The Other Dirty War: Danzon

No conoces a Mexico. No la conoces como yo. No lo conoces porque eres supuesto Americano. En realidad, ambos somos. Pero tu distingues. Soy el original. Tu eres la copia.

Introduction to the Introduction

You don’t know Mexico. You know Tex Mex. You know illegal immigrants. You might know Cantinflas. You see Mexico from a skewed lens; and you cannot know drug cartels in Mexico until you eliminate your pre-existing thoughts about Mexicans and Mexico.

You have to let your bias go and try to start from a tabula rasa…a blank slate.  Then you can understand drug cartels in Mexico.

In this piece, Mexican music will guide you through this analysis. The music is a reflection of the culture, and even today plays a key role in its development. It is not the music you think. There are few or no sombreros, and almost no mariachis. There are some calaveras catrinas though.

Si crees que se le esta acabando el vuelo, no
Esto esta comenzando
El danzon ya empezo a tocar (pararara)
Y no ha terminado, no
El paso del tiempo va imponiendo el respeto
Y la calidad va mano a mano con la cantidad viene
(Viene) viene marcando la pauta y el sentimiento

-Control Machete

Your homework for Fight Club is to watch the videos. Then translate the music. Google Translate works well. Try to understand the underlying themes. Try to understand universal themes. Look at some of these and note who is using drug culture as a mechanism to voice universal issues of governance. How do symbols of Mexican socialism arise? How do xenophobic or nationalist concepts bubble to the surface? Ask yourself whether they are singing to Mexicans or Americans?

Too Much for One Article

This is an introduction to a multi-part piece of cartels within Mexico. This multi-part piece will attempt to template the existence of cartels within Mexico using the concept of specific gravity.

Specific gravity is the ratio of the density of any substance to the density of some other substance taken as standard. In this case, the reference substance or “liquid” is the government of the United Mexican States.

Key to understanding all of the following pieces is the relationship between the two liquids. Each is dependent on the other. Petroleum in water is distinct from oil in water and so forth. Thus, each cartel has its own specific gravity. Additionally, the sum of all cartels has a type of gestalt specific gravity weighed against the whole of government.

Mexico

You will need to understand some baseline concepts first. Mexico is not the United States, despite the proximity. The central government is not as central as our own. The states are a much more federated, with consolidated centers of power.

You will need to understand that Mexican identity is tied to a very long history. An identity older than the U.S. identity and U.S. views of Mexican identity. A history replete with conquerors and revolutions as well a rich religious history, not just governed by Catholicism, but also by calaveras and Santeria, though Catholicism has made its mark.

It’s an identity carved out of a will to survive and ancient mythologies of pre-destination. Mexican culture is rich in agrarian symbols (a proud tradition), as well as the effects of socialism on this agrarian background which later manifested itself in the Zapatista movement. Labor is a fundamental property of Mexicans. Mexicans recognized this in their era of feudal labor. They understood hard labor with little financial gain.

However, Mexicans are a resilient people and appreciate gains hard fought. This may break from perceptions of them sleeping in the hot noonday sun under a large sombrero. An image that is much more iconic than should be and propagated by our childhood cartoons. Keep all that in mind while you read the coming articles.

Telling You What I’m Going To Do

This project is open source only. I cannot stress this enough. You may be surprised with what I find. Do not be. I do this for a living. This will be formal writing. Each of the following pieces should range just slightly above or within 0-30 on the Flesch-Kinkaid readability scale. Measure it yourself using the Proofing tool in Word. Each article will be sourced and contain a bibliography.

The pieces will cover each of the drug cartels in Mexico, their structure, persons of interest (POI), plazas, and regions of operation. These will incite a degree of criticism. In particular, an article that will deal with the demand for drugs within the US and its relationship to the cartels as well as effect on the government of the United Mexican States. It will also comment on why our politicians need Americans to view Mexicans as third world and as illegal immigrants to suit their needs.

Together or in another piece, there will be an analysis of suggested decriminalization and its potential ramifications.

Finally, the last article will propose a  potential solution or solutions and their relationship to specific gravity. The solutions may not be kinetic. These pieces may not be sequential. I am still researching much of this information, and Jack can verify the sheer volume of material thus far stored, since he also has access to the material as a kind of TPI (two-person integrity).

So to conform to the history of military briefing: I have told you what I am going to do, next I will tell you what I am doing, and then I will tell you what I did.