From: ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: Colombia Newsbriefs 12/9 ed-lp
Date: 17 Dec 92 08:22:50 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

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.

>In fact, the drug market is a very clear and excellent example of how market
>economy works. If you are true to your liberal and market views above
>everything else, as you have shown all over, why are you against this 
>excellent example of how it runs?

Better yet, the stolen goods market is also a good example of how market 
economy works.  Even better: organized crime is a great example of liberal
economics. So lets emulate them and join their ranks...

>If you want to end the drug problem it's very easy: you don't need to keep
>blaming it on producers, just stop consumption of it in the States. 

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

>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.  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. 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. 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?


>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?

>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.

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

>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.  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.  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).  Drugs just 
happen to be one of those thing of which we don't allow free markets 
fortunately.  As far as I'm concerened anyone found dealing illegal drugs in 
the U.S. (or anywhere) in the world should be sent straight to jail, where he 
can play monopoly at liesure and practice some stateless capitalism.

>> 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.

>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.

>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.

>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.

>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.  Better  yet, if 
your to scared over the consequences give me a call and I'll inform them 
myself.  After all as far as I know the war on drugs is on both ends of the 
stick, producingconsumers and consumers as well.

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

Edelmiro