• blazera@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    I remember Mexico pleading for US to legalize marijuana, as these cartels only exist to capitalize on the US market for illegal drugs

      • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        See that’s just small thinking. DEA gets tons of money to bust folks so that they can be arrested and made to work for free. That’s why there’s so much pumping drugs into communities either via the CIA or the more recent vogue method of making heroin a prescription drug that some family can profit off of.

        The entire point of NOT helping drug abusers is so that we can maintain a steady stream of slave labor. Because we still haven’t figured out how to do this whole society thing without a bunch of people in forced labor, or as some lawmakers like to say to make sound nicer, penal labor.

        That’s the entire point of the Prison-Industries Act of 1979. It’s explicitly to create a legal slave labor under the 13th amendment so that states can have various industries be mostly worked by slave labor. When you make something that is a chemical addiction illegal, you create assurances for prisoners that will be in your slave labor. When you deny help for that chemical addiction and put the onus onto the users (“Well I guess you shouldn’t have gotten addicted to a drug your doctor prescribed to you!”) you’ve basically created a system that absolutely assures people will be finding their way back under your whip.

        I cannot stress this enough, the United States is NOT interested in actually stopping drug abuse because we’ve woven that deeply into our very way of life. There are too many core things of modern society that rely on slave labor in this country. Anyone trying to “fix it” would unravel all of that. I mean SHIT, some rich white guy MIGHT not be able to buy their second yacht! Is this the society we want?

        But seriously for a second, the US has a very messed up take on how to handle those who need help for drug addiction. And it is in ways that if we all had a better perspective on it, we’d be ashamed that we’re still living like we’re in the 1700s. The whole Sackler family, they didn’t get away with it for so long just because the Government was sleeping at the wheel. They got away with it for so long because it was beneficial for a lot of people, one of them the prison industry. This country will look the other way on some serious shady shit as long as it drives a profit. The Housing market crash, opioid epidemic, climate change, and so on. Anyone want to count on one hand how many people have faced prison for those things? Our country is way more fucked up than just some law enforcement budget, but yeah, 100% and more what you said.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        There will still be a black market to crack down on. Those cartels won’t just say “oh I guess that’s it”.

        • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 months ago

          Keep your enemies closer. We still have black markets but when they are next to legal markets, its easier to track them down.

    • ours@lemmy.film
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      10 months ago

      It’s not like the US learned a lesson during the alcohol prohibition.

  • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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    10 months ago

    JFC, I do not understand what is with these Republican Politicians and their hard-on for sending our military into Mexico. It would make the situation 100 times worse in every imaginable way.

    • oatscoop@midwest.social
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      10 months ago

      Fascists love starting wars.

      They’re a great way to silence critics and boost support through “us vs them patriotism”. They’re the perfect distraction from domestic issues and an excuse for consolidating power. They’re also great for making a boatload of money.

    • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Remember that time we invaded Mexico and took almost half their country? I think the republicans just want the rest to complete their collection.

    • ours@lemmy.film
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      10 months ago

      Some people grew up reading way too much Tom Clancy but some of us have an easier time telling military fantasy from reality. What’s next? Sending the Swiss Guard to secure Israel/Palestine (yes, TC suggested this in a book).

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Iraq and Afghanistan are over, need a new war. But we can’t afford to help Ukraine against Russia, oh no, not that, an actual bad state, too expensive. I swear the cognitive dissonance is unreal.

    • Maeve@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      The clincher is, as much as people fear and hate our own gangs and cartels, as despicable as some of the activity is, most regular people trust them way more than military and police at home. Anything but focus on that we made the mess, have only ourselves to blame. Yes this is a broad, sweeping statement with plenty of exceptions, and it’s also the bottom line.

  • ikiru@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    US will start focusing on reigniting America’s Backyard policy.

    If it wasn’t for 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US would have probably invaded Venezuela to remove Chavez and destroy the revolution to get their oil. They’ve already started drumming up Latin America as the next warzone again. We’ll be seeing the entire region further destabilized more than it already is.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Mexican news coming soon: ¡Gringos planean enviar caravana militar a México!

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      No, last time they let someone in it was the US going after Poncho Villa, and then the whole Mexican American war happened

      Same actors this time, and same excuses

      • Someonelol@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Pancho Villa attacked US border towns in 1916 which prompted general John J Pershing to launch an unsuccessful expeditionary force to capture or kill him. The Mexican American War happened in 1846 to 1848 which was before his time. I think you might be referring to the Mexican Border War that was part of the bigger Mexican Revolution going on at the time. Either way I doubt Mexico would allow another military incursion from the north this time around.

        • UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Was that the one where the Americans started moving into Mexico because they were encouraged to and then america used it as an excuse to attack Mexico? Now Mexico turned into Texas, Arizona, California etc and the irony is that anyone that looks native to those areas are illegal immigrants even though they were there before "the new world was discovered. James Polk?

          • Someonelol@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Mexico encouraged Americans to move into Texas as means to populate and develop the area so long as the settlers agreed to assimilate to Mexican culture. Unfortunately the settlers weren’t loyal to the Mexican government and started a revolt for independence when Mexico outlawed slavery in 1829. Thanks to the fumblings of general Santa Anna, the rebels captured him and had him sign the Treaties of Velasco in 1836 essentially conceding all land above the Rio Grande to the rebels in exchange for his life.

            This of course infuriated the central Mexican government and they refused to ratify the treaties. Due to internal instability though the central government was unable to do much about it and had no choice but to leave the matter alone. It was only after Texas was admitted to the US as a slave state did president James K Polk start a fight with Mexico over the territory that eventually led to Mexico’s defeat and loss of all other land that make up the states you’re referring to.

            Even though all Mexican citizens who ended up in the new American borders were invited to stay as American citizens, some were systematically deported over the years well into the early 20th century.

  • Jumper775@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    We could easily overpower them, let’s just take Mexico. On top of that let’s just grab Canada and then just take all of North America except Panama (tax haven)

  • thisisawayoflife@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    TBH, we should just be droniing the people in charge without permission anyway. What’s Mexico going to do, attack us?

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      They could just cutoff exports and watch inflation go insane and the automotive industry grind to a halt. The line between cartel and government gets blurrier by the day, so attacking the cartels in a way is attacking Mexico.

      • atlasraven31
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        10 months ago

        You could argue the cartels do more to help the average person than the government.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          You could, but it’s short sighted. Open warfare in the streets kills lucrative business. But as I said in a previous post from polling, the average teen would rather be a Zeta than a cop, that’s says a lot.

          It’s just a shit show. If I were Mexican president I would probably just make a deal with the most powerful cartel to help eliminate their competition and further integrate them in government affairs, while allowing them to have free reign over any drug smuggling and possibly actively encourage it… as long as the murders stop. Only can assassinate your rival gang members in planned strikes with help of police or military. I mean they have to be so fed up with the situation. AMLO is a bit of an asshole, but America refuses to stem the massive inflow of guns and do absolutely nothing about curbing drug demand or introducing cheaper legal alternatives.

      • Maeve@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        What line? These are the people who made basic survival a zero sum game, instead of realizing there’s plenty to share if, you know, we didn’t waste billions on stupid stuff so the right people could have everything.

      • thisisawayoflife@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Good! Hurt corporations and force them to bring those jobs back to the US or go bankrupt. At this point I think we should just rip the band-aid off.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Then the costs of labor jump considerably and cars suddenly cost 2x as much. Economics and geopolitics isn’t as simple as you’re making it out to be. Cars are far from the only thing Mexico exports a lot of to the US.

          • Maeve@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Oh ffs they told us NAFTA would lower our prices and raise living standards on both sides. Idk about Mexican living standards, but that’s about the time a pair of Levi’s jumped from $15 to $30 a pair. Yeah, it was a long time ago.

          • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            cars suddenly cost 2x as much

            I mean that’s a Thursday pretty much in today’s world. And the whole cost of labor thing, I mean it’s not like we don’t have prisoners who we can force to do labor for people. Or like we don’t have Arkansas that’s making child labor cool again. We don’t really have to worry about insurance or crap like that anymore because we’ve create FSAs so now if you don’t have enough money to cover your heart attack, well that’s your fault. And we’ve got 401(k) so if you can’t retire, that’s also your fault.

            And I kid about that. But not really. The only reason the cost would jump up is because the whole shifting production to the US is a great excuse for the CEOs to jack the price up and buy their third yacht. But seriously we can totally move production to the US and it actually cost less, the “Oh it’ll cost more!” is some bullshit that’s pandered around by rich white assholes and some folks buy into it. People like to say we have to pay people $100/hr or whatever BS, but we have to pay them that because we jacked up the price of food and housing. And we jacked those things up because fuckers like to speculate in those things and make massive profit off of the paper at the expense of your average person having to pay more.

            Like whatever you’ve got as the justification for why we need to pay more in the US, all of those reasons end with “because some rich asshole wanted to become richer” and if we got rid of the asshole we wouldn’t have nearly the cost we’ve got already.

            • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              That was my point. Corpos aren’t just going to take less margins if labor costs did increase. And my point doesn’t even necessarily disagree with what you’re saying, because greedy corpos are going to be greedy corpos and will use any excuse to raise costs.

              But regardless, my main point was that the economic relationship between Mexico and the US is way more complex than you and the original comment are making it out to be. Unless you’re an economic expert specializing in international trade, I’m not going to really take you armchair opinion seriously on what would happen if Mexico suddenly ceased all business with the US.

          • atlasraven31
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            10 months ago

            If you get a choice of destination, I would pick Mérida.

    • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      “Poor mexico, So far from God, So close to the United States.”

      -Porfirio Diaz, former president/dictator of Mexico, in reference to ideas like this.

    • Maeve@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      We should worry about cleaning up our own mess at home and letting others attempt to clean up the messes we made in their countries, because we certainly make things worse with each interference.