[time4good]

"When I first saw the movie "Man on Fire", I thought the plot was a bit of a stretch. Not anymore."

Are you kidding me? (I know you're not.) When I saw that, I was spitting mad, my wife, who's from Mexico City, was crying. It was real, but didn't even scratch the surface at the corruption down there.

I have really felt that the apathy and numbness of the Mexican people will lead them through what Colombia went through in the 80's and 90's until a people with enough righteousness say BASTA! (Enough) and fight on every level. It's totally compounded that they won't let the citizens arm themselves PLUS their rule of law is Napoleonic - not Magna Carta - you're guilty until you prove your innocence.

[Travis McGee]

“Man On Fire” and “Traffic” both get it close to right, as far as I can tell.

[Travis McGee]

PS, and incidentally, Peru didn’t beat back the Sendero Luminoso until they adopted a “local militia” policy, and began arming the peasants villages with modern shotguns and some old rifles. The local peasants could then engage the terrorist patrols before they could take over a village, as they had done for years. This bought time for the military quick reaction forces to get into the equation, either to help beat back the terrorists, or more often, pursue them, giving them no rest of sanctuary. The arming of local militias turned the equation and led to victory.

Just a thought. Not very applicable to Mexico, but there have been isolated examples of proud Mexicans going down in “Alamo” type sieges against the narcos, killing many of them before going down fighting.

But disarmed peasants (ie, typical Mexicans), can’t do jack squat against either narcos or corrupt policias.