Here is how the article starts:
Two weeks ago, Mexican soldiers clashed here with drug cartel gangsters in running gun battles that lasted five hours. The outlaws hijacked vehicles, including a bus, for use as barricades and battering rams. Terrified residents scrambled for safety. At least a dozen people were killed, including bystanders. Children were wounded in the crossfire.I know that Nuevo Laredo is a long ways away. About 1900 Statute Miles (or, for those of you using the communist scale, 3048.7 kilometers). There is a theory that the drug cartels will never get here. The basis of that theory is that they don't want to stir up the US Government (and People) and they are content to take our money and destroy the United Mexican States in the process. If you are under 50 years of age you should be concerned about the validity of this theory.
Not a single word about it appeared in the local news media.
Nuevo Laredo has three television news channels, four daily newspapers and at least five radio stations that broadcast news, but every outlet ignored the biggest story of the year. Nuevo Laredo is not an isolated village but the busiest city along the U.S.-Mexico border, a vital U.S. trade partner with a population of 360,000, professional sports teams, universities and an international airport.
Fearing for their lives and the safety of their families, journalists are adhering to a near-complete news blackout, under strict orders of drug smuggling organizations and their enforcers, who dictate -- via daily telephone calls, e-mails and news releases -- what can and cannot be printed or aired.
Regards — Cliff
2 comments:
The most effective counter-measure we could employ would be to legalize (and eliminate the profit margin in distribution of) marijuana, and consider expanding this to other substances as well.
For those worried about the societal impacts of freely-available drugs--consider that they're closing prisons in The Netherlands for lack of business. (See coverage here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/netherlands-prisons-closi_n_208561.html)
The other best news about this strategy would be the HUGE boost in tax revenue to the US, presuming we would tax the dope the same way we tax alcohol and cigarettes. No brainer--less crime here, less resources for criminal enterprise in Mexico, and closer to a budget surplus than we could achieve almost any other way.
So why are we not doing this already???
California may drive the bus on the marijuana decriminalization. Most friends of mine who live in CA now say that there is already de facto decriminalization, in the sense that you can get a prescription for cannabis for a HUGE range of maladies (yes, that includes appetite loss and insomnia!)
One of the reasons I voted for the 2008 "reeferendum" in Mass was that I don't think we should penalize people for something that's arguably less harmful than alcohol, which is widely available across the U.S...and widely destructive.
The gateway argument is pretty illogical, and it always annoys me. How many motorcycle riders do you know that never owned a bicycle? Probably not many.
Does that make bicycle ownership a 'gateway' to motorcycle riding?
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