{"id":15352,"date":"2011-10-31T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=15352"},"modified":"2011-10-30T23:46:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-30T22:46:50","slug":"mexico-te-quiero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/10\/mexico-te-quiero\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico, te quiero!"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Monterrey, DF, Puebla, Toluca<\/em><\/p>\n

1958: My first time in Latin America, the first love, everlasting.\u00a0 And what is love? Sharing the joy of the Other, like the beauty of Mexico City, DF now with clear sky and good air.\u00a0 Suffering the suffering of the Other, like the direct violence (50-60 thousand killed the last 5 years: Mexico has 19 of the 50 most violent cities in the world) linked to the narco-tr\u00e1fico<\/em> linked to the structural violence of poverty for the lower half of the population (95 percent of the 10 million indigenous population), and the flagrant inequality.\u00a0 A social pathology, a cancer metastasizing in corruption and pacts in the body politic, police, the military.<\/p>\n

Mexico, don’t despair; there are new winds blowing.\u00a0 From the north the cold air of arms, money and killing as the remedy. But the US empire is falling, and the USA itself is in bad shape.\u00a0 In fact, much of the West is de-developing, en via de subdesarrollo<\/em>, but still an enormous, diverse source also for the good as #occupyeverywhere<\/em> show.\u00a0 What a blessed geography<\/em>; the major bi-oceanic country in Latin America!\u00a0 The winds are blowing from Asia: winds of hope, with a Japanese-Chinese model of how to overcome misery. The winds of the Arab Spring are blowing from the Middle East carrying whispers of an African Spring in a year or two.\u00a0 The winds are blowing from the South, from Latin American brothers and sisters, new winds, with the voices of the indigenous, of Mother Nature, of lifting the poor, of patient work for integration.\u00a0 The “Rest” is coming.<\/p>\n

Close to the USA and far away from God?\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 Close to all corners of the world, close to many gods, of many kinds.\u00a0 With a blessed history<\/em> filled with rich archetypes, blossoming universities, with ever more charming people, better educated, with so much functioning better than ever.\u00a0 M\u00e9xico mi amor<\/em>, open your soul to \u2018with equity\u2019, with all.\u00a0 Permit yourself some optimism.<\/p>\n

Enters narco-tr\u00e1fico<\/em>.\u00a0 Dear upper half member, what would you have done if your family were dying of hunger and curable diseases but you didn\u2019t have an extra peso?\u00a0 From the tri\u00e1ngulo blanco<\/em> down south to certain regions of M\u00e9xico: produce drugs, distribute them in complex chains where drugs change hands against a commission, the higher the risk the higher the price, highest close to the border where gangs come to collect commission on the commissions before the drugs cross the border for final consumption, filling the spiritual voids of, say, 30 million US addicts.\u00a0 Well, at least part of the drugs.\u00a0 Hypothesis<\/em>: more than half of the traders could be buying-and-selling drugs, not to buy dreams in the real economy of consumption, but for real money in the financial economy of buying and selling.<\/p>\n

Higher up they do buying-and-selling of “troubled assets,\u201d of “derivatives”.\u00a0 But the derivado-traficantes<\/em> get off scot free, even bailed out by the state, the tax-payers.\u00a0 And they make more damage than their colleagues lower down in society.\u00a0 There is a difference though: the banks may run out of money in a “credit squeeze” whereas there seems to be no drug-squeeze.\u00a0 This matters because it limits what could be obtained by reducing consumption.<\/p>\n

A deeply troubled M\u00e9xico. Three aspects: social injustice, leading to drug production-distribution-consumption, leading to violence with criminal gangs-police-military infiltrating each other. They are related, but also autonomous.\u00a0 Use the army–since 1978!–to kill the violent ones, and the social injustice will produce new couriers, in body parts, in children, in women.\u00a0 Or put an end to drug use to consume something else that is illegal, incurs risks and hence incurs profits. Reduce social injustice and see the culture of violence wrap its articulations around something else. Kill the violent ones and see an increase in the culture of violence.\u00a0 Hence attend to all three aspects, doubly!, at the same time.<\/p>\n

To reduce misery<\/em>: lift the level of the poorest in the worst communities, in the Chinese way, with micro-companies to produce for basic needs, employing those most in need–financed by Carlos Slim?–;there is enough money in Mexico for a start!\u00a0 Fight narco and other traffics at the bottom by guaranteeing dignity for all.<\/p>\n

To reduce speculation<\/em>: keep a heavy control -shrinking the finance economy in favor of investment in the real economy- and fight derivado tr\u00e1fico<\/em> by making it illegal; but basically reduce inequality by lifting the bottom up, not by taking from the rich.<\/p>\n

To reduce drug production and distribution<\/em>: invite them to drop that and to participate in the gigantic social work for a better Mexico in return for amnesty or reduced punishment, have local police engage them one by one, negotiating individually, not with the group as a whole, impossible anyhow since there is no “whole”.<\/p>\n

To reduce drug consumption<\/em>:\u00a0 make soft drugs legal following the successful Portuguese model<\/a>, supervise soft consumption and weaning of hard consumption like in the USA; there will be less addicts, less violence, fewer Al Capones.\u00a0 Fill the spiritual needs fulfilled by drugs for many by spiritual means.<\/p>\n

To protect the civilian population against violence<\/em>: call on the international community, the UN and the growing Latin American institutions for humanitarian intervention-assistance like peace-keeping troops in the most vulnerable communities, big and small.<\/p>\n

To fight the narco-violence complex<\/em>: call on the UN and the Latin American community to supervise and help cooperation among the countries most affected.\u00a0 Not only a Plan Colombia<\/em> but all of them, including M\u00e9xico-United States-Canada, MEXUSCAN, which must deposit their plans to get out of these social pathologies–with annual reports and strong feedbacks.\u00a0 Strengthen the UN capacity.<\/p>\n

Do all six, and the future will be brighter, even bright. You owe it to yourself, to both halves of yourself. And to your friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a blessed geography; the major bi-oceanic country in Latin America! The winds are blowing from Asia: winds of hope, with a Japanese-Chinese model of how to overcome misery. The winds of the Arab Spring are blowing from the Middle East carrying whispers of an African Spring in a year or two. The winds are blowing from the South, from Latin American brothers and sisters, new winds, with the voices of the indigenous, of Mother Nature, of lifting the poor, of patient work for integration. The “Rest” is coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}