Video 3/7 Observations: More on Moral Relativism

Video 3/7 Observations: More on Moral Relativism
*Note- personal observations are included with the reported observations.


A Society Broken Down

The third video clip highlights the overall good and order of society appears broken down. People from honest hardworking beginnings find themselves caught up in supporting the cartel based on personal gain and survival. Police, teachers and bricklayers do not escape the societal trap laid before them.


What People Will Do to Survive

---The BBC reporter interviews a former school teacher imprisoned for running drugs in support of the Sinaloa Cartel. He ran drugs for the cartel for 20 years. The video captures a humble man willing to do anything to provide for his family. He states in the interview that his cartel activities allowed him to purchase a home; a car for his wife; take his kids to the US to Universal Studios, Disney Land and Sea World. And, while he notes he’s spending time in prison now, he tells the BBC reporter that when he gets out he will never have to work again.


---The video clip notes of another humble person. Lacking a job, a bricklayer became a ‘stew-maker’; dumping bodies into acid for disposal in support of the cartel. It appears the video notes he helped the cartel rid of an estimated 300 bodies.


Time- Shaping Generations of Latinos

---Journalists killed. Cartels are killing journalists to protect themselves from prosecution, hide vulnerabilities and disrupt the potential of having a negative image specifically tied to their acts. Journalist reporting counters the ballads sung where cartel leaders are made heros.


---Deaths in the hundreds. The constant reminder of death still creates fear, but more in the realm of apathy. People do not appear to band together to fight the cartel and their activities as they do not know who to trust (including authorities), lack the weapons, manpower and the means to dedicate themselves to curtail the threat.

---This leads to desperation. Mexicans find themselves having to only concern themselves with their own localized universes. Drug activity provides a way of life for many people who simply see it as a means to survive. Maximum security prisons cannot even contain one of the most powerful men (el Chapo) in the cartels, a criminal who is perceived to have the support of Mexican government insiders.

---The price of ignoring the drug cartel problem. The drug problem is old, been around for decades. El Chapo Guzman started gaining notoriety in the early 90s. However, the video clip captures what happens when society simply turns away, or ignores a societal issue...especially old issues, as they eventually gain momentum and wider acceptance. Local problems become communal and regional problems, only to become state problems. The survival of the state of Mexico is on edge. How can a national problem be mitigated into an international problem? We are seeing this today.

---Generations of Mexicans have been growing up in a society where cartel activity is a norm. This perception will only reinforce the pervasive localized vision of the world and how it works. This is a major concern as illegal immigrants, well-meaning/but contaminated with this culture, start taking this way of life across borders-illegally.

What does this indicate for the US?

Consider the current economic crisis in the US, broken families; broken towns that cannot afford good police, yet have a high amount of gang activity, like Oakland California, where police are reportedly only able to address the most extreme crimes- the normal citizen is on their own for other serious crimes. This is specifically noted in a piece, “Oakland police layoffs mark the end of community policing. Police layoffs, the first in 30 years, hit a city with the “fourth highest violent crime rate in the country”.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inoakland/detail?entry_id=67845#ixzz0yH5VAmIZ” dated 14Jul10.

Read This
Lack of community policing contributed to insurgencies and terrorism in Iraq. Lack of community policing is what helps give the Taliban of Afghanistan their freedom of movement.

If we learn nothing from our wars overseas, we should take note that stable societies can only exist when there is good governance. Without good laws, immigration, policing etc, we open ourselves to infiltration, penetration and subversion.

Is Oakland our own US Petri dish? Are other cities with similar environment our Petri dish/dishes. Worse yet, are these other cities vectors to a growing societal disease? Are we seeing erosion of the US sense of societal stability? Does the cartel activity provide good cover for other threats to penetrate the US e.g. terrorists, other organized criminal organizations or groups like Hezbollah or al Qaeda? We need to think about this and ACT.

These issues provide societal voids the cartels can fill. Money, a sense of belonging, a form of social order, can thrive based on personal gain at the expense of society…till there is no society.