Tag Archives: North America

FTAC–A Note: Iron River, Narcotics, and the Ecology of Latin American Mass Migration

11 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Canada, Caribbean Basin, Central America, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, United States of America

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This post continues my practice of trying to make accessible and somewhat permanent useful observation composed in passing elsewhere online or in correspondence. In short Twitterese, I’ve diagrammed the argument as, approximately (NA=North America; LA=Latin America), “NA cash->LA narcotics->NA; NA arms->LA cartel & gang violence->migrants->NA.” Close enough. “NA”=”North America”, of course, and “LA”=”Latin America”.

Here follows an online comment already made plus short associated and supporting reference.

Our narcotics habits and black market enthusiasms fuel the cartels and gangs of Latin America, and those are not known for healthy governing practices. The abused, impoverished, terrified, and threatened migrate to El Norte where they believe there will be at least better security, order, and rule-of-law.

We Americans (and Canadians) are not only a powerful market for everything that may be obtained only through smuggling, we’ve had a business going in running arms into Latin America (along with all the outlaws of the world). Term for exploration on the web: “America, arms, iron river”. I have collected articles on the subject dating back to 2007.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-guns/iron-river-of-guns-flows-from-u-s-to-mexico-idUSN1223853620070713 (2007)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/international-world/guns-mexico.html (2021)

The sad truth about my Fellow Americans is that we’re greedy as sin, –or desperate and both–and we pay a high price for it x addictions x homelessness x social failures x social pathologies. Neither our Far Out Left nor Rabid Reactionary Right seems to have a clue as regards the full ecology of corruption, crime, narcotics, trafficked labor (2nd largest abuse of all), and above all our most prized possession: money–would that our ethics, principles, values, and general American spirit modify the national appetite for good times and loot.

Related Online

Abbany, Zulfikar. “Report: EU spends 31 billion on illicit drugs.” DW, April 5, 2016.

Cheatham, Amelia and Diana Roy. “Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle.” Council on Foreign Relations, last updated June 22, 2022.

Gaynor, Tim. “‘Iron river of guns’ flows from U.S. to Mexico.” Reuters, July 13, 2007.

Grillo, Loan. “Slow the Iron River of Guns to Mexico.” The New York Times, February 26, 2021.

Kilmer, Beau. “Americans’ Spending on Illicit Drugs Nears $150 Billion Annually; Appears to Rival What is Spent on Alcohol.” RAND, August 20, 2019.

Krauze, Leon. “Biden must stop the ‘iron river’ of U.S. weapons devastating Mexico.” The Washington Post, March 10, 2021.

Llana, Sara Miller. “US guns fuel Mexico drug war? The politics behind the issue.” The Christian Science Monitor, June 15, 2011.

Mallene, Laura. “Europeans Spend $30 Billion A Year On Drugs.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, November 28, 2019.

Martinez, Gabriela. “The flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico is getting lost in the border debate.” PBS New Hour, June 12, 2019, updated July 2, 2019.

Mathema, Silva. “They Are (Still) Refugees: People Continue to Flee Violence in Latin American Countries.” Center for American Progress, June 1, 2018.

Morris, Nathaniel and Gema Kloppe-Santamaria. “The Many, Varied Violences Behind the Central American Exodus.” IPI Global Observatory, November 15, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “An American Report Card.” BackChannels, October 4, 2019.

Pendergast, Curt. “Arizona guns quietly smuggled across border as bullets fly in Mexico.” Tuscon Arizona Daily Star, November 25, 2019, updated June 26, 2020.

Rubio, Yury. “Twenty-first Century Slavery: How to Stop Human Trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” The International Affairs Review, December 15, 2022.

Seelke, Clare Ribando. “Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean.” PDF. Congressional Research Service, October 13, 2016.

VICE News. “How the US Fuels Mexican Cartel Violence.” Video. YouTube, August 22, 2021.

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Also in Media – “Inside Nick Kouvalis’s fake news strategy ” – Macleans.ca – January 11, 2017

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Epistemology, Journalism, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics

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At 6:25 p.m. on Jan. 2, Nick Kouvalis sent out a tweet suggesting that the Canadian government was, among other things, directly funding known terrorist groups. Kouvalis, who is campaign manager of Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch, has a history of posting provocative, absurd and often completely false information. He does so, he says, “to make the left go nuts.”

Source: Inside Nick Kouvalis’s fake news strategy – Macleans.ca

Throwing Down the Oil Card

14 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in Iran, North America, Politics, Russia

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“In the issue of oil, the economy has not been the sole important factor,” Rouhani said. “International politics and plots” have also affected prices, he said, without elaborating.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-29/iran-oil-revenue-shrinks-30-percent-on-price-drop-rouhani-says.html – 10/30/2014

NCRI – The Iranian regime is facing a deepening financial crisis as the price of crude oil plunges on international markets.

The regime’s budget deficit was reported by the state-run Ebtekar daily newspaper on November 8 issue as totalling 1.5 billion dollars. But economists believe the true figure is much higher.

http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/economy/17510-iranian-regime-s-cash-crisis-as-oil-price-plunges – 11/12/2014

Russia, whose economy is forecast by the central bank to run zero growth next year, is struggling under the weight of a plummeting ruble and sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine. Brent crude, the grade that underpins prices for Urals, Russia’s main export blend, is set for a record losing streak amid speculation that OPEC will refrain from cutting production to ease concern of a supply glut.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-14/putin-says-russia-preparing-for-catastrophic-oil-slump.html – 11/14/2014

A pressing question lies in determining what effects considerable cuts in the price of oil, the glut in oil supplies, and the remarkable growth of the U.S. oil industry, has and will have on international politics as well as on the global economy. Almost certainly, the United States and Western countries will benefit both politically and economically, while most of the members of OPEC, and countries including Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State of Iraq, and Syria, will be hurt. More broadly, there will be a global economic benefit as lower energy costs will help both producers and consumers.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/oils_well_for_american_energy_independence.html#ixzz3J2wnCdTE – 11/13/2014

Abductions, beheading, mass slaughter — headline grabbers!

Commodity pricing?

Squint.

While post-feudal North America has been working on greater achievement in energy independence, it appears some oil cash flow addicts have puffed and bluffed their way into an anticipated but unaddressed cash crunch with consequences looming on the near horizon, this perhaps despite deep pocket brags.

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