Dispelling Mexican Narconarratives: Why Most Fiction Gets It All Wrong (Borderlands Beat)
Drugs traffickers are the most visible faces, easier to blame.
Sure, they’re people who have a name and a face that we all want to condemn. They’re the only ones visible in the clandestine economy of drugs. But it’s also an economy that necessitates police and traffic schemes. For drugs to come across the border they need a way in. That usually involves bribing the police, Border Patrol, the military. And even when they get in, the drugs still need to continue to the cities of mass consumption like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. The drugs don’t just evaporate and suddenly show up in New York. There are larger schemes and traffic routes within the U.S. And nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about how is it that you can get high in New York when there’s mass surveillance done by the NSA and others. We all want to talk about the drug lords in Mexico. We want to talk about El Chapo, a guy who didn’t finish elementary school, who doesn’t even know how to send a video message from his cell phone, but suddenly he’s the guy we need to blame. It’s absurd. My agenda is to say that we’re choosing the wrong criminals.
I’m not sure the narcotics trade is any different than any other large-scale multi-national business. While more obviously violent (one can’t exactly send a memo from the CEO to enforce corporate protocol) it depends as much on control of the state as any business like Mobil-Exxon or Walmart does. And run by the same kind of people… putting profits before social responsibility. On the other hand, being a “criminal enterprise”, unlike Mobil-Exxon or Walmart, the management needs to disguise their role which has the ironic effect of making it seem somehow less than other exploitative industries depending on cheap labor and violence… like the oil industry, large scale agrobusiness, etc.
mexfiles.net 
Interesting, the reality that no one wants to face. El Chapo was removed and all hell broke loose. And…. 3 tons (or tonnes?) of cocaine were found in the tunnel, under el Chapo’s house in Cuiliacan. Where is it ? Remove one “drug lord” and a dozen fill in the gap. Are there bribes at all levels ? No one can stop the flow of drugs.
Stop three streams of drugs, six will replace the three.
The video cameras are turned off once the drugs get stateside! LoL…….
I am an administrator of Borderland Beat and I want to thank you for posting one of our stories posted on BB by one of our new reporters el Profe. I am a long time fan of yours and and always read MexFiles. Have used it as a source for many stories on Borderland Beat. Thanks again.