SB1070

Get your Gringo Mask! It's another political diatribe! Up and at 'em, folks, we're going to talk about racism!

I suppose this is as big of a news item back in Califas as it is here, the new Arizona law that allows regular police to do what the immigration police are supposed to do (deport visaless workers). Here, obviously, it is very unpopular. Based on the photos of the protest in LA, opposition over there is pretty damn gigantic.

Since remittances (money sent from across the border) are the second most important source of income on the national level (http://www.americaeconomica.com/portada/reportajes/enero07/120107/clmexicovi.htm, right behind petroleum and right ahead of foreign investments and tourism), I can see why people are upset, even outside the basic offense of declaring that by existing in a certain place at a certain time, suddenly people are criminals. I mean, economically, it's essential that Mexico send people north of the border: people here have referred to this mechanism as an "escape valve" that keeps the lower classes from starting a second revolution. This is why the Mexican government is falling all over itself to condemn the law.

The people I talk to day in day out, however, have more basic human reasons to denounce the law. It appears to give "probable cause" to any pig on the street to stop, search and demand papers of any brown person they may happen across (like the Gestapo in Nazi movies, "Papiere, papiere!!"), which is kind of giving the green light to racial profiling, and furthermore potentially humiliating to a lot of innocent people (though I'll stick my neck out and suggest that illegal immigrants are not in fact "guilty" of anything other than a totally gnarly commute).

My co-worker Alejandro started to lecture me about how crossing borders is a very important legal issue, and how the gringos have the right to exclude people, because, you know, how would you feel if some random came into your backyard... I didn't bother explaining how my backyard was basically a hangout for randoms, weirdos, homeless folks and can collectors, drunks, addicts, dirt hippies, children, and abandoned roosters. I went straight to the point: you're a big fat malinchista! (Let it be known that I didn't make this comment in mala onda and that he is neither big nor fat, though malinchista maybe a little...). But... I had to bring up that the palefaces are indeed tecnically illegal immigrants themselves, and of course to support my point I used this cartoon. It's valid to support your arguments with cartoons, right?

Anyway, so I read recently that Sonorenses (folks from Sonora, Mexico, the state just south of AZ) are boycotting (haciendo boicot) Arizona stores, which has actually made a significant impact on the borderland's economic landscape, according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. A Mexican-American baseball player on the SD Padres has refused to play a game or tournament or something in Arizona... it's a pretty big deal.

So... defend human rights: snub Arizona.

We Have a Problem

There is this headline madlib in Mexico:

(Number) Killed in (Mexican State) as Drug Violence Spirals into (superlative) Shitstorm: Victims Bear Signs of Torture.

So here is the deal guys: narcotráfico is a big problem.

So basically, if you know someone that buys coca products, snub them. Snub them with all your might. Make them feel small.

Why? I will explain. The Mexican government feels like the only appropriate response to violence perpetrated by narcos is of course the perpetration of violence against suspected drug runners. Um, okay, but how are we at the point where Human Rights Watch is on their case for raping women--no shit, the Mexican military has seen incidences of its rank-and-file raping women taken prisoner in the Drug War.

So hereś my thesis: the narco-industry is a purely capitalist pursuit.

Letś face it: there are few ways to get rich in Mexico. Narco dealings are a pretty accessible route, ironically enough. And why is that? Short story, the way I see it, is that as long as people in the US are shelling out big wads of money to stuff their noses full of psychotropic baby powder, itś going to be a profitable business. Ergo, this drug thing is not going anywhere. If capitalist training does one thing to us, itś this: we will do ANYTHING to make the most money we can.

Iḿ going to take a moment to acknowledge that Iḿ nobodyś economist. I passed ECN 1A by the grace of a witch doctor I hired to drug the professor. Iḿ kidding. But itś true that I by no means get economics. But hereś my primitive little foray anyhow:

Drug runners make so much money doing what they do because people pay them money for their effort.

The object of the Drug War is to make the drug economy collapse by means of impeding production, transport and sale of such using all forms of violence. The hope is that either all the drug people will die and nobody will take their place because the risk of having your eyeballs torn out by a policeman far outweighs the potential benefit of rolling in a heap of money. Iḿ pretty sure that slaughter, torture, field-burning and such are effective ways to raise the expenses of the enterprise, as well, but is it the only way?

My question is, why did they have to go the brutal violence route? There are a lot of ways for government to create economic incentives or disincentives. Clearly weŕe not going to just make the mass of coked up freaks in LA kick the habit en masse for the sake of the Mexican People. Okay, thatś out. How about lowering the price of cocaine by glutting the market? I mean, that sounds silly, but then again, so does militarizing the shit out of the country, terrorizing the people and inciting a barrage of anti-police and anti-military violence that costs the lives of dozens at a time on both sides and frankly is costing the American government shit-tons of money, which would be better used finding ways to STOP violence, not fund its institutionalization. Yes, thatś right, American Taxpayer: you are funding the War on Drugs in Mexico. Congratulations.

So thatś why I say, that in order to save the Mexican authorities some trouble, and hopefully your fellow citizens some cash, go ahead and viciously ostracise the next coke user you find. Letś be fair here: itś the American market thatś incentivizing the enterprise thatś resulting in mass murder by outlaws and authorities alike, and bringing down innocent people with it. So whoś paying the price? Puro Mexicano, y te digo que este no es justicia. Letś pick up some of this slack, and stop pretending our hands are clean. Let´s take a little social responsibility here.