¡ASK A MEXICAN!

Dear Mexican: This is the second rant I’ve felt I had to send to you. I don’t know if readers are allowed “seconds” but here it goes: Much has been said about the terrible things happening to the United States and its citizens by the Mexican drug cartels. But what’s the difference between the modern-day cartels and the Big Four of the period between 1492 and 1775? I refer you to the kings of England, France, Portugal, and Spain who invaded the Americas during the above-noted period. The invaders didn’t bring cocaine, pot or meth but they brought various diseases that, if I read history correctly, led to the death of many thousands of native peoples. And, of course, they brought their heavyweight weapon, the one I believe that Lenin called the opiate of the masses: religion. Today, many people and our economy are hurt by today’s cartels, and I’m not defending them in any way, but it strikes me the cartels of today are pikers compared to their predecessors, who killed an untold number of native peoples and stole a continent.

Mexica Tiahui!

Dear Wab: Sloppy seconds are always welcome here, cabrón!It was Marx who dropped the line about religion, not Lenin (he wrote of religion that it’s “a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man"), and the natives were muy religious, but otherwise, your analysis doesn’t go far enough. You forgot to mention how, like the cartels, the conquistadors fought each other for trade routes, killing each other and innocents in the process. How they demanded tribute from villagers, and terrorized them with public displays of brutality to keep them in line. How the conquistadors built empires that enriched only themselves, and created serfs out of those whom they didn’t bribe into submission. The only real difference between the conquistadors and drug cartels is that the former did it in the name of Christ — and even the narcos aren’t that pendejo to pull that card.

Does it make any sense to you that, in some cities in Mexico, there are statues of the Spanish conquistadors? After all, these were the same people who believed that they were superior to the Mexicans so they had to force their ways on them, and not to mention the slaughtering of thousands of Mexicans, too.

Lies my Maestro Told Me

> Email Gustavo Arellano