Posted on 08/01/2010 2:43:31 AM PDT by Scanian
The free press has all but disappeared. The news is often little more than a means of controlling the message. Entire areas of the country have experienced an information blackout. Many frightened citizens rely on bloggers, face book, twitter and text messages as their only source of news and information. Open warfare rages below the Rio Grande.
The Houston Chronicle reports that.
"After years of relative calm, the gangland nightmare is back-and yet, barely a single mention of the clashes here has been made by local radio and television or newspapers. The city's journalists, having lost some of their own and seen their colleagues across the country killed or kidnapped, have been silenced for fear of their lives.
'Nowhere is the media controlled more than it is here,' said one reporter, who stressed he would face serious danger if identified. 'There is total control.'"
In border towns like Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa and numerous others, gun battles between the military and the powerful Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been fought around the clock during the past week. Officials at all levels of the government have offered little if any information to a frightened citizenry amid the media blackout. One local businessman remarked that "before the news was alarmist; now there's no information at all."
"Now, journalists say all the local news outlets get constant messages-sometimes from colleagues working for the gangsters-ordering which events are to be covered and those that are not."
The local media have little choice but to comply with the demands of the powerful cartels or face the bloody consequences.
"Four journalists were kidnapped Monday in the city of Gomez Palacios, another northern city battered by gang warfare. Gangsters demanded that television stations broadcast videos favorable to them in exchange for the journalists' lives. The station complied, but the men had not been released as of Thursday evening."
The latest wave of violence along the U.S. border was sparked by a dispute this past winter between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel marking a violent split between former allies who had joined forces in 2003 to battle rival gangs from Mexico's Pacific Coast. The ultimate prize remains the same; control of the smuggling routes which funnel narcotics and illegal immigrants into the United States.
Meanwhile here in America, the Obama regime and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media are busy controlling the news from our southern border and using their power and influence to prevent the state of Arizona from taking badly needed steps to protect their citizens.
Mexico is fast becoming America’s Chechnya.
We are going to need someone with the resolve and fortitude of Vlad Putin to put a stop to it.
that’s because Moogly the man cub works for the mob and is protecting their dug trade.
It sure looks like the media working for the gangsters.
It is going to happen here too. This includes sites like FR — no one is big enough to stop these fellas from deciding to wipe him/her here. Neither you nor I can match their will to silence the truth about the drug trade. They know where everyone lives and what they do and where they go. They have their own intelligence through the legal and illegal Mexicans (and other nationalities) living here. Oilfield workers know almost EVERYTHING about a property on which they work. Can’t say more.
I don't dispute the point. The enemy's intentions are obvious.
But we may be overlooking something: they've targeted journalists because they are easy to manipulate.
Journalists are concerned with one thing: fame. This makes them easy to control. At the same time they are the least protected against intimidation, which makes them vulnerable to coercion.
Time to take the hint??
Interesting, how muslim’s, Zeta’s, and Gulf Coast cartels all use violence as a means to an end
I read FR almost daily - to get news, comments and even some pretty good jokes.
FOlks make insightful comments and statements that make sense to me.
“Mexico is fast becoming Americas Chechnya.”
I will admit I had to read that several times.
Without a doubt the most cogent statement I have seen on FR for over a year.
Thank you for making my day. I will now pass this along to fiends and family.
Having spent some time in Russia and the CIS, it make perfect sense and is deadly accurate. And is oh so frighting in its reality.
Again - thanks for the insight.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
It sounds a good bit like America with out the killing
Perhaps that is what it takes to get an honest press.
It is going to take someone “important” like a dimocrat media type or politician getting hurt until the dim media and dc actually pay attention. It doesn’t affect them in NYC or DC so they don’t give a damn. And yet we are being subjected to the reconquista on American soil and all we get out of dc is more bull.
Until someone important gets hurt or dead, we are on our own.
Well I am guarding my little patch in Progeso Lakes TX. They won’t get by me here.
Thank you, FRiend, for the compliments. Wish it could be for a more happy thought.
I’ve spent time in Russia, too, my FRiend. You and I both know how frighteningly true this is
Most of what I learned about Chechnya I learned from Russian TV and a lengthy conversation I had with a Russian physician.
At least Putin had the guts to deal with it.
Unless - of course - they wished to blame the “Americans”. Being on the blame end was odd - no matter crazy the accusations. Must be in the National character....
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