1984 and Pynchon

[Richard Romeo]

--- Malignd <malignd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> <<In the meantime, I'm reading ...>>
> 
> Did you finish Down by the River?
__________
I did--it's very sobering reading.  I too have been
recommending it to anyone interested in the subject. 
Bowden does repeat himself and the disjointedness of
his narrative can get wearying, but the effect is
cumulative--seeing the drug war, US and Mexican
foreign/social policy, greed, corruption, hypocrisy
from so many different angles, both macro and micro is
stunning, no doubt.

I've been trying to follow what Vincente Fox has tried
to do recently and I'm left wondering whether even
with the PRI in opposition whether he's been able to
tackle the corruption (PeMex still is a mess)--It
appears he hasn't been successful which is quite a
shame. But the US has pretty much abandoned any
interest in the area and one feels even more skeptical
about anything the DEA or US drug czars talk about.

One gets the impression after reading the book that
the Mexican economy is propped up by profits from the
drug trade, a state of affairs the US gov't was
willing to overlook to push NAFTA, not to mention the
destabilizing effect a true crackdown of the cartels
would have on Mexico's finances and on its precarious
political situation.
the US and the entrenched Mexican interests likes the
status quo apparently--not something mentioned in all
those tv ads about the drug problem.

Rich

rich

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