@Smeary

Those are some good post, I knew you had good info on the cartels lol.....




As far as the violence, first off, the Mexican cartels are very similar to prohibition era gangs in that they are essentially substituting for like, Multinational corporations. This is power that rivals the legit establishment. Dude think of Escobar in his prime offering to pay off a NATIONAL DEBT!! Imagine if a group was capable of this in the US? Pay off a couple Trillion? It seems ludicrous, but you have an equivalent situation in a nation like Mexico. I'm sure they have tremendous influence on the border states as far as corruption getting drugs IN the country. And let's not even speak of the level of corruption they most likely have in Central and South America. Entire countries.

The violence reminds me a lot of the type of stuff that happened in Sicily when they were a narco-mafia. You had the Coleonesi murder people on rivals territory, to PROVE that they didn't control their territory. You guys like Bontade murder public officials, JUST TO PROVE TO EVERYONE that they could do it too, not just the Corleonesi. So violence becomes a tool, like paint, for redrawing the map of power, with the country as the canvass, and the citizens as the audience. The cartels have to prove to rivals, the public, the government, military, even most likely their own members WHO REALLY HAS THE POWER. They blew up a warehouse? We'll make a billboard with half a dozen hanging bodies off a highway so EVERYONE CAN SEE IT. Oh they hung a dozen bodies off the highway? Ok, well decapitate a dozen people and ROLL the heads in the MOST POPULAR NIGHTCLUB. Ohh, they did what? Okay well..... And you see how this shit just escalates...

I think I made this comparison before, it's like the cartels are like Coke and Pepsi. Huge multinational corporations. How do you win hearts and minds? Advertisement. That's how I see the cartels displays of brutality. It's like a real life commercial for their criminal brand, a kind of grotesque form of graffiti.

There is a great chapter about this type of stuff in John Dickies book about the Sicilians, about what happens when the legitimate government fails to establish a monopoly on the use of violence. If an organization is able to operate over a length of time with impunity, eventually the citizenry will come to accept it as the more legitimate body.

I think the Calabrian presence in NY seriously enhances American LCN...