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Narco-Blogger Beats Mexico Drug War News Blackout
An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere — an inside view of their country's raging drug war. Operating from behind a thick curtain of computer security, Blog del Narco in less than six months has become Mexico's go-to Internet site at a time when mainstream media are feeling pressure and threats to stay away from the story. Many postings, including warnings and a beheading, appear to come directly from drug traffickers. Others depict crime scenes accessible only to military or police."
I hope the "second ammendment remedies" crowd is proud.
Where do you think the guns that fuel this bloodbath are coming from??
The guns that fuel Mexico's bloody drug war come from the United States of America, where we are apparently just a little too dumb for sensible gun control. I guess you never know when you will need an M-16 with a large clip to take down your own country's elected government. Nevermined the consequences or the fact that you would be dead before you even reloaded your weapon.
I wonder why this guy isn't swimming with the fishes yet...
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
I'm a mexican living in Mexico. I won't go as far as saying that it is hell on earth, but it is getting pretty gruesome. And that's just from what you hear on the news!
Then I started diggin in alternate sources, such as blog del narco, and damn, was I missing out on all the news!
Just recently I bumped into this story about Ciudad Juarez. The story both gives hope and scares the crap out of you. No sign of that story on the two most widely spread newspapers in Mexico, though. They're just sweeping it under the rug.
I wonder if blog del narco featured it...
that explains the latest batch of Mexico tourism TV commercials
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Legalize it all damn ready. Seriously, executive order, make it happen.
Wikileaks can reveal his true location.
http://exceptionduck.blogspot.com
It's really quite sad that the world learned nothing from the US' futile attempt to outlaw alcohol in the 1920's. No one is saying drugs are good. They are quite bad, but making them illegal makes them much, much worse. I wish politicians didn't care about looking "soft on crime" in dealing with the drug war, and they could actually push to try to overturn this quixotic war. Make them legal and undercut the illegal drug trade which is fueled by their artificially inflated illegal prices. We saw all the same stuff during alcohol prohibition. The extreme corruption, the gang wars, the bad moonshine that made people go permanently blind, people using/selling more potent forms because it's easier to transport. It's all avoidable, but no one will push the issue because they're instantly shot down for being "soft on drugs"
I die a little inside every time I hear a story about drug gangs basically taking over cities in Mexico and kidnapping people. Think of the people women whose husbands have been kidnapped and they receive pieces of them with ransom notes asking for money that they don't have. This is what could've happened if they kept up alcohol prohibition. Drug prohibition is just as ill-conceived. The better we do reducing supply, the higher the prices go, and the more vicious the drug gangs get in protecting their business.
It's a terrible cycle, and one that can only be broken by regulation. They need to make drugs legal through special outlets stocked with health care workers, where people can safely obtain their drugs and use the proceeds to pay for the addiction specialists and treatment centers. There's nothing we can do except address the problem of addiction, and treat such users as patients, not criminals. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's a start.
In case anyone's interested and knows their Spanish, un enlace: El Blog del Narco.
I'll never understand why anyone even humors positions like prohibition and gun control. We've tried both for a long time now, more than long enough to iron out any implementation errors. They simply don't work. Acknowledge that and maybe we can come up with something that might work.
Prohibition didn't work, but we still regulate alcohol. Drunk driving, drinking age, liquor licenses, and more. Disarming the citizenry is a bad idea, but that doesn't mean guns can't be regulated.
anyone?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
So if any amount of drugs were completely legal in Mexico, and you noticed that America just across the border was inundated with drugs, you wouldn't see any connection? And no, we are not inundated with drugs. If you think we are you haven't tried to score good stuff in a city where you don't have a connection.
It's a funny world you people live in where free and legal access is the same as a black market.
If gun control works so poorly then why do countries like Rwanda and the United States have sky high murder rates while Canada, Europe, and every other sane country has much lower murder rates.
By the way, I'm not concerned that a bunch of vigilante assholes are going to take over my government by force. They don't have anywhere near the capability. If you had even second grade critical thinking skills that would be obvious to you.
tyrants everywhere do fear armed civilians
The tyrants are the assholes that carry guns around to get their way. They aren't arming to fight the government. They are arming themselves to fight the rest of us, who choose peace and democracy instead of violence.
If this community is anything, it is knowledgeable. Can we see some security related comments that may help protect this kid running this blog?
ain't going to happen, more likely that narcotic dependency, ie opioids, will continue to be treated with buprenorphine or one day its successor, or for the unlucky many, methadone, ie nazi smack.
Give the bad guys a voice, that's sure to help.
I thought the advice for bullies was to ignore them.
I wonder how traceable a gun with no serial number is.
I assume that it's standard procedure to remove the gun's serial number In order to protect the gun purchaser in the United States.
How many of the guns in your biased article's survey have serial numbers?? Oh wait, your sources are shills for the weapon manufacturers and the NRA. And you believe it cuz you like guns. Good for you.
American guns are causing an epic bloodbath in Mexico. Not just assault rifles that can easily be converted to full automatic. Handguns are also flooding accross the border from the United States.
The NRA has blood on it's hands, and the people who instinctively oppose serious gun control should think about how much blood is being spilled by American guns.
Even if your phoney statistics were based in reality, almost every gun used to kill an American in the United States was purchased legally at some point.
Between this and Wikileaks, what's Big Brother supposed to do? It was supposed to be his game. Looks like he fumbled the ball, and the average Joe ran with it. At least, that's how it looks for now...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
We are seeing out of control drug wars in Mexico and some of the Caribbean islands as well. It is completely idiotic to assume that this can not happen in America as well.
This problem needs a cure before it gets worse. First we need to militarize our border and use all military tactics to keep intruders out. We need a good national ID card for everyone in the nation. And we need to be far, far harsher on those who use drugs as well as those that sell or smuggle them. First offenders for drug use need severe enough punishments that their entire lives will be conspicuously effected. For example forced labor on every weekend for the rest of their lives for simple possession would send a message. Or perhaps we could impose economic sanctions that would force a one time offender to labor for minimum wage for the rest of their lives. Second offenders should be executed. Our future is in our hands. And as far as being kind and gentle goes just how kind has liberal punishment been for the people in Mexico who now must fear bullets flying or heads being taken for the slightest objection to drug selling.
Oh and I agree that legalizing marijuana/cocaine growing in the US would basically end the war. Mexican and South American druglords could no longer fund their wars without that money.
Oh that's right, legalize drugs and the drug lords like good little boys will just go straight and start making stuffed toys. People who like to do bad things, will continue to do bad things, even if it has nothing to do with drugs. This idea of "if we only give them what they want and they'll go away" doesn't work.
n/t
you had me at #!
I grew up 160 km (that's 795 furlongs, for Americans) outside a major Australian city. We never locked our doors. In fact we did not HAVE locks on any door or window. Burglaries in 20 years? Zero.
American society has been whipped into a paranoid, trigger happy frenzy by 24 hour propaganda on film and tv. Throw unlimited availability of firearms in the mix and you have the most dangerous society in the developed world; most major American cities have a highe homicide rate than São Paulo, Brazil (where gun control is credited with improving safety).
Also compare to Toronto, Canada: 90 homicides annually in a region of 5.5 million people.
you had me at #!
You know, to build a mosque on every corner and install Gay Muslim Socialist Kenyan Ayatollahs who are going to come and round up your daughters^H^H^H sons for their harem - and take all your guns?
Beats me. You think "making a best effort to disseminate facts" was an easily understood mission, but since the mainstream media hasn't tried to do that for years*, everybody seems to have forgotten what it means.
* - *koff* Iraq *koff* Afghanistan
you had me at #!
If Mexico simply closed the border, with force. Stopped ALL americans from entering, the problem would be solved.
Because it is the US that is the problem, not Mexico. The US taste for drugs causes problems around the globe. Isolate the US and the drug trade ceases. The US are clearly to incompetent and to poor to patrol their own borders, so someone else should do it for them. Maybe the UN should blokkade the US :P
And the US could hardly protest, after all, they are against drugs aren't they? So UN ships blokkading their harbours would be a powerful move in the war on drugs.
Unless of course the war on drugs is merely a ruse for a different agenda... but that couldn't be, could it?
Basically the problem is that small countries cannot fight the endless stream of money that the American drug users generate. Similar problem to Iraq/Iran being able to wield large armies in a poor region from western oil money.
You can't stop the flow of drugs, so stop the flow of money.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Fuck, guys. Can't you all figure it out yet? It's commerce, and the governments are trying to regulate (improve efficiency) the sales of this property. My hat is off to the man that protects his property, and that includes drugs and alcohol and his weapon he carries and all about his character that equates to being property that he necessitates to his lifestyle. No drug dealer ever forced me to buy his property. I pray this lords of war strive above the political bullshit and libel and slander to gain control over the situation because HISTORY proves that there is always a hot market item that governments intentionally incriminate because it draws more attention and money that they could never tap into: drugs were just like fireworks were back in the day, and governments are jealous to the point that the governments employ thugs to steal, murder, hold ransom, kidnap, and torture anyone that doesn't disclose trade secrets and commercial information as such that the very own Civil Rights Act disallowes in Section 503 (if i remember correctly).
I see all these faggy church sinners tag along to take advantage of hard-working drug runners that work night and day harder than the assembly lines of Wienershcitzel and Burger King. GTFO Americunts and Mexicunts and all your inter-government cooperation to overregulate someone else's trade skill out of existance because you are jealous that none want to subscribe to your Ooops-Insurance to the pen of your doughnut-fingers.
Let the Bath of Blood begin, like the days of Prohibition where was creates NASCAR and Drag Racing. Maybe the drug dealers will invent something coooler that will live in the legends of dye Republic of Texass.
Figure it out. Hitler was 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 African, and 1/2 German while Joseph Stalin was 1/2 Jewush and 1/2 Georgian. Hitler particularly recognized that the jewish population was destroying the Judeans and Hermanian Nords that he gave them fair warning 1 year in advance to vacate the nation to go back to Canaan where they came from or he'll export them through the Madagascar Plan. In the end, he decided to push the jews into Consolidation Camps and export them around the world through Project Paperclip. Of the 4 million jews in German holdings, under 1 million died of natural causes that required proper cremation to cleans the diseases that from the main populous while the other 3 million were diaspora throughout the region and into other continents under assumed named because they were of mixed ancestry. People should consider that Stalin killed over 75 million non-communist native Russians for political reasons, like Mao Tse-dung killed over 80 million non-communist native Chinese for political reasons, while Hitler gets worshipped by Hindus and rednecks for figuring-out to kill many millions of Germans through war intentionaly lost.
Winners always writing the His-Story books.
You can look at the drug "problem" and absolutely see that the government(s) want to keep it illegal. It has nothing to do with protecting people from themselves, it has to do with the blood money lining pockets of the politicians, presidents, military, cia, black ops, etc... Who can deny free untraceable money? You look and everyone looks at the drug war as a joke, and that's what it is a joke on the world public population. it's an excuse to crack down on the public, jail millions, keep a war going, and of course free untraceable money for the corrupt fat cats at all levels of government and business. they are thinking about taxing and regulating marijuana because they can't control that trade anymore. people are growing it in their basements and backyards and on their farms here in the USA. it's no longer a controllable trade and they are loosing their money from that real fast, that's why the media is all over legalizing cannabis to try to convince the public it's time. Well the only time is they can't control that money anymore, so they are going to tax the hell out of it.
cocaine, heroin (look at USA troops patrolling the afghani poppy fields), are still profitable for the fat cats and that will still stay illegal. however now they want everyone taking bong hits and watching cartoons and eating black bean tortilla chips and laughing to themselves as the country of the USA goes to shit and everything falls. at least the slaves will be happy and so sedate and ignorant and apathetic from weed that they'll let it all go crashing down instead of standing up. it's a fucking shame!
Our power from sunbeams goes through three meters, actually. (Watts generated, total generation, and return to grid.) One of our neighbours said the other day that a lot of people she knew were thinking about getting PV installed, but it had taken someone (us) actually to do it before they would believe that what they were being told by the Government. The root problem with all beneficial change is innate conservatism that causes people to fear the new.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The difference between an AR-15 and an M-16 is like the difference between a base-model 1.6 Elise and an Exige S: They're based on the same design and it IS possible to basically modify one into the other...although the inferior model is still VERY good for doing what it's meant to do.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Surely 30k or more would be too much for a drug lord...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_abuse#Prohibition_and_conflict_in_China
Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1858, China was forced to legalize opium and began massive domestic production. Importation of opium peaked in 1879 at 6,700 tons, and by 1906, China was producing 85% of the world's opium, some 35,000 tons, and 27% of its adult male population regularly used opium --13.5 million people consuming 39,000 tons of opium yearly.[44] From 1880 to the beginning of the Communist era, the British attempted to discourage the use of opium in China, but this effectively promoted the use of morphine, heroin, and cocaine, further exacerbating the problem of addiction.[45]
So, you plan on solving one failed prohibition's problems with another failed prohibition?
And you think that is in any way "sensible"?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I've seen far too many huge companies taken down by new technology and poor business decisions to believe that a shadow conspiracy exists to stifle progressive change in drug laws and energy innovation. As always, public opinion is the strongest political force in the united states, and as it changes, so too will our laws.
I think it is silly and paranoid to suggest the US government is owned by drug cartels. The only reason things don't change is for not wanting to be considered soft on crime and appearing for drugs, instead of against prohibition, when it comes to the politics of re-election. It really comes down to how you frame the discussion, and politics can frame it any way they want. It would take real political courage to do what is right here. As far as actual courage, the US President is protected more than anyone in the world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say the cartels cannot get to him or his family in the US. He can promote policy, but I don't think he can repeal prohibition by executive order. I think it has to come through legislation, which means the aforementioned political problems become more of an issue for Congress facing re-election and getting them on board. And at the end of the day, we've only got Congressmen Kucinich with any common sense on the issue.
American society has been whipped into a paranoid, trigger happy frenzy by 24 hour propaganda on film and tv.
No. This is an ugly stereotype. We don't really live like GTA 4. Ironically, it seems that the propaganda is working the other way around.
Throw unlimited availability of firearms in the mix
There are limits. Lots of them..
and you have the most dangerous society in the developed world
I would disagree.
most major American cities have a highe homicide rate than São Paulo, Brazil
First, you cherry-picked that number. The remainder of Brazil is still dangerous as hell, with homicide rates 5 to 10 times the rate in Sao Paolo (Maceio ranks at the top with a stunning 104 .01), with an overall murder rate of 25.2 for the last year available (2007), which is roughly 5 times the number for the US in the same period. Sao Paolo seem to be benefiting from increased enforcement, but at the expense of the right of individuals to defend themselves, which is inexcusable. Enforcement of reasonable existing laws is the best way to deal with violence.
Homicide (for the US, includes non-negligent homicide) rates per 100,000:
Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, yet its homicide rate exceeds that of Sao Paolo, so I don't think that restrictive laws alone are the answer. Texas, on the other hand, has less restrictive gun laws, and many places there despite their alleged "cowboy" mentality have very low homicide rates. More restrictive laws don't help. Better enforcement of reasonable existing laws does.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
That is all.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Middle of nowhere
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The cavalier right of USians to own guns means drug dealers have easy access to them in Mexico and elsewhere.
The pathetic controls in place in the USA has a direct impact in the lives of Mexicans south of the border.
Only sheer hypocrisy can turn a blind eye to this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And they are not immerse in a bloodbath between alcohol traffickers.
The abundant supply of weapons, courtesy of the idiocy that is the pro-gun lobby's interpretation of the US Constitution, is surely a factor in the tragedy that is becoming life in some places in Mexico.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you really believe that armed minorities in Germany would have managed to oppose in any significant way the German army?
It took the might of the Soviet Union with collaboration of the US and what was left of the British army (after they were kicked out from Continental Europe by Hitler) to stop the Nazis.
If you truly believe that a rag tag resistance would have hindered in any way the might of the German army (and people, you say the disarmed the German people like if they were not the brainwashed, humiliated populace looking for a Messiah to lead them into glory).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many people in Africa or India, where big carnivores roam freely, have got no access to guns.
They remain in relatively safety by being wise in their interactions with wild animals in nature.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Use a gun instead of a good lock and door.
that is the difference in mentality between people that don't have a fetishist attachment to weapons and other people that do.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many politicians are decent people and understand that they can't do what you are suggesting.
As for Mexicans causing the bloodbath, that is all well and good, but we didn't have drug dealers before USians decide to evade reality by intoxicating themselves in epic proportions (when your last three Presidents admit to have used drugs, what hope is there?)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Fascist fantasises of some of you are quite amusing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Mexicans acquired the legal right to possess weapons for self defense last term of Congress.
That is not solving much, is it? (if anything most likely is making matters worse since now more weapons can find their way into the black market).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's not just the cartels that are killing the journalists and innocent -
it's the Federales, local police, the military, *and* the cartels.
It's high-time folks stopped pretending like this is just a problem of out-of-control drug-peddling gangsters.
The Mexican government -- thanks to US meddling -- has been nothing but a pyramid of murdering gangsters for a nearly a century, now.
you'd think you computer dillweeds would know enough to be able to look up some basic research reports and fact-check the fox "news" actors you love to wank off over --
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_05.html
Arizona is WAY down the list of murders per-capita.
Like, 18th or so out of fifty.
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Phoenix&state=AZ
Its murder/violent crime rate is around 2.5 times the national average -- well under DC, Oakland, and right around places like Memphis, TN or Dallas, TX.
Phoenix isn't even close to DC -- never has been, and certainly isn't, now.
But man, it must sure feel good to point at the darkies and say they're all ruining our lives, yeah?