From: jcamacho@phakt.usc.edu (Jose Camacho)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: Colombia Newsbriefs 12/9 ed-lp
Date: 17 Dec 1992 01:36:12 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: phakt.usc.edu

In article <20347@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu writes:
This is my last posting on this subject.
>Jose Camacho says:
>
>
>[...]
>
>>As far as
>>anyone can tell the guerrilla doesn't get involved in the coffee business,
>>because there is no profit in it.
>
>Well I see, since there is no profit in Academia perhaps I should arm myself 
>and go seel crack in the streets of L.A.

Well, if you are consequent with your liberal ideas, perhaps you should. Or 
maybe it would be a good time to recognize that market economy cannot govern
everything in life. Then, it becomes a matter of political choice to decide
what should be subject to market economy and what not. And that's where the
ideological foundation of economic liberalism starts to crack.

[...]

>Wrong, we need to blame it on consumers as well as producers.

I see no reason why. From the point of view of Colombians, it is not our
problem that US citizens are dying in the streets, especially when their
own government doesn't give a damn about it. When you start doing something
about it here, then you can ask other countries to stop production. Until
know, Colombia has and is still putting up the victims in the war against
drug dealing, the US only puts the blame.

>
>>It would
>>be much more effective, and you wouldn't need to go around invading other
>>countries and making prisoners of war like Noriega. But of course, that would
>>amount to admitting that there is something fundamentally wrong with the 
>>system in the "world's most powerful nation", and that we don't want to do, do
>>we?
>
>No, Jose there is nothing wrong with our system, in fact it is better off than 
>the communist ones you defend so vehemently.

The Communist ghost is at play again. But that will not divert me from the main
issue. Where have I advocated (much less vehemently) communism? I am 
criticizing economic liberalism, if for you that means being a communist, then
it seems to me that your ideological scope is somewhat narrow.

If you really think there is nothing wrong with your system, perhaps you should
take a walk downtown L.A. on a weekend and meet some homeless people.

  Noriega is a prisoner of war 
>because he so happend to be a druglord who was also head of state and in order 
>to arrest the criminal we had to ask president elect Endarra to allow us to go 
>get him with force.  Its that plain and simple.

As far as I know drug-traffic is not an internationally recognized reason for 
legal war.

 However, your suggestion that 
>we shouldn't erradicate the drug trade, but simply convince our coke addicts 
>and local pushers to drop the trade is absolutely inmoral.

That is precisely the point. When the IMF "orders" Third World countries to
slash their deficits to pay the international debt, eventhough that is going
to have inmoral effects on most of the population, it is done in the name of
economic orthodoxy, i.e. liberalism; when the same doctrine is invoked to 
explain why a business is as profitable as it is, you say it is inmoral. There
seems to be a bit of contradiction here.

 As you stated, this 
>is an example of market economy and conversely as long as there's a supply the 
>marketers throughout Latin America and the criminals within our country will do 
>everything in their means to expand their markets.  By the way, it seems you 
>are very interested in assuring them of their profits.  Are you in buisiness?

Personal attacks will not contradict my exposition, Edelmiro, so please refrain
from them they just show your lack of consistent arguments.

>
>
>>I won't argue with you on the "U.S. left", since I don't even know there is 
>>one However, I must say that an increasing number of people on the non-U.S. 
>>left have been criticizing precisely that. I don't know if you are aware of 
>>the letter signed among others by Garcia Marquez in Colombia against the 
>                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>guerrilla.
>
>What an example!! Garcia Marquez is a personal friend of Fidel Castro.  How 
>would you expect him not to assure his friend of keeping the drug pipeline open 
>by criticizing U.S. policy?

I don't understand why you don't read what people write before answering to
things one never says. The point is, precisely, that Garcia Marquez, who is
a personal friend of Castro, criticizes the guerrilla, which, up to recently,
has been supported by Cuba. Now, it just shows you that your equation
communist=drugdealing is absurd.

I don't see how Garcia Marquez's criticizing Colombian guerrillas "criticizes
U.S. policy". Perhaps the connection is too deep for me to see it.
>
>>Perhaps once again, not only the left but the country as a whole in the US is
>>not really concerned with reality in South America but rather with how that
>>affects their "interests".
>
>Yeah.  And people like you are only interested in maintaining drug exports 
>duty free into the United States, thus preserving the "interests" of coca 
>producing economies.

I have never stated an interest in drug exports. I am only pointing out that
a coherent economic liberal cannot argue against the economic logic behind
drug trafficking. The basic point holds, in spite of your personal attacks.
>
>>So I don't think it is fair to say that "communists and druglords seem to be 
>>on the same side". First, as I said, several "communists" have dennounced both
>>the guerrilla and the drug-cartels, 
>
>Bust most are just like you.

Perhaps they are like me. But when several thousands of them have been killed
by cartel people, I think they deserve much more respect than the one you show
for anyone who disagrees with you. How many US presidential candidates have
died victims to drug cartels? Because in Colombia we had several in the past
elections. Again, the dead are down there, and with that state of affairs it
is very easy to preach to those countries what they should and shouldn't do.

  They defend the drug exports and shift the blame 
>on the "consumers", exactly the sam rhetoric we heard in Radio Havanna when 
>Castro was working full steam with his "peace and freedom" drug shipments to 
>Florida. As if producers, particularly the ones who refine and ship the shit, 
>didn't know what happens to the people that consume it.

Of course they know what happens to the people: that's their business. But 
capitalist logic doesn't care about what happens to the people, otherwise 
guns wouldn't be sold to Somalia. That is not the point.

However, if you think that you can discard an argument by claiming it coincides
with Castro's propaganda, I think there is nothing more to say.

  Most communists simply 
>echo the policies our damned cigarrette companies: we simply make the stuff, 
>the rest is a personal decision of the smoker.

But cigarrettes are legal. Perhaps because they are produced in the US?
>
>>second, if you knew something about how
>>the drug-lords have systematically ordered the killings thousands of popular
>>leaders and representatives of the UP in Colombia (a Communist group) perhaps 
>>you wouldn't be as quick to make such senseless affirmations.
>
>Well perhaps not all communists are drug traffickers.  It just seems that in 
>these days we are getting more and more of them to do it, or simply to defend 
>the system of coca production and shifting the blame to consumers.

If you can't see the difference between someone who grows and distributes a
deadly substance and someone who is telling you that the best way to get rid
of the problem is by cutting profits, then I don't see the purpose of carrying
on a debate.

  Or as you 
>say:
>
>>Guerrillas, as I said before, have finally converted to market economy: 
>>they
>>realized it was a great business to grow drugs. I don't approve of it, and I
>>don't approve of them in general, but I don't see how that can be condemned
>>from the point of view of a economic liberal.
>
>Its simple: economic liberalism does not preach anarchy.

No, it preaches the law of supply and demand. That is precisely what is at
stake here.

  The state has and 
>important role in assuring the health education and welfare of the populace, 
>and exterminate any mafias that have converted to market economy, while they 
>leave market force in charge of production (not destruction).

This is not what Mrs. Thatcher thought, and certainly not what Mr. Reagan 
thought. Maybe they weren't economic liberals.

  Drugs just 
>happen to be one of those thing of which we don't allow free markets 
>fortunately.

That is not true: alcohol and tobacco are legal.

[...]
>>> and now Galan is caught red handed with his cocaine
>>>cargo while sniffing some of it himself.
>
>>Perhaps he was following the example of the former mayor of DC, who is now
>>seeking office after being convicted of that same crime. Shouldn't you take
>>care of your own house before trying to tell other people how to run theirs?
>
>The very same moment in which someone would have said: lets not charge Mayor 
>Barry I would have stood up against him.  Mayor Barry was convicted as the 
>criminal he was,and paid his due time in jail,  but all of a sudden, we have 
>cheer leaders defending a drug trafficker and asking the colombians to pardon 
>his sins.

This doesn't disprove the point. Again, the perception in Colombia is that the
US is asking them to cut production at a tremendous cost in lives and damage
to the economy while the US system allows a convicted drugaddict to run for
public office after serving a very short time.

>
>>Thanks for the offer, but as I said before, I think you have enough things to
>>care about in your country. How does the cocaine get into the country? 
>
>I don't know, but perhaps since you know so much about this, and defend the 
>production side of the line you could give some first hand tecniques.  I do 
>know that some victims of the Avianca plane bombing (one of your friendly 
>producers did it) in New York had their intestines full of cocaine.

Do you really think that the tons of cocaine that are introduced in this
country come primarily through people with a couple of pounds in their 
intestines? Get real.

>
>>How is
>>it distributed? Where does the money go? It seems that a very small percentage
>>of the drug money returns/stays  in Colombia. The rest seems to be fueling
>>the US economy. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about that?
>
>Well don't blame me if the druglords don't want to invest in their own 
>economies, its all part o the free drug market economies you defend so much.

Here we go again. I think you don't understand very well the point. One, I 
don't like economic liberalism, therefore I don't like market economies. Two,
I am saying that for someone who has consistently defended such ideologies, it
is inconsistent to criticize drug trade. Three, my question remains: why
isn't the US government doing anything about the money which remains from the
drug business in the US?

>
>>Why doens't anyone ever mention the fact that the largest marijuana producer 
>>in the world is not Colombia, nor Mexico, but...the US? 
>
>I don't know what your talking about.  If someone is found with a 
>metamphetamine lab or a marijuana plantation in his yard he is sent to prison 
>where he belongs. However, perhaps YOU remain silent because the hoodlums that 
>grow it don't export it to Latin America.

I thought it was I who brought up the fact about marijuana. That certainly is
a strange way of remaining silent. On the other hand, I have never seen a
newspaper article on the subject.

>
>>It is always so much
>>easier to blame things on other people, and perhaps invade a couple of
>>countries so that it looks like you are doing something about the problem, but
>>no one in this country has the courage to face reality: the problem is in the
>>US, demand is in the US, distribution networks are in the US. Money is
>>laundered in the US and other advanced Western countries. If you tackle those
>>issues, I assure you, the price of cocaine will go down so quickly as that of
>>coffee (and believe me, it was quick).
>
>Let me assure you that if you happen to know someone who is laudering money 
>please inform the DEA so that we can proceed to arrest them. 
			       ^^
Are you in the DEA or is this a Freudian slip?

[...]

>What in hell is becoming of us?  Now communists are saying say yes to drugs!

I really wonder what is becoming of you, if this is what you interpret from
my posting...
>
>Edelmiro

Jose Camacho