
Mexico becomes the deadliest country for journalists in 2019 - jtjones92
https://latinamericareports.com/fifth-mexican-journalist-killed-this-year/2143/
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egusa
It's surprising to hear that this happened in Playa del Carmen (which has
always been a popular area for tourists).

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reasonablemann
Between the spike in homicides and frequent drugging of women within resorts
I'm amazed people still go down there.

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godzillabrennus
Largest hackathon in the world is in Guadalajara Mexico.

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lostmsu
Which one is it?

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hombre_fatal
Probably Campus Party. Cool event.

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sudoaza
Mexico, Colombia and Brazil are the most dangerous countries for being a human
rights activist or journalist. Meanwhile global corporate media mostly focuses
on Venezuela...

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doktrin
How is that not apples and oranges?

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Sag0Sag0
Because the corporate media typically talks about human rights abuses in
Venezuela only.

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jayess
Mexico is rapidly approaching failed-state status. Very large swaths of the
country no longer have a functioning government, just cartels.

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tomjakubowski
The state, the drug traffickers, and the paramilitaries have been the same for
a long time, with support from the US. Where traffickers have control, the
state's working as intended.

[https://www.thenation.com/article/oswaldo-zavala-
interview-m...](https://www.thenation.com/article/oswaldo-zavala-interview-
mexico-cartels/)

~~~
adventured
You say that as though it's a defined, well proven fact that has wide
agreement. The link you refer to properly points out that it's not at all
widely agreed upon. Rather, it's a theory by one guy, derived from his reading
of _fiction_ that he decided to flip around, and then float in his recent
book. He used a universal way to get maximum attention: be controversial.

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danso
This is not at all an accurate summation of the author’s purported work and
expertise. He is currently a professor in literature, which is why he intros
his work/thinking by referring to another author’s “mythological” framing of
the drug war. But the author himself was a journalist in Mexico before he
became a professor. And throughout the interview he references work/research
by other scholars, as well as the work of journalist Gary Webb.

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brlewis
I really wish Americans would boycott drugs from Mexican cartels. How bad does
an industry have to get before there's enough outrage for a boycott?

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godzillabrennus
Americans are starting to legalize more and more.

When prohibition 2.0 ends in failure maybe some will learn that it doesn’t
work.

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rayiner
When the drug war ends and murder rates in the Americas don’t go down to
European levels, maybe some will realize it was never the drugs to begin with:
[https://mexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/murder-
rate.jpg](https://mexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/murder-rate.jpg)
(murder rate in Mexico is far below what it was before the drug war started,
and has trended down as the drug war ramped up after 1980).

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leetcrew
idk what it's like where you live, but in my city the overwhelming majority of
murders are linked to the illicit narcotics trade. maybe they would think of
some other illegal shit to kill each other over if drugs were legalized, but I
find it hard to believe that the violence wouldn't subside a bit if their main
revenue stream were cut off.

also, it seems questionable to extrapolate the outcome of legalization in the
US based on data from mexico.

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rayiner
> maybe they would think of some other illegal shit to kill each other over if
> drugs were legalized, but I find it hard to believe that the violence
> wouldn't subside a bit if their main revenue stream were cut off.

You might think that but the data doesn’t really support it:
[http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/liars/uscentury.gif](http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/liars/uscentury.gif).
Homicide rates were spiking in the US long before prohibition. Likewise, after
going down post WWII, homicide rates started spiking before the drug war. They
had almost doubled from the previous low point by the time Nixon was elected.
Nixon coined the phrase drug war, but didn’t really fund it aggressively. That
was Reagan. But homicide were near the peak by the time he was even elected.

> also, it seems questionable to extrapolate the outcome of legalization in
> the US based on data from mexico.

Not really—the cartels supply demand for drugs in the US. And OP was blaming
the US drug war for violence in Mexico.

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dredmorbius
What does that chart show exactly? Timepoints are labled, data are not.

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rayiner
It shows US homicides per 100,000 people.

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blendo
As a thought experiment, how would violence in Mexico be affected if the
Western Hemisphere (Argentina to Alaska) were a Schengen Area
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area)).

That is, true freedom of movement: no passport controls, no border controls,
and all "illegal" immigrants in the US from Central/South America now immune
to deportation.

I'd expect the import of drugs would double or quadruple, but perhaps that is
something we in the US could live with in return for implementing a
charitable, just, and historically accomodative Schengen-like policy?

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Joakal
Cross-border murders and crime would rise is my first thought. The standard of
living is high and so is the cost.

There's people arriving without jobs. So with no money, how do you think they
will survive?

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blendo
Construction, agriculture, food service, health care, and transportation
employers are always looking for workers.

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viraptor
> are always looking for workers

Nothing is "always" in economy. Texas had >8% unemployment rate just 10 years
ago. And out of the sectors you listed, health care requirements will be quite
a bit higher than in other ones.

