Mexico’s anti-avocado militias | Hacker News Reader

Mexico’s anti-avocado militias

theguardian.com

While what is described here is a legitimate political movement, it's important to remember most 'militias' in these contexts are very often funded by, part of, or become rival criminal groups.

I remember watching Vice lionize rival Cartel thugs as "fed up anti-Cartel paramilitaries". I had to laugh.

Its interesting that if you are sitting on top of something valuable its great, as long as its not too valuable. At a certain point people are willing to kill and cheat for something really valuable, and then if you are sitting on top of it, you're fucked.

Something is missing in your theory. Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, etc. are sitting on something really valuable.

The thing that's missing is living under a functional government.

It isn't really that exploitable, though. You couldn't march up to any of these people and take it and have it keep its value. It's not like Musk has a 4 billion dollar diamond in his stomach.

Now I’m envisioning Musk like the Christmas goose in The Blue Carbuncle

*Adventure of the…

This is the resource curse in a very reduced and local setting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

In Cherán, however, there was no such violence. Nor were there any avocados. Thirteen years ago, the town’s residents prevented corrupt officials and a local cartel from illegally cutting down native forests to make way for the crop. A group of locals took loggers hostage while others incinerated their trucks. Soon, townspeople had kicked out the police and local government, cancelled elections, and locked down the whole area. A revolutionary experiment was under way. Months later, Cherán reopened with an entirely new state apparatus in place. Political parties were banned, and a governing council had been elected; a reforestation campaign was undertaken to replenish the barren hills; a military force was chartered to protect the trees and the town’s water supply; some of the country’s most advanced water filtration and recycling programmes were created. And the avocado was outlawed.

Direct action gets the goods.

This is the kind of affirmative action I can fall behind.

"new state apparatus in place. Political parties were banned, and a governing council had been elected..a military force was chartered"

Yeah, how does this work? This sounds more like civil war. Admittedly, one side of the war staying to themselves. But, also, break down of any overall government.

If Idaho suddenly did this people would freak out, would call it communism, and attack.

> If Idaho suddenly did this people would freak out, would call it communism, and attack.

Well, of course. People would start taking control of their own lives, and we don't want that. What would come next? The right to control their own body? How ludicrous.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/04/23/1246611...

You can make that argument in both directions. Better be careful what you are arguing for. The same arguments for 'States' to have the right to legalize pot is the same arguments the South uses for slavery.

Texas could secede and enslave Mexicans and remove women's rights. That would be 'taking control' as they desire it.

California could secede and give everyone free pot and mandatory beach days. That would be their 'taking control' as they desire it.

If everyone is allowed to do their own thing, all states go their own way, all counties, all people. It's just anarchy.

Respecting human rights and self-autonomy is not the same thing as removing rights from people to benefit the companies/government and I wish people would stop arguing in bad faith that they're remotely similar.

You might need to clarify that position.

It is a problem when someone wants 'autonomy' in order to enforce reduced 'right's on others, or another way, my 'autonomy' is greater than your 'autonomy'.

So, lets say I'm commanded by my god to enforce that you must have kids. And I get enough people together to secede, in order to enforce these beliefs onto others. Then the people caught in this situation do have rights taken away.

Or, other people cross dressing offends me, thus I should have the right to pass laws to prevent them doing that, my 'autonomy' outweighs theirs.

It does get confusing, when some groups say they want 'autonomy' over their body when it comes to vaccines, but when it comes to 'autonomy' over having kids, suddenly it is a metaphysical law from god that can't be compromised.

Both are cases of bodily 'autonomy', and one group believes since it is a law from god, that it should be enforced onto others by government laws, which is really taking rights away.

When the group that thinks your 'autonomy' is an affront to their god, and you become the problem to be 'removed', and they are now running the government, now the government is taking away rights and infringing on the individual's 'autonomy'.

fundamental Constitutional rights of individuals vs. the states’ right to regulate health, welfare, and morality are of course not “the same argument.” This is probably why they are dealt with in distinct amendments.

""fundamental Constitutional rights of individuals vs. the states’ right to regulate health, welfare, and morality are of course not “the same argument.” This is probably why they are dealt with in distinct amendments.""

I probably need it spelled out, since to me your sentence is directly showing how they are they same argument.

If the 'state' as in states rights, wants to limit my 'health and welfare' say by limiting my health insurance and giving everyone guns, then that does also infringe on my individual rights. I'm placed in a situation of not being in a safe area with access to resources to live a healthy life. And yes, in todays world that is a 'States' right, and everyone can move. But you can't say those are separate.

If a 'State' wants to cause harm to it's own citizens, then that becomes then a conflict between the "State" and the "Central" government, who must also insure everyone has some equal measure of safety and welfare.

You're forgetting that some peoples 'morality' causes harm to others. Which can then bring into conflict the state and the central gov. Like when in Ameristan the 'state' gov starts persecuting people, maybe even disenfranchising the ability to vote at all, then the Central gov has to step in. Now there is Central-Local-Individual conflict.

Of course, regulation by the state and individual liberty are in tension. No one forgot that; it’s the basis of our system.

The argument that states can regulate marijuana relies on a right reserved to the states: the states’ police powers.

The argument that states can allow slavery directly contradicts the thirteenth amendment, where an individual’s natural right is stated.

Arguing that an individual is free because god gave him that right is very different than arguing that a state can do something because of federalism. The justification on one side is that the individual’s right to bodily integrity, autonomy, and security is sacrosanct. The argument on the other side is that the polis takes priority over the individual. They are opposite arguments that must be balanced, not “the same argument.” What they are is two sides of the same dispute, which is what I think you might mean.

am I close?

As most internet arguments, the original examples were a bit flippant, pot and slavery at opposite extremes. Yes, the shifting balance between some natural order and polis/federalism. I am saying 'same argument' you are saying 'opposite arguments'. I am meaning the same thing. It is the balance line, I was saying 'same argument' as in arguing over the point where to draw the line, not two different argument pushing from both sides.

Yes, today, there is a 13 amendment. So technically slavery is settled?

But I have heard many people use the argument that the Civil War was about 'states rights' (not slavery) in the context of today. As in re-contextualizing, saying that generally the causes of the Civil War, being 'States Rights', was actually correct, and Lincoln went too far trying to keep the Union Together. That the states should be allowed to do what they want, which generally would re-instate slavery. If a state were to secede, then the constitution would not apply. And generally that is the argument, that the central government has over-reached, and we should split.

Of course, nobody is saying bring back slavery. What is being said is that we need to join the Church and State into one, form a theocracy, and women will really just be for babies. That is an actual position people are taking today, and they use the 'states-rights' as an argument.

A state could theoretically devolve into one that doesn't reflect the values of the federation. It could begin to resemble countries that already exist today that the US doesn't do much about. The unfortunate part is that the constitution doesn't (currently) provide a way to kick out such a state. On the other hand, the constitution asserts at least some rights, and the federal government has authority to enforce federal laws (which could be passed to prohibit state actions). Also, residents of those states could freely move to other states.

It is a conundrum. What makes a country, it's parts, but it's parts all the way down to the individual. At what point does it 'break apart'. Or re-form.

Didn't Monico try to secede from France? Wasn't there a couple provinces in Spain that were trying to leave. And Ontario has had some movement to leave Canada for awhile.

It seems like every group, no matter the size, will eventually have some sub group that wants to leave. It almost seems like human nature, as soon as you feel like the 'group' is infringing on you as 'individual' and enough people that feel that same way will 're-group' and form a new entity.

The US holds itself on a pedestal. But I really think it is more geography that lead to the little cohesiveness it has. Lots of ocean boarders, weak countries on the others.

Throw the US into the middle of Europe, with same pressures from all around, and internal conflict, and then does it become the Austria-Hungary Empire? What about the US is making it special, except luck.

I don't have any answer.

But I do think that the US is 'stronger together' no matter what the internal disagreements. Just as a Nation, with the need to organize, defend. Given the geography, The US States are stronger together. Any break apart would reduce the remaining factions to less than they are now.

Counterpoint: Good things are good and bad things are bad. It doesn't matter the mechanism. Legalizing slavery is still bad even if it's illegal. Legalizing pot is still good even if it's illegal. When you make rules that restrict both good and bad people, it tends to be bad, because the good people feel restricted by the rules while the bad people tend to just ignore them.

It doesn't really make sense to compare it to something in the U.S where both parties fight over meaningless stuff like who can go into which bathrooms and which books you can burn.

In Mexico the local government is the problem since they are often part of the cartels so the only way to change things is for these communities to setup a local milita, kick out the goverment/police and put a very utilitarian government in its place.

Yes, on the one hand, on the other seems like the Mexican constitution allows for self governance of indigenous communities and they have gone that route first by the sword and then through legal means.

I like this setup. It's like an different take on "laboratories of democracy".

Unlike the United States government, the Mexican government has been fighting, and maybe losing, a civil war against cartels for a long time. This episode is, if anything, a positive step in that civil war, in the enemy-of-my-enemy sense, so it seems reasonable that a central government would at least deprioritize addressing it.

Wow that’s some serious A-Team level story

Yea, and then those kinds of organizations become corrupted themselves because money and power are extremely alluring.

Look at the Autodefensas in Colombia and Michoacán, or the origins of the Taliban in Kandahar's opium belt (Maiwand) in the early 1990s.

Militas are not hallmarks of direct democracy - they are hallmarks of societal and political collapse.

I'd an already corrupt environment for any other "maybe corrupt in 10 years" any day.

I'd change* ...

> Thirteen years ago, the town’s residents prevented corrupt officials and a local cartel from illegally cutting down native forests to make way for the crop.

This is a key take. Organized crime doesn't rule regions outside the control of the state, they're managed by a coalition of local corrupt politicians and businessmen that use them to do their dirty work. The town residents were wise to fight not only the illegal criminals, but their legal supporters.

People are getting tired of deeply corrupted govermments blaming everything bad on the runaway cartels, while they're the real intellectual authors.

After reading, it appears the humble avocado might be better farmed vertically, using hydroponics, in region(s) with sufficient access to fresh water, and somewhere with the rule of law.

It appears to be as much of a "resource curse" as the drug trade is/was to Michoacán.

The problem is just that avocados farmed without regulatory oversight on illegally deforested (or otherwise occupied) land in regions with insufficient rule of law will be cheaper - same as with palm oil, marijuana (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-11/illegal-...) and several other products...

People would pay extra for ‘conflict-free’ avocados I bet

We have a similar conundrum for coffee, and the "this coffee is ethically good" handling is just complicated. It works at super small scale, for extra invested people. The bigger the scale becomes, the murkier it is, and at some point a vendor is just selling a label with not much reality behind it.

Are you talking ‘ethical fair trade’? Because there’s definitely reputable and properly audited designations in this space (edit: namely the green and blue Fairtrade International and Rainforest Alliance, all the imitation marks are junk)

The fact that we need to check this point is one of the issue.

There's a bunch of other organisations, in particular some are built by brands, and of course in a way that advantages them.

Then there's coffee that has absolutely no audit and no designation, mostly because it's produced at low scale (the farm manages its own international sales in a way or another) and is extremely good on an ethical POV but can't be bothered with a registrtion authority.

If I see the green and blue Fairtrade® logo, I know it's been independently audited, otherwise I just assume the worst. There's no way to get around independent audits and a reputable trademark that signifies the product has been certified. The main issue is that most people aren't willing to pay the premium on super slim margin products (e.g., tea, bananas), but certainly there's enough people who pay a premium for coffee. I have a hunch that there's a premium market for avocados, at least in the more expensive dining and grocery establishments.

To me the main issue is that it forces a middle men and auditor in all parts of the business, when nowadays we can get away with smaller structures and independent producers directly accessing end(ish)-consumers.

For coffee, that can mean an Colombian farm directly making a deal with a small London roaster. It was unrealistic 20~30 years ago, but this kind of match making is doable now, and a farm that gets access to the market in that way won't bother to pay and keep intricates records of absolutely everything they do for a third party organization that brings to them nothing to the table.

Another example of this is producers using the Fair Trade label to pass the lower quality goods at a guaranteed price ,and in parallel negociate higher prices for the more luxurious goods [0]. In that example the producer wins so I'd see it as a decent situation, but the brand perception getting hit might be problematic long term.

All in all, I think there's a movement to provide the transparency at the small scale level: a coffee roaster can showcase which independents farm makes their specialty coffee, and the farm negociate deals against a small set of small roasters instead of a giant conglomerate or the whole international market, making it more balanced as they can come up with a decent arrangement that benefits both.

That will never work for Starbucks or Nespresso, but for specialty coffee it seems to be a good model.

[0] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_problem_with_fair_trade_...

That alternative sounds great, I just couldn't trust it without third-party audits. If Fairtrade International transitions to being plainly an auditing company rather than a facilitator, that's fine, as long as a standard is maintained and verified, and the mark continues to mean tangible human rights improvements. I get this is hard to do at scale, but it comes down to whatever is the least worst option.

There's a similar issue with free range eggs. At enough scale it becomes harder to verify that indeed the chickens are being kept in humane conditions. But at least for domestic production there can be some legal ramifications depending on the governments advertising/trade laws, and it's much easier for whistleblowers and activists to counter attempts at deception.

How do you vertically farm a tree? Isn’t that just called planting it in the ground? It grows vertically already.

The ecological and political consequences of avocados appears harsh. The article touches on both of these points. But I have no idea how global consumption could be reduced without also causing harm.

> But I have no idea how global consumption could be reduced without also causing harm.

One can start by implementing democracy. And no, i don't mean plutocracy, lobbyism or other forms of cortuption.

What about all the foods that require more water / inputs than avocados?

It's a notion of mixed sentiment that in some strange land, one could be slapped for daring avocado toast.

Maybe the water is an excuse.

Meat production is still significantly more resource intense, we are cutting down the rainforest to make more room for feed crops.

You don't need feed crops for meat. Historically people used marginal land where crops don't grow to graze animals. (And there is a lot of marginal land, even with modern fertilizers.)

Anything else makes no economic sense.

Reality is that more than 99 percent of US meat production facilities are factory farms.

If you're talking about chickens or pigs, sure. Cows though are raised in fields and only spend a short time being plumped up on feed lots.

A lot of “economic sense” depends on where you draw the boundaries of your externalities.

If you exclude environmental impact, basic human rights, animal welfare, and social stability, a lot of really short-sighted and destructive setups suddenly start to make “economic sense”.

You technically don’t need them if people would consume reasonable amount of animal products, which they don’t. In the actual real world we all live in the vast majority of meat comes from factory farms whose entire existence relies on feed crops and antibiotics abuse.

And feed crops are often from questionable origins.

It apparently does make short-term economic sense because we use 6 million km^2 of cropland to feed our animals instead of us directly.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

It does not make sense long-term, but the long-term bill will be paid by someone else, so people today don't care.

Reducing consumption and demand doesn't necessarily lead to harm.

Avocado trees are formidable plants. As tall as an Oak. They grow fast like Magnolias. I wish grocery stores in the US were forced to publish the amount of produce the thrash every month. It would be a good contrast to show how many $2.50 a piece avocados are sold versus and how many are thrashed.

As a Spaniard, I know México used to do it fine 50, 60, 100 years ago. Ditto with Argentina, albeit the level of violence and social issues are nowhere close to México. What happened?

People didn't care much about politics (and distant future in general), and voted in populists, who basically destroyed the economy.

I also live in Spain, but my partner is Mexican and I know a number of argentines including one who just spent months travelling in latin america.

She travelled mostly alone, spent many nights sleeping in a van on her own in Mexico and said she felt much safer than in the Buenos Aires area where she used to live before moving to Spain. And Buenos Aires is considered a safe city.

Last time I was in Mexico I never felt in danger[1] despite travelling in some hot areas. I was however told to only drive during daytime and using the main highways. I eructed at the face of a taxi driver who was cut me off while I was crossing a street in Yucatan, I wouldn't have done that in Guanajuato where I would have feared any driver could have pulled a gun.

The only conclusion I can do is that

- they are both very big countries full of contrasts

- there are objective statistical numbers

- but the perception of security/violence is very subjective

- these numbers can vary greatly over a specific time frame.

- the numbers can vary greatly geographically: Chiapas is not Michoacan or Sonora, Cancún is not Mexico City or Buenos Aires. And within big cities there can be a lot of contrasts between neighborhoods, sometimes even inside a single one.

[1] well I did felt in danger, but because of the general state of traffic. Huge trucks driven recklessly by drivers under influcence were my main concerns.

I'm a gringo and have driven all over NW Mexico: BCS/BCN and Sonora. So cities: Guaymas, Nogales, Puerto Peñasco, Mexicali, Tijuana, Ensenada, La Paz, Cabo, etc. With my wife and occasional daughter, we've city-hiked extensively CDMX, Querétaro, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and by design not the wealthiest areas. Also by design we are happiest when we're the only gringos around, for instance in a restaurant. We all stick out prominently. I hiked across lower middle class Guadalajara and rode the new subway back to the centro and I had nothing but positive interactions the whole way.

In summary every one of these trips has been a positive experience with nary a rotten situation, although one has to be careful on the further reaches of the Metro de la Ciudad de México. Even then, behavior matters, and I've extricated us from a possibly escalatory situation by just acting like a native, no problemo. Even done the early Sunday traffic ticket (in Guaymas) with a few hours cooling our heels at (not in) the police station before la mordita set us free. We were finally brought before el jefe, and had to listen to an impenetrable Sonoran dialect harangue (I couldn't pick out the numbers!). When he paused for a while, I respectfully fanned $150US or so of pesos in front of him, he picks the fine. About $80US. Not rotten though. Rotten is when you find yourself adjacent to near future health issues.

I read various Mexico news sites in Spanish and the facts are if you are a low status Mexicano not living close to a city center it seems occasionally quite gruesome. In the US our family has explored the deepest wildernesses by ourselves all over the country, and never had a problem[1]. In México I wouldn't dare do such a thing. I also wouldn't travel at night outside of the nice areas of city centers.

If you want to learn more about what it's like for the low status Mexicanos working extraordinarly hard to make a living in the rural areas of Mexico, I highly recommend the recent (poorly edited and overly verbose) book "Searching For Modern Mexico". He has a section focusing on the avocado industry situation, which is just awful. My heart goes out to those people.

We're all converging in Tijuana soon to spend a while in Ensenada, including snorkeling south of Ensenada not that far from where those poor surfers had the ultimate rotten experience. => give up the vehicle, walk out.

We love Mexico.

[1] Uh... well there was that one time decades ago when we were hiking on a remote trail in the N. Georgia mountains and we got held up at gunpoint by a bandido in flip flops(!). I gave him the $2 in my wallet and we hiked back out of there pronto!.

Mordida, not mordita.

Muchas gracias, I am but a beginner still in Mexican Spanish, however my only slightly engaged over the years gringo brain remembers "mordita" instead of "mordida".

google translate says for both: "bite".

I have slightly worried for a long time that nuance will be lost via translate devices, and here we are.

I think Google translate is just wrong here

I would be much obliged if you could say why. I really love to learn these vernacular differences.

Not sure but searching mordita in a dictionary just gives Esperanto

Google Translate is not a source of truth and sometimes just does ''AI'' things.

https://dle.rae.es/mordita?m=form

https://dle.rae.es/mordida

https://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/mordida

https://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/mordita

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mordida

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mordita

This is what I was looking for.

Because I learned this from informal situations in the US something like 30 years ago, it stuck. But, surprise, surprise, the pronunciation was just an approximation, and led me astray.

Mordida it shall be forevermore.

Muchas Gracias.

I'm Mexican and have lived here all my 30 years of life on the Northeast side. You and your family will be safe. Cartels avoid messing with foreigners—too much heat. Look up Kiki Camarena. They (Cartels) are never as bad in the eyes of foreigners.

The low-status Mexicans working extraordinarily hard to make a living in the rural areas of Mexico have it bad, yes. They're usually exposed to minor crimes such as assaults.

But the biggest issue in Mexico is that you can't stand out. Middle, upper-middle, and high-class individuals (before having enough money to afford bodyguards) try to keep a low profile. There is a real risk that someone may want to kidnap you for as low as 25k USD. Even if you want to pay the ransom, something can go south and end badly. Crimes that are catastrophic if they happen to you.

You can't really have an apples-to-apples comparison of how safe something is because it is context-dependent. I may feel "safer" in South Chicago compared to an American, as I don't quite grasp how or why it is unsafe.

> We finally managed to recall the first name of our point person on the council

How do you not have at least a hand scrawled itinerary ready to prompt you?

> Uli joked about our holdup at the checkpoint, but Marcos didn’t laugh

Why were they so unaware of the severity of the situation?

Is it uncharitable to say their behavior makes me question the caliber of their journalism?

If they're writing first for a UK audience, how they described the incident could be cultural.

I can totally imagine some UK people I know writing or speaking about an incident that way. It doesn't mean they're less aware or capable than someone who would write of the same incident differently.

I'm sorry but it objectively reads as incompetence. There's no other way to read it.

danger signals, or what constitutes a dangerous situation, changes from country to country. so if you hop on a jet, drive to some area out and about, it would be easy to be somewhere you are in danger and not realize it.

i had a co-worker from another country talk about going somewhere in an american city, and we were all like 'dude you could have died', he shrugged, said it didn't seem bad.

Looks like the article was reprinted from Harper’s, which is an American magazine.

> They squinted at the business card in a plastic sleeve that I was passing off as a press credential

If you are passing off a business card as fake press credentials, you aren’t a real journalist.

I’m not sure what other credentials an American journalist would have. Freedom of the press means everyone can be a journalist.

For some reason a lot of people think you can't be a journalist unless a corporation has blessed you. It's strange.

The corporate press went out of their way to solidify this notion. Because of course.

I think it is uncharitable. Depending on who you're dealing with, trying to hide any checkpoint problems might come across as a red flag. Joking about it is a way to show that you're honest while indicating you don't think there's a serious problem now. It's up to the listener to agree or not, but at least you reported the incident.

Avocados have high demand, high price and expire fast. They require high amounts of water to grow.

And yet some idiots want to grow these in Spain in the 2nd worst place of the country to plant these beside of the Almeria and Aragonese deserts.

And, yes, I know Spain it's highly irregular and due to the orography you can have literal deserts and green, Britain-like mountains and later Montana/Idaho like flat farmfields over very few hours by car kinda like USA.zip, but that's not the point.

Could do it in Galicia? Maybe not enough sunshine but water is not a problem.

High humidity and the climate it's UK like. If avocado can grow up in Wales/Ireland, it might work under Galicia. Still, it's prone to speculation and it needs tons of water, something the Eastern of the country is not short of.

Israel exports tons of avocado. Spain has very similar landscape and climate, no reason why they couldn’t do it.

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