alexius

Man, anyone refering to a sitting President as “poo poo” (kks) is barred from claiming others are propaganda accounts. It’s also absurd to pretend the Mexican Government would make propaganda accounts for effing Lemmy. Ever heard of ROI?

I did not list any atrocities by any President and unlike you, i’m not fixated in any particular administration. List whatever you want and I’ll stand by it, but I’d advise to list a balanced and objective account of drug-related violence in the last 30 years or so, to put things in perspective and help OP understand his main question, which is the impact of a state party running the country for 70+ years in all of this.

Official data suggest an increase in murder that’s lower than the population increase. Same thing happened under the last PRI’s term (2012-2018) That’s what I stated, and even conceded that it meant things are basically the same instead of taking the officialist approach of claiming it diminished.

Don’t get so fired up my man, both approaches to security suck. PRI, PAN, MORENA, they’re all over their heads when it comes to fighting Cartels, precisely because they got too close to power since the 1970s during the state-party rule. Mexico faces the same issue the US faces with lobbying, but instead of corporations, they’re drug cartels.

I’m not defending amlo and couldn’t care less. Acussing me of being a “MAGA kid” while using a ridiculous nickname to refer to the president is telling. “Sleepy Joe huehuehue” energy there.

Well, I was in my early 20s during Calderon’s administration and got carjacked at gunpoint twice, had friends whose parents were kidnapped, people across the board forced to close their businesses because they couldn’t keep up with the threats and extortion from the Cartels. None of that shit is happening now, but really hasn’t happened since PAN left. That’s my personal experience. Not to mention the booming economy.

And even if I personally see that difference, I know not to get carried away by testimonial evidence and i’m saying things are the same, which is a huuuge concession to make.

I gave proper context in my own comment. Explaining political violence just considering the current administration is preposterous. This is an issue that has been there since the 1970s and came to full force in the 2000s with the rise of Chapo Guzman.

This guy’s take is the equivalent of an avid Fox News watcher explaining you what is Antifa or the BLM movement.

Let me give you a more balanced, proper context:

The one-party state started fading in the 1980s. When Reagan and Thatcher entered the world stage, Mexican politics shifted from the pseudocommunist rule (PRI) to a liberal form. It was still presented as a state party (PRI) but started making concessions to competitors in local elections, and congress (opposition parties have existed since the 1930s, they were just unable to win because the entire thing was rigged).

During the 90s, the political landscape had three major parties: Conservatives (PAN), Liberals (PRI), and a Leftists (PRD), this last one was founded in 1988 when the more leftist part of PRI left their ranks denouncing this political shift I explained earlier. Picture AOC and her gang leaving the democrats because they were becoming too moderate.

In the 2000 presidential election, the conservatives (PAN) won. The most relevant context I can give you for this, is the assasination of PRI’s presidential candidate in the previous election (1994) and the economic crisis of December of that same year. Both events created a general sense of instability within the ranks, and the conservatives took the opportunity in the following elections.

When PAN took over, on the very first month of their government, one major event happened: Chapo Guzman escaped prison, and for the following 15 years he slowly terrorized the country and became the famous person he is now. Organized crime (cartels) thrived since the 1970s, but Guzman was from a new generation of criminals, much more willing to make super public and super violent statements.

After the first PAN administration, some things improved, a lot of institutions became much more legit or democratic because the very fact of changing parties enhanced the checks and balances. But crime was still on the rise and top government officials and criminals were still heavily intertwined (more on that later).

At the beginning of the second PAN administration (reelection is not legal in Mexico, so new guy), the President decided to focus most, if not all of his efforts on stopping crime in what was called “the war against narcos”. He signed a cooperation agreement with the US (Merida Initiative) and waged an all out war against them. The results were disastrous. Crime rose like never before and some key battlegrounds experienced violence on the same level of the war in Iraq. Michoacan, Tamaulipas, Juarez, Tijuana were almost fully controlled by Cartels, and Chapo Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel grew exponentially.

The end result was conservatives (PAN) dropping to third place in the 2012 Presidential Election and people opting for giving another chance to PRI. Chapo Guzman was promptly captured, managed to escape again and recaptured (PRI managed to capture him twice in a single term, while PAN failed to do so in two full terms). But crime didn’t stop. The concept of politicians being killed was already normalized at this point. PRI’s return to power failed, but they managed to put the public eye away from cartels and crime. They started talking about passing legislation, modernizing the economy, and so on. They even legalized same-sex marriage, to give you an example.

In 2018, a newly formed left-wing party (MORENA) won by a landslide, leaving PRI, PAN and PRD trailing by dozens of points. The current President has focused in building a welfare state, creating social programs, strengthening unions, worker’s rights, increasing the role of the state in the economy, and a generally leftist platform. But in terms of crime and violence, things have been basically the same. Not more crime than before (if you take population increase into account), but also not diminishing it.

Notably, during this past couple of years, the United States aprehended Genaro Garcia Luna, a key intelligence official under PAN’s first term and Secretary of Security (the guy in charge of fighting cartels) during PAN’s second term. He was found guilty of being part of Chapo’s cartel and currently in prison. Chapo’s rise during both PAN’s administrations now has an explanation. This also sheds some light on this political violence — the line between politicians and criminal organizations is often blurred or non-existent (I’m not criminalizing the victims, sometimes the crooked guys are their rivals).

Mexico will have its Presidential election in 6 weeks. PRI, PAN and PRD are now running the same candidate to face MORENA. Polls suggest a similar MORENA landslide will happen, but polls are prone to fail. So, the party that managed to defeat the state party are now effectively trying to bring it back, but this time they merged with them.

Hope this helps.

This is a laughably ignorant take.

In my view, the comment implies that Russia invading Sweden is a decision that falls solely on Putin’s will. How is that not something that reduce russians to pawns or zombies, or them being ok with whatever war their leader instructs? They are invisible to the commenter, and that’s disturbing to me, honestly.

Of course Putin is unable to start yet another war. He’s only partially getting away with Ukraine, and even with years of planning and propaganda, he’s struggling to stay in it, and is relying heavily in straight up mercenaries who may or may not be russian, they’re just hired assassins.

An entire comment for you to read explaining why, but you got instatriggered and lashed out.

What do you mean by ‘are terrorists’? That word seems so ambiguous these days. Sometimes it means they infiltrate societies and attack civilians through homemade bombs, shootings or some suicidal maniacs. Sometimes it means they’re the baddies. Sometimes it’s a slur that basically means middle eastern. The word is meaningless to me at this point, specially when used to reference a country waging actual war against a sovereign country. Not even a guerrilla kind of thing.

They’re definitely a problem and obvious aggressors, for sure the biggest threat to peace in Europe. But how do you categorize them as ‘terrorists’?

I’m worried at some aspects of your comment that seem xenophobic in nature. Most Russians disagree with the decision to attack Ukraine and even a dictator like Putin can’t pull the string forever without breaking it. We already saw the consequences of him having to rely on mercenaries a couple weeks ago. He had to rely on them because there are not enough people willing to fight. So russians in general aren’t some zombies or pawns, we shouldn’t look at them that way.

On the other hand, I don’t see a real risk of Russia invading Sweden, and don’t even consider NATO’s response to a Russian’s hypothetical threat of invasion to another country to be the same, so in the end, while they didn’t get to join, I think they can move on without any damage and try joining later when conditions change. They’ll still be de facto protected.

Thank you for a comprehensive answer, i’m a firm believer that geopolitics shouldn’t be assumed from an outsider’s perspective. I truly appreciate that you took your time to explain how this is understood by the people of Sweden instead of accusing me of things and downvoting my ass.

I agree with you in the aspect that it seems like Russia is not strong enough to pose a threat anymore, and understand how this feels like you were left out while Finland didn’t. Hopefully this decision doesn’t have a true impact in your lives and a military alliance isn’t ever needed for your safety.

I really wanna know the opinion of a citizen of Sweden, the decision is about them. Do you currently consider Russia a threat to Sweden? It seems to me that they’re depleted after invading Ukraine and more or less failing. Would NATO not intervene in a hypothetical russian invasion of Sweden because of this vote?

Legit question. What would be the tangible benefits of joining NATO?

Incredibly hot take. You framed your sentences in a way that the logical conclusion is xenophobia = based. Please don’t.