXile in literature and films. I’m sure it’s worth discussing.

By: Mycos

Mycos — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:08:58 +0000

Of the LE defenders I see one with remarkable insight into the conservative fear of ambiguity.
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~hannahk/conservatism.html It’s this one affect that causes them to see the world in simplified, black and white terms. It’s where phrases like “the law is the law” and “my country, right or wrong” relieve such people of the responsibility to think things through. This is also the seed from which the “Nuremburg Defence” arose, and from which prohibition now continues. LEOs can avoid taking any responsibility for their actions by telling themselves they are “merely doing their job”.

The last poster sees only the mansion of the dealer, not the mansions belonging to the landowners for whom the politicians sat in their mansions drafting laws that keep everyone else so poor that the only way they can afford the shirt on their back is through drug trafficking. I guess if he had his way, these kids wouldn’t even have that much. Yet he blames drugs for how little they have, and not the real reason…conservatives like him who feel compelled to justify inequality. (see above link)
What? Are we to believe the poor were better off before prohibition opened up a trillion dollar US market for something they have been quietly doing for centuries? If all that money were still sitting back in the US, how does that help the people down there?
Any way you look at it, it’s a vast redistribution of money/wealth that would have otherwise remained back in the US.

By: L. Macarius

L. Macarius — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:26:45 +0000

“They are also one of the few industries in the developing sectors of the earth that really do redistribute income”

Hahahhaha! The lies people tell to simply ease up the guilt. Honeslty, you’ve never actually seen how these drug barons live do you? Pretty close to where I grew up in Brazil, this Lebanese drug dealer had a house with collums made from Carrara’s Marble (yes, he imported them from Italy) with details painted in gold.

While the kids seeling drugs in the favelas barely have clothes, or any medical assistance.

Wealth distribution my ass…

By: paul

paul — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:48:03 +0000

A kilo of coke costs $200,000 in the US? I regret to inform you that in WA and FL the going rate for a kilo of coke is around $6-7,000.

Not as dramatic as the police would like folks to believe.

By: mx?

mx? — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:00:25 +0000

ooh and jason where did you live?
because if you didnt live in any of the disputed “plazas” then the drug war could hve passed unnoticed by you.
In my city we had shootouts between narcos vs cops, narcos vs federales, narcos vs soldiers, narcos vs cops/federales/soldiers, narcos vs narcos, executions (hits), decapitations, people getting disolved in acid or burnt in gasoline-filled trash cans, narco messages (written threats between narcos, and against corrupt politicians and police commanders.
i remember they even threw people from low-flying cessnas in sinaloa.

lovely country, you should visit the beaches(:

By: mx?

mx? — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:52:20 +0000

I agree with you jason, although i do have friends and people i knew who have been..err..”affected” by the drug war.
the US Gov. always issues those silly “reports” when they want to pressure a country, and the result is like bad publiciy for the mexican beaches.
They end up affecting tourism, which looses money for the Gov so they end up giving in to the americans pressure.
aaaah goddamn gringos we just loooove’em.

By: jason

jason — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:37:52 +0000

I lived mexico recently for a few months. The “Drug war” hype is mainly american, in my experience. The problems are mainly thought to effect the upper class/government types. The average mexican (most of which do not take “hard drugs”) isn’t effected.

By: mx?

mx? — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:23:27 +0000

in mexico theres a joke about him, more like a funny phrase, when they interviewed him about all that money ( which probably was the goverments or the sinala cartel)
“coopelas o cuello” it was like a play on words, like the “flied lice plick” phrase from lethal weapon.
OH and about him, probably paid off a lot of people and has gone low-profile.
He was just a little link in the supply chain

By: mitchell

mitchell — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:38:45 +0000

What’s up with Zhenli Ye Gon these days?

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:10:30 +0000

The longer I live the more I wish drugs were at the store. It’s awkward dealing with these dealer people. Make it easy. Yeah, people will get nuts, but like they’re not pitiful and nuts and pathetic now? These are some amazing blinders these mainstream people have on, they can look at human beings and not see the supposed wretchedness and horror a hardcore drug addict has, in normal daily routines. It’s like racism. You hate in this race what is horrible about yourself.

But you’re really kidding yourself, that speed addiction is a terrible curse on any given human being. I mean, it gives them some pep. Pot addiction is much more like a curse, but speed addiction is what it is: fun for those hours, a little less after.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:57:41 +0000

Allen, when everyone in the media errs one way, such as toward the cop viewpoint, it’s time for an occasional article, or even an occasional underground newspaper, that errs the other way, such as toward the smuggler viewpoint.

Legalizing and switching over to Monsanto and Phil Morris would be a million times better, and I have no feelings of ambiguity at all.

By: aleke

aleke — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:14:12 +0000

Unless you have some tribal allegiance to one group or the other, you should always side with the underdog. It’s the only moral solution. Pick narcos over narcs, pick stupid fuck villagers over narcos, pick repressed minority group over stupid fuck villagers

By: Allen

Allen — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:54:09 +0000

The Exile’s fawning over narco “robin hoods” is getting slightly grating. These people, whose nutsacs you merrily swing from, are mostly motherfuckers, as I’m sure you know. In fact, I’m reasonably certain many of them would happily trod across their own mother’s strewn out body with sharpened cleats to make a buck … or to garrote a snitch. (They’re good capitalists, I guess?)

Yeah drug prohibition is generally retarded and based on arbitrary exercise of customs that never had a good reason for coming into existence in the first place. But sucking up to the people that sell you drugs just because you like the drugs they sell? Have a little dignity.

(Sell by proxy, I mean. I’m not talking about your average street level type … who could be almost anyone).

Besides, to remind you of another obvious fact, the Narco-traffickers can only make their money and play “robin-hood”, redistributing the wealth and growing the economy at the same time, because there’s a black market. Thus, they have a strange symbiotic relationship with the government and Narco officers. After all, if it wasn’t for senseless drug laws, the drug trade would be run by Phillip Morris or fucking Monsanto by now (if it isn’t already). And that would be, like, a bummer. Man. Right?

The whole thing is just mired in ambiguity. Embrace it.

By: mx?

mx? — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:33:05 +0000

doooo a storyyy on the mexican drug warr pleaseeeee, id like to know what the percepetion is in the outside.
Its not nearly as exagerated as some of your politicians put it recently that Mexico is or is becoming a failed state, but i do live in a zeta-controlled neighborhood, so its not failed, more like kidnapped but that sounds harsh too, anyway there’s a truce so nothin to worry about, just some people loose their heads from time to time;p