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Comment by jayess | Hacker News Reader

Mexico is rapidly approaching failed-state status. Very large swaths of the country no longer have a functioning government, just cartels.

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That's simply not true and mostly comes from people who have never stepped across the border from the U.S side.

Mexico has terrible problems but it is far from a failed state.

Mexican here, I agree it's becoming (if not already) a failed state. Only thing holding it together is that not everyone is a pos and that big capitals do like pretending to have a rule of law.

Not so. Those who actually go across the border from Brownsville to Matamoros see it; those who fly straight to Cancun do not. It used to be a pleasant trip (through the mid- to late nineties) to go for a day or two, at a reasonable price. Good food, and a great place to buy quality vanilla. Not safe any more; sad. I suppose it makes sense that border towns got hit the hardest, but it's sad for people who enjoyed going across for short trips by car rather than going to expensive resort towns.

I am literally living in a border town on the Mexican side, I'm telling you the U.S media and other political entities are spreading fear and propaganda.

The time you describe was the worst time for cartel violence and it is much calmer now.

I believe what you say, but also that it's a sample size of 1. Many areas have became much worse, some perhaps many have become 'calmer.' But blaming it all on 'fake news' is not being truthful...

The sad thing is they are quite obviously a narco state but nobody wants to call it. Same with Venezuela. Just waiting for Forbes magazine to do an article on Narco billionaires for the DEA to swoop in... Thats the Narcos (Netflix) meme right... If Forbes exposes you they shut you down.

Funny isn't it? Mexico is a narco state because of American and European drug habits. Instead of tackling drug use the DEA is fighting cartels in Middle and South America. Cartels that are equipped with America made guns.

They could solve the problem easily legalizing the traffic of drugs. What the big USA brother would say? Would it be allowed?

The cartel would not be happy. The US didnt allow Mexico itself to legalize in the 60s[0] which actually crippled the cartels market and brought and end to overdozes iirc cause people got cleaner drugs and help from government facilities.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17608261

Can you name what large parts of Mexico are without government?

Tough to say what counts as large, but there are lots of articles like this one about avocado growing towns hiring their own militia because the federal government simply isn't relevant in the area:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/americas/mexico-state-corruption.html

It sounds a lot like local patches of plutocracy to me.

What is a "swath"? What is "just cartels?" Are cartels providing road and highway construction? Are cartels operating the national healthcare service? Do they do water permitting? Collect taxes? Regulate commerce? Look at my passport when I enter the country? No - none of the above. Your claim is false. They influence parts of the government, not substitute it. You are describing a place more like soithern Somalia.

>Are cartels operating the national healthcare service? Do they do water permitting? Collect taxes? Regulate commerce? Look at my passport when I enter the country?

Considering that they have politicians and legislators in their pocket, yes.

Please read the above comment thread so you don't end up taking things out of context. The original comment claimed there is no functioning government. Your new claim seems to be that even though the government is functioning, it is not because of bribery and corruption.

The state, the drug traffickers, and the paramilitaries have been the same for a long time, with support from the US. Where traffickers have control, the state's working as intended.

https://www.thenation.com/article/oswaldo-zavala-interview-m...

You say that as though it's a defined, well proven fact that has wide agreement. The link you refer to properly points out that it's not at all widely agreed upon. Rather, it's a theory by one guy, derived from his reading of fiction that he decided to flip around, and then float in his recent book. He used a universal way to get maximum attention: be controversial.

This is not at all an accurate summation of the author’s purported work and expertise. He is currently a professor in literature, which is why he intros his work/thinking by referring to another author’s “mythological” framing of the drug war. But the author himself was a journalist in Mexico before he became a professor. And throughout the interview he references work/research by other scholars, as well as the work of journalist Gary Webb.

>with support from the US

bad policy isn't the same as support

Oh don't worry. It is safer than the typical American school or church.

Now, those are something scary. I wouldn't dare to go to school in the US with how insecure they are. How can people study in those places?

Makes border control more imperative.

hardly. largest economy in latin america outside brazil, which has double the population

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