We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Behind the Mexican Drug War

Click here to access 50:00m audio interview at KPFA (Berkeley, CA) with author John Gibler. 

I think that there are few other subjects so mystified and obscured by mainstream media than the so-called drug wars that have been waged by US, Mexican, and other government administrations in the past 40 years. Of course, this has happened before involving other ruling classes. Probably the most notorious and widely obscured was the British opium imposed trade with China in the 19th century. 

The present drug-related incidents of violence in Mexico have grown in scale so large that we simply must understand the realities behind the violence and the fictitious reports coming from mainstream media. Although drug trafficking and the so-called drug wars are intimately a part of capitalist exploitation and social control, it is a complicated story. I assure you, that this interview can only serve as an outline that must be followed up by reading books on the subject such as the one this author has written.
It's incredibly bloody -- and incredibly misunderstood. What has come to be known as the Mexican drug war, but would be better viewed as the US-Mexico drug trade, has claimed nearly 50,000 lives since 2006, including those of many journalists. Mexico-based writer John Gibler talks about the politics and economics of an industry that involves enormous sums of money, territorial violence, mega-profits, and the collusion of governments and banks.