I wouldn't go into the Pirate Lake Mystery except for the fact that Hillary Clinton is saying that the Mexican drug cartels are becoming more like terrorist groups.
The subject on the front burner was the murder of Pirate Lake jetskier David Hartley.
Other than chopping off heads, the comparison between terrorists and drug cartels fades quickly. As a group, the terrorists' middle class origin is their dominant trait; they cannot be understood apart from it. On the contrary, members of Los Zetas, La Familia, Gulf and other Mexican drug cartels do not come from middle class families.
I suspect that any growing resemblance is occurring on the other side of the one Clinton cites. To wit: to the extent that middle class rebels/terrorists affiliate with petty criminals from the lower class, you will find more similarities between terrorist organizations and drug cartels. The Madrid train bombings are a case in point. The Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction in Germany and the Symbionese Liberation Army in California are two others.
Serious errors and mystifications result when a middle class mentality is attributed to non-middle class people. Of course, there is in America an entrenched resistance to the idea of a "class mentality," consciousness, or ideology. That resistance, by the way, is the hallmark of middle class ideology as analyzed in "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion."
Anybody dissatisfied with prevailing assumptions about socio-economic classes should look at the work of French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He identified and examined class preferences regarding TV shows, music, food, sports -- you name it. In "Source," I developed a number of insights found in Bourdieu's "Distinction: A Social Critique of The Judgment of Taste." It is a seminal work. In 1998, the International Sociological Association elected it as one of the ten most important sociology books of the 20th century.
Bourdieu makes this crucial point: unlike the middle and upper classes, the lower class is guided by necessity. "Poverty" is of course a synonym for necessity -- and drug cartel members know about poverty. They are overwhelmingly lower class in origin. So, necessity, urgency, effect, demand: call it what you will, it still remains the same thing -- their polar star. At the bottom of the Pirate Lake Mystery is that banality.
Returning to Clinton: a serious -- perhaps fatal -- misapplication of the middle class mindset to the drug cartels is detectable in assertions by the American media and government regarding the Pirate Lake Mystery:
First, we are told that because of the huge attention the jetskier murder is receiving in the media, the cartel leaders are angry with their underlings who executed the killing. Actually, the opposite is more likely to be true.
I lived in Mexico for over three years, part of it with a Mexican lawyer and his family in Mexico City. I accompanied him regularly to meetings with policemen and Servicio Secreto agents. I played poker and dominoes with them, ate in their homes, drank their Presidente brandy. Undoubtedly, some of them later jumped the fence.
Mexico is a theatrical place. From what I saw and heard, cartel members would revel in all the media attention. Such men are prone to stage mini dramas at the drop of a hat. (If you're poor, you can't pay for entertainment; you have to do it yourself.) Especially, their eyes brighten when an incident shows a potential for humor. Very dark humor.
Second, the worldwide attention given to the Pirate Lake murder is good for the drug business -- not bad as the American media claim. The message the drug cartel delivered to millions of people without paying a single centavo: "Stay off Pirate Lake. It's ours." No need to count the numbers of pleasure boats and skiers or the quantity of drugs crossing the lake to see if the message was received.
Third and finally, the above two realities serve as the context for understanding another message the cartel sent a few days after the murder: the killers will be "taken care of" in house. That message is pure fantasy, a diversionary tactic to appease Americans' desire for justice. As with the first message, it is sinking in, taking effect.
And effect is all that matters to drug cartels. Necessity, pure and simple.
The subject on the front burner was the murder of Pirate Lake jetskier David Hartley.
Other than chopping off heads, the comparison between terrorists and drug cartels fades quickly. As a group, the terrorists' middle class origin is their dominant trait; they cannot be understood apart from it. On the contrary, members of Los Zetas, La Familia, Gulf and other Mexican drug cartels do not come from middle class families.
I suspect that any growing resemblance is occurring on the other side of the one Clinton cites. To wit: to the extent that middle class rebels/terrorists affiliate with petty criminals from the lower class, you will find more similarities between terrorist organizations and drug cartels. The Madrid train bombings are a case in point. The Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction in Germany and the Symbionese Liberation Army in California are two others.
Serious errors and mystifications result when a middle class mentality is attributed to non-middle class people. Of course, there is in America an entrenched resistance to the idea of a "class mentality," consciousness, or ideology. That resistance, by the way, is the hallmark of middle class ideology as analyzed in "The Source of Terrorism: Middle Class Rebellion."
Anybody dissatisfied with prevailing assumptions about socio-economic classes should look at the work of French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He identified and examined class preferences regarding TV shows, music, food, sports -- you name it. In "Source," I developed a number of insights found in Bourdieu's "Distinction: A Social Critique of The Judgment of Taste." It is a seminal work. In 1998, the International Sociological Association elected it as one of the ten most important sociology books of the 20th century.
Bourdieu makes this crucial point: unlike the middle and upper classes, the lower class is guided by necessity. "Poverty" is of course a synonym for necessity -- and drug cartel members know about poverty. They are overwhelmingly lower class in origin. So, necessity, urgency, effect, demand: call it what you will, it still remains the same thing -- their polar star. At the bottom of the Pirate Lake Mystery is that banality.
Returning to Clinton: a serious -- perhaps fatal -- misapplication of the middle class mindset to the drug cartels is detectable in assertions by the American media and government regarding the Pirate Lake Mystery:
First, we are told that because of the huge attention the jetskier murder is receiving in the media, the cartel leaders are angry with their underlings who executed the killing. Actually, the opposite is more likely to be true.
I lived in Mexico for over three years, part of it with a Mexican lawyer and his family in Mexico City. I accompanied him regularly to meetings with policemen and Servicio Secreto agents. I played poker and dominoes with them, ate in their homes, drank their Presidente brandy. Undoubtedly, some of them later jumped the fence.
Mexico is a theatrical place. From what I saw and heard, cartel members would revel in all the media attention. Such men are prone to stage mini dramas at the drop of a hat. (If you're poor, you can't pay for entertainment; you have to do it yourself.) Especially, their eyes brighten when an incident shows a potential for humor. Very dark humor.
Second, the worldwide attention given to the Pirate Lake murder is good for the drug business -- not bad as the American media claim. The message the drug cartel delivered to millions of people without paying a single centavo: "Stay off Pirate Lake. It's ours." No need to count the numbers of pleasure boats and skiers or the quantity of drugs crossing the lake to see if the message was received.
Third and finally, the above two realities serve as the context for understanding another message the cartel sent a few days after the murder: the killers will be "taken care of" in house. That message is pure fantasy, a diversionary tactic to appease Americans' desire for justice. As with the first message, it is sinking in, taking effect.
And effect is all that matters to drug cartels. Necessity, pure and simple.