[sigma2015]

Judging from what you read and hear about Mexico it seems to be trapped in a downward spiral degenerating every aspect about its society and government. It's absolutely disgusting and revealing to watch documentaries like "Narco Cultura" and about their eating disorders [http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/america-fattest-obese-un-14...].

You want to grab that country by the shoulders and shake it to its senses. But then again you (or whatever is left of your body) don't want to end up hanging upside down from a bridge somewhere ...

[dragonwriter]

> Judging from what you read and hear about Mexico it seems to be trapped in a downward spiral degenerating every aspect about its society and government.

From what I read and hear -- being married to someone who grew up in Mexico and follows the news there pretty closely, and having studied Mexican history a bit myself, it seems that since the end of one-party rule by a party with a fairly stable relationship with the major cartels, the level of violence between cartels and the government, between rival cartels, and between cartels and the populace designed to put pressure on the government, has gone up -- and its visibility has been magnified beyond the actual increase because there is less ability to sweep it under the rug and more genuinely competing interest groups with access to some of the levers of power.

Its obviously not a great situation to be in, but I don't think there was any route from where Mexico was to a good situation that didn't go through something like what they've been going through the last few decades.

I'm also not sure there is any route out of it -- other than back to the where it came from, which is bad in other ways -- so long as the combination of the US market, US domestic prohibition, and US international anti-drug policy is effectively pouring vast stacks of money into both sides of the fight.

[cpursley]

"You want to grab that country by the shoulders and shake it to its senses."

You mean the USA, right? The "Narco Cultura" would not exist if it were not the United States "War on Drugs".

[rayiner]

Those people who are capable of those things and that level of corruption to make a few bucks on illicit drugs would still exist.

I just don't get this line of reasoning. If you take marijuana out of the equation, 80-90% of Americans think drugs should be illegal. They don't want drugs in their communities and in their society. And they're the bad guys for exercising their democratic right to regulate their own society, because some opportunists in Mexico are deranged enough to kill a bunch of people to circumvent those rules?

[sigma2015]

It takes two to dance Tango ...

The perverted War on Drugs inflicted by the US onto Mexico and other countries could not have evolved as it did without corrupt governments in the first place.

[jqm]

Mexico is beautiful and amazing place with great food and wonderful people.

It does have problems, yes, the government for one, a culture of corruption, a "caste system" mentality, a lack of focus on community (which leads to awful habits like littering).

The media reports constantly show Mexico's problems, which to be fair it does have, but Mexico has come a long way in the last 25 or 30 years. The average standard of living has risen considerably. I would say the average citizen is more aware of the wider world outside their little community. That's just my experience.

[sigma2015]

> but Mexico has come a long way in the last 25 or 30 years.

Do you really think Mexico made progress during the past decades just b/c they have malls and fast internet? I guess any untouched indian tribe in the Brazilian rain forest offers more original culture than what developed in Mexico during the past twenty years.

[_nedR]

Curious about what you mean by'a "caste system" mentality'?