Invading Mexico to End the Cartels

[Hygro]

Oh yeah, like we did for the Philippines too, you're right, my bad.

So you agree that there were different motives at different times.

 

[Crezth]

Look, what the hell point are you trying to make? That America doesn't do military adventurism or that we don't add new states? Like do you think that comes off as a quantitative difference when talking about invading Mexico now versus back when we took the West from them? Because whether you "add a state to the union" or not, the point of military adventurism is still usually pretty much the same in gaining access to resources and taking stuff from people that were already there. And the excuses are pretty much the same too. I'm sorry if Manifest Destiny technically registers as separate from the Monroe Doctrine for you, because you're very good at AP US History, but there's no good reason to try to tell the kids that we don't do things like in the mid-18th century anymore. Uh, how about the difference is we're more sophisticated now, and we know better than to give every plundered hellhole a vote in our government?

 

[Hygro]

Very literally was talking about generation cutoff times which somehow touched a nerve.

We’re not invading Mexico now. Even if DeSantis became president, which he won’t, he wouldn’t invade Mexico.

I don’t know why you are so offended. Are you one of the elder zoomers hoodwinked into the class war move that was cutting the end of the millennial generation off and changing the new one to start sooner? No need to take it personally.

And if not, “carry on” as I wrote before.

If you want to have a “school off” you lose.

 

[Crezth]

Were you?? The meaning of your post is so obtuse that in your effort to be cute you’ve just come off as confusing. You think you’re high rolling some school ass knowledge? High school maybe. The insight you shared is that we wouldn’t invade Mexico even if DeSantis was president? And your “evidence” is just a truism that such thinking is “no longer relevant?”

I ask how? And you say “well we only have fifty stars on the flag.” Did it ever occur to you that the material causes are the same and the only thing that’s actually changed is the social and cultural context? And to that end, not that much really, because Americans say the same stuff about Mexico now that they did back then and made the same excuses for manifest destiny that they do for the Iraq war? None of that registers for you? Hey do you even know what a white man’s burden is, little dog?

Cut the cutesy crap and talk straight. If you’re trying to say the young folks don’t get history and we’re more sophisticated and fair handed nowadays, say that. Then you can wring your hands and gripe about how ungrateful Americans are when they bring up the millions killed and the billions made in the last twenty years alone.

 

[Hygro]

I did talk straight.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I did talk straight.

Give it to me curvy, Doc. How much time do I have?

 

[Hygro]

Half past six

 

[Plains-Cow]

Half past six

 

[Lexicus]

Were you?? The meaning of your post is so obtuse that in your effort to be cute you’ve just come off as confusing. You think you’re high rolling some school ass knowledge? High school maybe. The insight you shared is that we wouldn’t invade Mexico even if DeSantis was president? And your “evidence” is just a truism that such thinking is “no longer relevant?”

I ask how? And you say “well we only have fifty stars on the flag.” Did it ever occur to you that the material causes are the same and the only thing that’s actually changed is the social and cultural context? And to that end, not that much really, because Americans say the same stuff about Mexico now that they did back then and made the same excuses for manifest destiny that they do for the Iraq war? None of that registers for you? Hey do you even know what a white man’s burden is, little dog?

Cut the cutesy crap and talk straight. If you’re trying to say the young folks don’t get history and we’re more sophisticated and fair handed nowadays, say that. Then you can wring your hands and gripe about how ungrateful Americans are when they bring up the millions killed and the billions made in the last twenty years alone.

The material conditions are a bit different. When the US invaded Mexico in the 20th century the Mexican state had basically failed completely. It was unable to keep order along its side of the border which led to bandit raids on the US side.

Today I don't think any real purpose would be served by actually sending troops to Mexico. Republican primary voters are insane and bloodthirsty enough that talking tough about it is good politics but I also doubt it would really happen. Among other reasons because I think the status quo with the cartels suits US interests just fine.

 

[Hygro]

The invasion of Mexico was also driven by slavery, but according to a post I made in 2003 that I just read, the Whigs limited the annexation to 1/3 of Mexico to prevent the slavers from getting too much electoral advantage.

To be 100% clear I pulled a Valka and went off talking about one of my pet issues, which is that the shortening of the Millennial generation as well as the shifting and shortening of the Zoomer generation is a mix of cultural narcissism and class warfare. I know I don't do that a lot, I try to stay sharply on topic, so sorry to muddy the expectations. But I really care about it. I connected a dot that I don't even think applies to most of you. Crezth weren't you born before 1996? I don't know. And I'm guessing Plains-Cow, for a random example of someone recent in the thread, is after 1999.

But yeah definitely don't try to have a school off, it's really in poor taste. If you want to go after me, the person, for my level of education, it's allllllll on here. Anyone who cares about school will already know mine because, well, that's how caring works. But also if you swing at the king....

 

[Joij21]

You know after listening to the back and forth discussion I've decided to change my vote to "No, never" because I think I've realized that if ever a hypothetical terror group tried to get chemical weapons via byproducts of the cartels, it's likely the terrorists themselves were caused from our capitalist class doing something elsewhere which blew up in their faces.

Therefore the better way to stop instability in this world is not through backing the interventions of those already long gone and in those same capitalist's pockets. But rather get rid of the capitalist class worldwide so they are not forcing the rest of us to constantly be doing "plunge protection" for them or "visceral cleanup duty" whenever they make unintentional messes which they lose control over.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

But yeah definitely don't try to have a school off, it's really in poor taste.

Agree.

It's also a great way to derail the discussion.

 

[Remorseless1]

The fact that it is even being proposed says something about R primary voters...

Just red meat for the base. Mexico is full of POC, which Inmate PO1135809 and his sloping skull minions don't like. The R's would never invade Canada because white people.

 

[danjuno]

I recall Tucker wanting to invade Canada.

 

[Crezth]

But yeah definitely don't try to have a school off, it's really in poor taste. If you want to go after me, the person, for my level of education, it's allllllll on here. Anyone who cares about school will already know mine because, well, that's how caring works. But also if you swing at the king....

Dude, please. Skool was ages ago. This is not a conversation about your skooling or who has the better credentials. This is about thinking that America's warmongering days are behind it. And you for instance made a cute and clever little remark about how the US does have different interests at different times because it treated the Philippines and Mexico differently. And it's like, anyone who knows about either the conquest of Mexico or the subjugation of the Philippines or Cuba knows that pretty much the same rhetoric was trotted out with the same criticisms of the defeated nations and the same damn externalities. Your chin-to-the-sky proclamations that we don't do things like that any more is nothing more than a lie you tell yourself - and, as it happens, any poor sap who doesn't know better - so you can continue justifying the naked cruelty of the American state to this very day.

The material conditions are a bit different. When the US invaded Mexico in the 20th century the Mexican state had basically failed completely. It was unable to keep order along its side of the border which led to bandit raids on the US side.

You know, that's a good point. You might say that US politicians identified that Mexico's being incapable of maintaining order in that scenario had created a pretext whereby the only way to secure the border and prevent violence from spilling across from "their side" - bad hombres and such - was to invade and perform regime change while simultaneously pushing the border back a few couple dozen hundred leagues or so. Does it ring any bells now?

Incidentally some would argue that the Mexican state hadn't really failed so much as was destroyed by Yankee underminers and the fraught pressures of the recent revolution overthrowing Spanish Imperial rule. Some might say it's a tragedy that the war happened because Mexico struggled to maintain any kind of semblance of independence until the 1910's. Some might say bandit raids - and cartels - are just an excuse for the American state to exercise the cruel and arbitrary authority that has been a hallmark of the Mexico-US relationship for almost 200 years.

Today I don't think any real purpose would be served by actually sending troops to Mexico. Republican primary voters are insane and bloodthirsty enough that talking tough about it is good politics but I also doubt it would really happen. Among other reasons because I think the status quo with the cartels suits US interests just fine.

It suits some interests, but it only takes a few rebellious ones to start a world war. You say "Republican primary voters are insane and bloodthirsty and think talking tough about it is good politics." I say "Stop there." They are 30% of the population and politically significant. That's all it takes; that's all it has ever taken.

 

[Joij21]

The invasion of Mexico was also driven by slavery, but according to a post I made in 2003 that I just read, the Whigs limited the annexation to 1/3 of Mexico to prevent the slavers from getting too much electoral advantage.

Yes but slavery was created to serve certain capitalist's interests. And the Whigs were just a certain subgroup of industrialist Yankee capitalists that were only trying to punish the plantationist Dixie capitalists over pricing control over the cost of handpicked cotton for their mills.

More specifically they were upset because they felt the plantationists were undercutting them by sending some of the raw cotton directly to France, and Britain whereby it would get refined into textiles then sold back to America competing with them in their own backyard.

Also they had desired to send the French and British mills out of business, wanting to take control of these foreign market's consumer demand to add in top of their own domestic consumer base. They could only accomplish this if they (as in only the American mills) were to get a sole monopoly on the right to buy raw cotton from the south, starving the foreign mills of a source so as to be unable to compete. Unfortunately the Dixie plantationists knew they could get more money from also selling raw product over seas, thus pissing off the Yankee industrialists by forcing them to compete with foreign European industrialists.

So they backed the nascent abolitionist movement not out of the kindness of their hearts, but to intimidate the plantationists until they agreed to protectionist laws whereby they could only sell raw cotten domestic and north.

But what @Crezth is trying to say is that all those other interventions you mention as examples are all one and the same because they are all caused by capitalists seeking more raw resources or class conflicts arising from capitalistic pressures which spiral out of control whereby the capitalists need to clean up a mess that they caused because of the perverse incentives their mode of production causes worldwide causing those anomie/radicalization inducing class conflicts.

When you say "oh it was different because of so and so". No it's not! Because capitalism creates all the same incentives as it were since it's inception. The only thing that changes is the methodology in how capitalism imperializes or does "plunge protection" to clean up it's messes due to changing cultural attitudes. But that's it!

So yeah, of course Desantis might not be allowed by his capitalist handlers (if he wins) to directly invade Mexico. But he might totally be allowed to do such imperialism via proxy such as using the cartels themselves to do the "invasion" in order to enhance some specific big wig capitalists venture somewhere there or enhance raw resource extraction out of there. All because the perverse incentive generating system still exists and hasn't changed as the defacto ruling system since the time of all those other examples.

The specific details and nuances may all be different but in one way or another it can all be traced back to capitalism's fault.

 

[amadeus]

I voted now, and I’m the only one that voted for unilateral action.

I don’t think the cartels present enough of a danger to intervene militarily, but I wouldn’t tie my own hands to the consent of the Mexican government if I thought they were incapable of action.

In principle, yes. In practice, no. And I wouldn’t say it to get votes.

 

[Hygro]

Dude, please. Skool was ages ago. This is not a conversation about your skooling or who has the better credentials. This is about thinking that America's warmongering days are behind it. And you for instance made a cute and clever little remark about how the US does have different interests at different times because it treated the Philippines and Mexico differently. And it's like, anyone who knows about either the conquest of Mexico or the subjugation of the Philippines or Cuba knows that pretty much the same rhetoric was trotted out with the same criticisms of the defeated nations and the same damn externalities. Your chin-to-the-sky proclamations that we don't do things like that any more is nothing more than a lie you tell yourself - and, as it happens, any poor sap who doesn't know better - so you can continue justifying the naked cruelty of the American state to this very day.

You know, that's a good point. You might say that US politicians identified that Mexico's being incapable of maintaining order in that scenario had created a pretext whereby the only way to secure the border and prevent violence from spilling across from "their side" - bad hombres and such - was to invade and perform regime change while simultaneously pushing the border back a few couple dozen hundred leagues or so. Does it ring any bells now?

Incidentally some would argue that the Mexican state hadn't really failed so much as was destroyed by Yankee underminers and the fraught pressures of the recent revolution overthrowing Spanish Imperial rule. Some might say it's a tragedy that the war happened because Mexico struggled to maintain any kind of semblance of independence until the 1910's. Some might say bandit raids - and cartels - are just an excuse for the American state to exercise the cruel and arbitrary authority that has been a hallmark of the Mexico-US relationship for almost 200 years.

It suits some interests, but it only takes a few rebellious ones to start a world war. You say "Republican primary voters are insane and bloodthirsty and think talking tough about it is good politics." I say "Stop there." They are 30% of the population and politically significant. That's all it takes; that's all it has ever taken.

You are projecting so much we call you the marines.

 

[Lexicus]

You know, that's a good point. You might say that US politicians identified that Mexico's being incapable of maintaining order in that scenario had created a pretext whereby the only way to secure the border and prevent violence from spilling across from "their side" - bad hombres and such - was to invade and perform regime change while simultaneously pushing the border back a few couple dozen hundred leagues or so. Does it ring any bells now?

It does, but Mexico was undergoing a revolution then, which is emphatically not the case now. Like what we're seeing in the "border crisis" is arguably the medium-term consequences of the US's success in, sometimes literally, exterminating any revolutionary consciousness or revolutionary political formation, not just in Mexico but in the whole of Central America.

Like imo the cartels are largely the consequence of US policy, the most dangerous people in the drug trade were generally either directly armed and trained by the US or armed and trained with money provided by the US for "security cooperation" to fight the drug trade.

I'm not ruling out some kind of intervention with 100% certainty because Trump or another Republican could get desperate if under heavy political pressure, but I don't rate the chances of it happening very highly.

 

[Joij21]

I voted now, and I’m the only one that voted for unilateral action.

I don’t think the cartels present enough of a danger to intervene militarily, but I wouldn’t tie my own hands to the consent of the Mexican government if I thought they were incapable of action.

In principle, yes. In practice, no. And I wouldn’t say it to get votes.

You should have voted "No, never" because you'd be guilty of any warcrimes or humanitarian tragedies that would inevitably result from such an intervention.

Plus it's just not revolutionary it's counterrevolutionary since it's violence to help clean up a mess which the capitalists started, and you're gonna be one of their lackeys in helping dispose the bodies for them. Then they can just continue on and start something similar all over again in another place once they lose control over another puppet or extraction/refinement/retail zone.