Blog Post 8 – Outline

The Mexican Government vs. The Mexican Drug Cartels

1. Background
   1. The Mexican government… Who are they? What are they trying to accomplish?
      1. Enrique Pena Nieto is the president of Mexico, who is working with the United States to stop the epidemic.
      2. They want to put a stop to the drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States.

• “Mexico has suffered staggering levels of violence and crime during the country’s seven-year-long war against the cartels. The fighting has killed 90,000 people so far, a death toll larger than that of the civil war in Syria” (Asfura-Heim & Espach, 2013, pg.1)

1. Main goal is to put down drug related violence that has been going on since the 1980’s
2. The Mexican drug cartels… Who are they? What are they trying to accomplish?
   1. Drug cartels are several gangs, who are in an ongoing war with the government for regional control of the trafficking routes.
   2. They are trying to become more successful in their acts by being more violent.

• “…drug gangs in Mexico grew more independent and began fighting for more control and larger territories” (Kellner & Pipitone, pg.30, 2010).

1. Their efforts
   1. Mexican Government
      1. They have been using the military to help stop this ongoing conflict.

• State that they are increasing the salaries and dispatching military to stop the problem

1. Claimed that their primary focus is to dismantle the powerful drug cartels
2. The cartels
   1. Control 90% of the cocaine entering the United States
   2. Bribe political officials
   3. United States Government
      1. Seems like they are doing a better job at stopping the cartels than Mexico

• “…the United States spends an estimated $40 billion a year trying to stop the drug traffic and pursue and punish offenders” (Warner, pg.23, 2012).

1. The Violence
   1. In the community
      1. The citizens are terrified and want to put a stop to the conflict themselves.

• “In communities across the country, groups of men have donned masks, picked up rifles and machetes, and begun patrolling their neighborhoods and farmland” (Asfura-Heim & Espach, 2013, pg.1).

1. Cartels have been trying to scare everyone and, basically, show that they mean business

• “…narco thugs in Michoacán dumped five severed heads onto a dance floor in Uruapan, one of the state’s main cities” (Flannery, pg. 181, 2013).

1. As a whole
   1. Many people has died due to the reckless acts of the drug cartels

• “As the death toll rose, so did the level of alarm in Washington. On top of mounting evidence that parts of Mexico were under siege from organized crime and drug traffickers came rising fears the violence would spill over the 2,000-mile shared border with the United States” (Bussey, pg.1, 2009)

1. People are worrying.

• “6,000 people died in gangland-style slayings, gruesome torture-killings and full-scale massacres, the violence had crept into the public consciousness and Mexicans began referring to the carnage as simply “war.” (Bussey, pg.1, 2009)

1. Direct cause of the conflict
   1. Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (“the godfather”)
      1. A federal agent, who founded the Guadalajara Cartel in 1980 and controlled all illegal drug trade in Mexico and the trafficking corridors across the Mexico-USA border throughout the 1980s

• “Patronage relationships between political authorities and drug trafficking organizations existed starting in the 1940’s…” (Dube & Gacia-Ponce, pg.400, 2013).

1. There were no cartels at that time in Mexico. Félix Gallardo was the lord of Mexican drug smugglers. He oversaw all operations; there was just him, his cronies, and the politicians who sold him protection

• “That the concept of law entails the idea of justified violence and that this is the formula of a problem, not of a solution” (Menke, 2010, Pg.1).

1. Possible solutions to the conflict
   1. Legalizing drug production and shipment, starting with marijuana
      1. Marijuana is one of the cartels main products, legalizing it would cut their revenue in half

• “The biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana” (Luhnow, pg.1, 2009).

1. The government will simply give up in all attempts to stop the drug cartels
   1. The government is fighting the battle, but they are weak. The army is useless and the police are not doing their best to put a stop to the drug cartels. (Castañeda, pg.1, 2010) If Mexico was prepared, the war would have already ended.

References

Asfura-Heim, P. & Espach, R. (2013). The rise of Mexico’s self-defense forces. Foreign Affairs, 92(4).

Bussey, J. (2009). Frail state frayed relations: Mexico the United States and the drug war. Unknown, 17(2).

Kellner, T. & Pipitone, F. (2010). Inside Mexico’s drug war. World policy journal, 29-37.

Dube, A., Dube, O. & Gacia-Ponce, O. (2013). Cross-border spillover: U.S. gun laws and violence in Mexico. American political science review, 107(3), 397-417.

Flannery, N.P. (2013). Calderon’s war. Journal of internal affairs, 66(2), 181-196.

Menke, C. (2010). Law and Violence. University of California Press, 22(1), 1-17.

Warner, E. (2012). Border battleground: Mexico’s drug violence is state-sponsored. The American conservative, 20-23.

Luhnow, D. (2009). Saving Mexico. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704254604574614230731506644

Castañeda, J. (2010). Mexico’s failed drug war. Economic Development Bulletin. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/mexicos-failed-drug-war

Blog Post 7: Voting Rights Act 2013

Although the Supreme Court ruled Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional, the Justices did note in their ruling that Congress could revisit the issue and rewrite the offending provision. This relates to the possible resolution of the Supreme Court trying to rectify the decision in some way. The ruling says that “may draft another formula based on current conditions” (Huffington Post, Reilly). Also the Supreme court made it clear that they did not want to make the whole Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Therefore their decision can possibly be amended.

Reference;

Reilly, R. (2013, June 25). Voting Rights Act Section 4 Struck Down By Supreme Court. The Huffington Post. Retrieved November 7, 2013, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/voting-rights-act-supreme-court_n_3429810.html

 

Blog post 7

City Gang Violence “Chicago”

Poverty in Chicago was the direct cause of my conflict. “To put this in perspective, consider that Chicago has the third-highest poverty rate among major U.S. cities, and for black people in particular, Chicago is number one, with a rate of 32.2 percent” (Zimmer, 2012, para. 4). Being surrounded by poverty takes a toll on people, which makes it hard for people to survive on their own. “Protracted joblessness means insecurity and economic hardship, but it also takes an emotional toll and often goes hand in hand… with increased rates of violence” (Zimmer,2012, para. 6). Feeling separate from society people came together in gangs to feel important and to have support through the hard times.

Zimmer, T. (2012, August 27). Chicago’s violence at its source. Gapers Block, Retrieved from http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/2012/08/27/chicagos-violence-at-its-source/

Blog Post 6&7: Arguements- Gender Wage Gap

Blog Post 6: What do claim is the direct cause of your conflict?

Conclusion Claim: Women are underpaid due to discrimination against them.

Premise: Women are passed over for promotions/salary raises due to pregnancy and a mandatory 12 week paid leave. This makes women cautious about applying for higher ranking position to obtain higher pay grades because bosses don’t want to pay someone who won’t be there.(Finn, n.d)

Premise: Women are denied positions for companies because of their appearance, employers fear sexual harassment lawsuits(Finn, n.d). An Iowa women was fired from her job as a dental assistant because her boss found her too attractive and a threat to his marriage.(Strauss, n.d)

Strauss, E. (n.d.). Iowa Woman Fired for Being Attractive Looks Back and Moves On. ABC News. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/iowa-woman-fired-attractive-back-moves/story?id=19851803

Finn, L., & Media, D. (n.d.). Female Discrimination in the Workplace. Everyday Life. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/female-discrimination-workplace-2736.html

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Betty Dukes (10-277). (n.d.). LII. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/10-277

Blog Post 7: What do you claim is the direct cause of your conflict?

Conclusion Claim: The wage gap does not exist when things such as education, family life, personal work choice/job choice, etc are taken in for account.

Premise: Men are more likely to enter into higher paying fields and occupations by choice(Tobak,2011). According to Tobak women are more likely to enter into professions that generally do not have high salaries such as education and healthcare. Tobak provides a statistic that in 2009 only 7% of professional women were employed in the field of engineering compared to the 38% of men employed in the same field.

Premise: The real gap isn’t between men and women doing the same job. It’s between the different jobs that men and women take(Thompson, 2013, p1).

Tobak, S. (2011, March 11). The Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth. CBSNews. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-complete-myth/

Thompson, D. (2013, May 30). The Atlantic. The Atlantic. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/the-biggest-myth-about-the-gender-wage-gap/276367/

Blog post 6

City Gang Violence “Chicago”

Drugs were the direct cause of my conflict. I say this because selling drugs was a way of making fast and easy money in Chicago. According to Hardiman (2012) “The late ’60s there was a surprise shipload of pure heroin dumped off in the African-American community that helped to destroy several thousand families throughout the nation” (para. 2). People were so addicted to drugs that the supplies for it became greater. That’s how gangs became so popular; when you have more than one person selling drugs you will make much more money. “Cocaine and the lure of fast money destroy values in the ghetto. Everybody wanted to be somebody other than themselves. This also led to people turning against their own people due to greed and power” (Hardiman, 2012, para. 6). Drugs made people turn one another and people needed protection and gangs were there to protect them from it.

Hardiman, T. (2012, August 28). Understanding the root cause of violence in Chicago. Huffington Post Chicago, retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tio-hardiman/understanding-the-root_b_1836319.html