#thus allowing them to gamble with impunity

[a-student-out-of-time]

The Eternal Endings Cast and History: The Down-Timers

//Hey everyone, Mod Bubbles here! I bring you some more of My Thoughts.

//Having gone through Danganronpa: Eternal Endings with my friend Timeline Anon, I can say it's one of the most unique and interesting fangans we've seen thus far. We had no idea how it would work, but somehow it really seems like it can.

//One thing that really piques my interest isn't just that the cast is in the afterlife, but the fact that all of them come from very different points in history. That's something I think is worth speculating on, especially with how it may play into their characters, both in terms of their places in history and the context from where they're from.

//There have always been small historical tidbits in DR, both canon and fangan, but Eternal Endings is the first one I've seen that specifically has real-world events playing a role here. Our protagonist, Krystal Willard, died in 2021, specifically referencing how the travel restrictions imposed during the height of the Pandemic were being lifted.

//This game specifically doesn't take place in the same timeline as the Hope's Peak saga, since the founder of the talent program is another figure altogether, but I thought it would be interesting to examine the eras each of them are from.

//As a bit of shorthand, I also decided to borrow some terminology from Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series (a great book series btw), where people from the past are referred to as "Down-Timers" and people from the present/future are "Up-Timers."

//This also just gives me a chance to talk about history, which I enjoy doing : P

//So, without further ado, let's get into it.

THE DOWN-TIMERS:

Zhao Ying (1903-1932)

Hailing from the furthest back in time is Zhao, a personal favorite of mine, who was the Ultimate Singer. Just from that time frame, she would've been around for the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Warlord Era, the rise of the Nationalist Government and the very early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Just days before her death- on February 18th 1932- the Imperial Japanese conquered Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo.

There's also a bit of an anachronism with the PRC's flag being there, given that the design wasn't adopted until 1949, but that's probably for the benefit of a modern audience.

Anyway, Zhao is an entertainer and doesn't really make a lot of commentary on these conflicts. She's a singer, a dancer, and an actress, and had an upcoming role before her death. This is very interesting because the 1920s and 30s represented the emergence of cinema in China. The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, a 16-part box office hit, was released between 1928-1931 and represents one of the first martial arts action films, but has sadly been lost to time.

Zhao was more than likely a silent film star, although 1931 brought the first Chinese sound film, Sing-Song Girl Red Peony, so it's possible her voice has been recorded as well. If I had to guess, Zhao probably lived around Shanghai, given that it was the center of the Chinese entertainment industry in this era.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Chinese history is that, while China itself was never colonized, it was forced to make Concessions to outside powers. These were pieces of territory in major cities like Shanghai, which were effectively enclaves of foreign territory that were exempt from Chinese law and provided a foothold for European Empires, America, and even Japan to exert influence and trade.

A byproduct of this is that many gangs and secret societies were allowed to operate with impunity in the Concessions, which resulted in prostitution, drug dealing and gambling being quite common. This probably explains why Zhao isn't a fan.

However, the saddest thing about the losses in Zhao's life? She was a mother.

Given that the photo says 1932, this had to be around January or Early February, meaning Zhao's boy, Wang Wei, couldn't have been more than 2 or 3. In-story, she's in tears over leaving her son behind and wonders if he'll even remember her.

Not to make the hurt worse, but given that Shanghai would be occupied by the Japanese Empire from 1937-1945...well, I'm going to hope that the poor kid and the rest of her family made it out.

Earnest Mikkola (1910-1945)

Speaking of World War II, Earnest would've been around for it and its prequel. Essentially the Indiana Jones figure of this setting, Earnest was a worldwide reputation as an explorer, having discovered new animals, plants and even civilizations. His expeditions took him quite a ways around the world, but it's his death that catches my attention.

See, Earnest is Finnish. I've seen some people worried that this means he was one the side of the Axis during the war, but this is a misunderstanding. See, just months after the Invasion of Poland, Finland was on the receiving end of an ultimatum from Stalin. Because he felt the border was too close to Leningrad (today St. Petersburg), he demanded Finland hand over some land to provide a buffer zone or else. The Finns said no, obviously, and thus began the Winter War.

To put it simply, while the Soviets ultimately got what they wanted, the Finns gave them a pretty bloody nose in the process. In just three and a half months, the Soviets suffered over five times as many casualties as the Finns and their international reputation suffered worse.

The conflict was also ultimately pointless, as Finland- while it didn't side with Germany- formed what was an alliance of convenience. When Operation Barbarossa took place, the Finns actually occupied much of the Karelia peninsula, even more than they had before. This lasted until 1944.

That's when Finland pulled an Uno reverse card and sided against Germany, starting the Lapland War, where the Finnish military tried to push all Axis forces out of their borders, and this lasted until April 1945, just a month before victory in Europe was declared.

How does this relate to Earnest? I guess it depends on where he was during the Lapland War, whether he was at home or elsewhere in the world, and whose side he was ultimately in favor of. Could that be why he was poisoned? It remains to be seen.

Yun Jung-Hoon (1936-1952)

Continuing with the war trend, here we have the first one to ask a historical question: local fly boy Yun. Even just from the patch on his shoulder, I could tell what his deal probably was before Krystal even spoke with him.

Sure enough, Yun here was a pilot in the Korean War. For those who don't know, Korea- which had been occupied by Japan since 1910- was divided along the 38th parallel North after World War II. The Soviets occupied by the north and established a communist government, led by Kim Il-Sung, while the Americans occupied the south and established a non-communist government lead by Syngman Rhee.

If you're only familiar with the North/South divide in the modern day, this is where it began. In the Spring of 1950, Kim lead an invasion to unify the country under communist rule, and because the South was militarily weak at the time, he thought it would be easy and conquered all the way down to an area called the Pusan Perimeter. Of course, America and a United Nations coalition force arrived to push them out.

They managed to push their way up to the northern border, where it seemed possible to conquer the North...only for the newly-established People's Republic of China to send hundreds of thousands of troops to support the North. They pushed the front lines south, where it stagnated around the 38th parallel for the next three years.

Based on his death date, if he died in battle, I'm guessing it was either in the First Battle of Hook or The Battle of Triangle Hill.

Yun also asks Krystal about the outcome of the war, but he decides he doesn't want to know and instead says he needs time to mentally prepare himself. I can't say I blame him, given that the war he died in was ultimately just a stalemate and technically never really ended.

Oumar Dembélé (1939-1969)

Another personal favorite of mine, Oumar is hilariously melodramatic, but also quite empathetic and emotionally-conscious dude. He's a relationship counselor and a published author, which is very interesting.

Oumar is Malian, and with that time frame, he would've been born when the country was under French colonial rule. At the time, Mali was called "French Sudan" and was ruled as part of French West Africa, a federation of eight colonies in the region. Mali and Senegal both achieved independence as the Federation of Mali on June 20th, 1960, although their status as a federation only lasted two months.

Even under French rule, there was a considerable divide between Northerners, particularly the Tuareg people, and Southerners. Under independence, the country's first president, Modibo Keïta, moved quickly to establish a single-party state, nationalized a great deal of services, and withdrew from the French Community in favor of closer ties to the Eastern Bloc, although economic problems lead to them rejoining the Franc Zone in 1967. He would later be deposed in a coup the following year.

This doesn't mean Oumar would've stayed in Mali, of course. In fact, I get the impression he probably moved to someplace like France to become as prominent as he had. This probably would've come in the wake of the Algiers War, when France saw many years of economic growth.

Oumar's death is also equally interesting and horrifying to consider, given that he was specifically crushed in a small venue.

This was a case of human crush injury. This is when a crowd of people is so tightly packed together (4–5 people per square meter/2.5 square feet per person), there's no room for them to move or even breathe.

The 1989 Hillsborough Disaster is a pretty infamous example of that, where 72,841 people compacted together in a stadium designed to hold just under 40,000. The result? 766 people were injured, 94 died and another 3 later died of injures they received. The crowd was so packed that even people who had died were still held up through the pressure.

Personal space is important.

Bonnie Clark (1959-1978)

And here's Bonnie, easily the saddest character in the game and I can't blame her at all. Out of all the Down-Timers, she's the one we actually learn the most about in her introduction. She has the vibes of an all-American girl, with a very fitting accent and everything.

She had a friend group that she frequently went to the arcade with, and she worked at a place called Don's Diner. How do we know? Krystal finds a picture.

"Now disgraced" in this context likely refers to Bonnie's untimely death. If any of you are familiar with the Terrible "Accident" PSA on workplace safety, you can probably imagine what happened. It's easily one of the most horrific ways to go, not gonna lie ^^;

Beyond that, there's not too much to really say with her in terms of historical context, given that she's a pretty archetypal small town girl, albeit much more pessimistic than many other examples. That could relate to how the 1970s were a difficult time for America, both economically and socially, due to factors like OPEC's oil embargo due to the Yom Kippur War.

That being said, it was still a time of significant social, scientific and technological progress, although for a teenager trying to make end's meet, that probably would've been a small comfort.

On a much lighter note, Bonnie got to enjoy some of the classic video games of the era: Pong, Space Invaders, Breakout, Death Race, Asteroids, Galaxian and many others.

Fernando Gomes (1958-1984)

And here we have our local himbo, Fernando. He's a pretty laid-back dude and his bio states that, while he's attained worldwide fame for his surfing skills, he prefers to stick around his home town and stay in the lifeguard job he's had since he was a teenager.

Even if you know history, it's almost easy to forget while talking to him that Fernando would've spent most of his life under a military dictatorship.

The Fifth Brazilian Republic, which was established after a coup on April 1st, 1964, was a brutally repressive government. Strong anti-communist policies, hard-line conservatism, political repression, mass censorship, curtailment of freedom of speech and the widespread killing, torturing and deporting of dissidents were all commonplace, particularly in the 70s.

So common, in fact, that the decade between 1968 and 1978 is also called the "Years of Lead."

Despite this, Brazil adopted a highly diversified and developmentalist economic model that helped boost their economy, and they developed the slogan "Brazil: Love it or Leave it." Fernando, ironically, seemed to adhere to that slogan given his love for his hometown.

Of course, Brazil would eventually return to democracy, but Fernando would fatally hit his head on a rock before he could see it happen.

Sonechka Morozova (1978-1996)

And another favorite of mine, Soneckha is our local magical weirdo, whose predictions of the future have been far more accurate than chance would suggest. She's also not disappointed that she's dead, but rather than she didn't end up as Queen of Hell like she wanted.

She's also very interesting in that, while she doesn't seem to play well with others, she'll respect you if you respect her in return, such as not giving her a nickname and understanding what a soothsayer is.

Timeline-wise, Sonechka would've been around for the latter days of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl Disaster, the collapse of communist rule over Eastern Europe, the independence of the Russian Federation, the 1993 Constitutional Crisis and the First Chechen War.

It's not hard to see how, given that she has the ability to predict the future to a supernatural degree, she likely saw these events, and watching them play out probably shaped a lot about her personality and outlook.

My biggest question is how she wound up dying of hypothermia in the middle of the summer, as July is actually the warmest month in the country.

Petra Nightingale (1987-2006)

First introduced as "Scene Kid," Petra is definitely someone whose design would grab your attention. Her talent was a bit of a surprise to me, but her attitude, not to mention her sweet personality, really make her well-suited to caring for seniors.

Petra is English and would've been a 90's kid, so her time might've been spent with things like classic shows, crisp packets with prizes in them, Mr. Blobby and that time when the console wars were between Nintendo and Sega.

In terms of social and political history, the 90s saw the end of Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister, the restoration of relations with Argentina after the Falkland War, the latter half of the Mad Cow Disease scandal and the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the Troubles.

Petra also mentions she's from Brighton, and during her childhood, she would've seen the city become much more prominent, which resulted in housing prices going up and a lot of people moving away. Would that have influenced her decision to start caring for seniors who couldn't afford to move.

I think the most interesting part to consider is that, as a senior caregiver, Petra has probably met a lot of veterans from Britain's various conflicts, from both World Wars to the various colonial conflicts to maybe even people who were in conflict with the IRA during the early days of the Troubles.

Not that I think it would've made Petra a judgemental person, as she seems very nice, but someone so young and very clearly quite lonely could have had her worldview shaped quite a bit by vets from these conflicts. I just think it's interesting to consider.

Vivian Wright (1966-2015)

Finally, the most recent Down-Timer and one from an era most of us are familiar with, Vivan was a Canadian teacher who was killed in a car accident. She's actually the first one Krystal meets after arriving, and we see that, while Viv is pretty nice, she also definitely has those anger issues.

I think most of us know what she would've been around to witness just before her death, but in terms of her adolescence, she would've been around for things such as Trudeaumania, civil rights for the First Nations, the many political tensions within Quebec and Terry Fox's famous attempt to run cross-country.

As the Ultimate Teacher, Viv probably has a lot to share on these topics, and I think it's interesting to consider how she could potentially be the one to help her fellow Down-Timers accommodate to the discoveries that came after their deaths. It's an interesting possibility.

//So there you go, some historical context for each of our Down-Timers, which I think could potentially play a role in their characters, arcs and motivations in the story. It's understandable that a lot of them probably have values that we today wouldn't agree with, but the same could be said of us and the Up-Timers, who deserve their own essay as well.

//This is also my way of saying "Go check out Eternal Endings, it's genuinely interesting and I want to see more!" : P

#mod talks #a student out of time #essay #danganronpa eternal endings #eternal endings #dree #Zhao Ying #Earnest Mikkola #Yun Jung-Hoon #Oumar Dembele #Bonnie Clark #Fernando Gomes #Sonechka Morozova #Petra Nightingale #Vivian Wright

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Aradia: psychics may be banned fr0m m0st casin0s, but i want t0 see a psychics-0NLY casin0.

Sollux: oh the ab2olute cacophony of p2ychiic2 tryiing two one up each other iin game2 of p2ychogambliing… madne22

#homestuck #incorrect homestuck quotes #aradia megido #sollux captor #mod terezi #i like how she specifies it's 'most casinos' and not all casinos #there's evidently at least a small handful of casinos that allow psychics into their floors #or don't acknowledge the existence of psychics #thus allowing them to gamble with impunity

[towardtheheightsisenough]

Sexual Role Shifts and Gender Identity

The opening lines of Juvenal’s Satire VI highlight a significant amount of cultural drift regarding sexual identity and behavior in Roman culture towards the modern era. Throughout the work, women are depicted as definitionally inclined towards vice and a corrupting burden on society— specifically on account of their quarrelsomeness, risk-taking behavior, and hypersexuality. Juvenal forwards these problems as something innate to womanhood, not just individuals or groups (for example, Juvenal forwards that all women- rich and poor alike- lack financial foresight and the ability to control themselves). 

Even in his attacks aimed at men, Juvenal attacks women, focusing his ire on casting them as enablers of the sins of women allowing the decline of traditional Roman values by not being harsh enough towards female impunity. However, what I find interesting about Roman characterization of femininity is that, ironically, the traits that are most villainized in women are now traits commonly considered masculine attributes. Men, rather than women, are considered more likely to cheat; men, rather than women, are more likely to get into fights and arguments; men, rather than women are considered flighty and likely to gamble. In fact, most of these concepts of masculinity are included in the modern idea of “toxic masculinity”. 

I find this fascinating, and an excellent example of how gender and group dynamics are socially constructed and thus have definitions that are subject to immense change over time as our understanding of identities shift. I’m curious as to how these discrete gender constructions would hold in modern contexts. I think it's defensible that the modern feminine and ancient feminine are completely discrete gender identities arising from differing definitions of what womanhood consists of, as gender is a social, not biological, classification.

[brettaresco]

The End of Open Secrets

NOTE: I initially wrote this column in March of this year, when the Michael Jackson documentary was released and Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested. In finally publishing, I’ve updated with minor changes and an addendum concerning another poster boy for this phenomenon, Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’m shocked to find that there is gambling going on in here.”

-Captain Renault, Casablanca

If, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said (while paraphrasing abolitionist minister Theodore Parker), “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” most would say we are in the long part. It has become fashionable amongst the eloquent, the empathetic, and the erudite to say that our world is in peril. I won’t wholly discount this assertion, especially while John Barron is the president, but bear with me as I briefly consider the positive aspects of our confounding timeline.

In many ways, we live in a golden age. Not only are we experiencing a time of relative prosperity, peace, and liberty in much of the world, but many of us enjoy an existence in which information (and, thus, some measure of power) is ubiquitous. Sure, we have our issues – the United States’ abdication of its place as moral and geopolitical leader of the world, for starters – and the information we consume is not always of the utmost veracity. But even still… the march of non-fake news has spurred uprisings to overthrow corrupt regimes, liberated marginalized groups, and shed light on some of the most troubling and immediate issues of our time.

Which leads me to the subject of this column: open secrets.

I am an actor. I run in some acting circles that can, at times, form Venn diagrams with larger, more famous circles. I know people who know people, I know people who become people, and I know people who are people. In talking to many of these people, for as long as I can remember, they all maintained one thing:

Kevin Spacey was a pervert.

Though I never knew the extent of his perversions, it was always whispered that he liked to take advantage of other actors. He liked his boys young, some said, and he wasn’t afraid to use his position to get what he wanted. The important matter wasn’t that he was gay – that was an open secret of an entirely benign nature – but that he was very likely a predator.

Despite these rumors, it was not until the #metoo movement unshackled thousands of brave women (and men) from the forced secrecy of past indignities that Kevin Spacey was formally accused and, to an extent, confronted with the consequences of his actions. His hit show was canceled, he was effectively blacklisted from Hollywood, and he was investigated by various authorities. His open secret became an open door through which he could be dragged, kicking and screaming, to justice.

Though Spacey’s downfall commenced just last year, it feels like it happened much longer ago, amidst a raft of other scandals involving such high-profile figures as Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, and, well, our current president. Aside from the fact that the latter still operates with impunity… why bring all this up again now?

Because Spacey’s is the case that first leaps to mind when I think of a growing, overdue, and enormously important trend- a trend more recently personified by the fates of three other powerful men: Robert Kraft, Michael Jackson, and Jeffrey Epstein.

Earlier this year, as you’ll no doubt remember, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested and charged with two counts of solicitation for frequenting a Florida massage parlor where trafficked women were coerced into performing sex acts for money (or, in common parlance, “giving happy endings”).

Who among us has not heard of (or – dare I ask? – received) a happy ending? It’s been joked about in popular culture for years, and it has become so ingrained in our collective consciousness that massage parlors with curtains over the windows and secretive back rooms are almost always assumed – rightly or wrongly – to provide other “services.” A few years ago, when I won a fantasy sports league, someone joked that I should spend my winnings at an establishment that online reviewers have deemed one of the best “rub & tug” places in New York City. If the person suggesting it had ever been I will not here speculate, but I’m sure he thought it less an honest suggestion than an innocent joke. As distasteful as the suggestion was, he was playing on a widely-known (and seemingly harmless) open secret.

But is it harmless? As is finally being scrutinized in the wake of the Robert Kraft debacle, through which several other high-profile men in finance (and even the boyfriend of an LPGA golfer) were exposed, a large element of this massage parlor subculture centers on human trafficking. Quite often, the women brought to these “businesses” from other countries have their movements controlled, their lives monitored, and their jobs bound to unpayable debts that keep them servicing wealthy Johns like Kraft for the rest of their lives. It’s a horrible, dehumanizing existence… but one about which many superficially know and joke. Whether they choose to look the other way or not is their business – luckily, there are many diligent human trafficking task forces that make arrests like those in this sweeping Florida sting – but for years this practice has persisted as an open secret. It was not widely exposed until one of the most powerful men in America brushed up against it… and even now, in our focus-starved culture, it may yet recede once again into the background. (Sure enough, as I update this just four months later, it already has).

Whether or not the case of the “rub & tug” maintains its capacity for public outrage, it has again exposed a through line in many of the open secrets that we as a society choose not to confront: powerful people getting away with horrible things. Shortly after Kraft’s arrest, of course, came the release of a revealing and controversial documentary about a man nicknamed (rightly, for his music at least) “The King of Pop.”

Has there been any greater modern example of an open secret than Michael Jackson’s propensity to, at the very least, spend an unsettling amount of time with children? The debate has raged on and on for years: was this a man who simply didn’t have a normal childhood and wanted to live vicariously through his young “friends,” or was this a mentally and sexually disturbed pedophile who lured innocent tykes to a literal Neverland where he could do with them as he pleased?

Certainly, with the release of said documentary, the pendulum appears to swing more towards the latter. There have now been myriad credible accusations about Jackson, and a newly resurfaced tape of his sister LaToya (from all the way back in 1993) shows her denouncing “his crimes against small, innocent children” (though she later recanted the statements).

While Jackson was alive, how many of us gave serious thought to whether he was acting inappropriately? Yes, he settled a case out of court in the 90s and was brought up on charges once (as was our friend Jeffrey Epstein, whom I’ll address shortly), but he skated. We, the public, continued to listen to his music and disregard his behavior. Certainly no one dared to raise this open secret to the level of moral outrage for many years… but, in so doing, what did we enable?

In not examining these open secrets in the court of public opinion and demanding full investigations, what else have we allowed to happen? As #metoo has shown us, we’ve permitted workplace sexual harassment and assault for generations. We’ve enabled human trafficking by reducing it to a joke. We’ve allowed powerful people – usually men – to live lives free from consequence, and even bestowed upon them a certain fear-based gravitas; no one dared cross Harvey Weinstein or Les Moonves, lest their careers be torpedoed, despite the fact that (at least in the case of the former) his culture of intimidation and abuse was a Hollywood-sized open secret.

You’ve probably noticed that all of the open secrets mentioned so far concern sex. I believe this is because sex itself has always been something of an open secret in America. We have spent decades trying to shake our puritan past, and many are still uncomfortable with a frank, open, and honest discussion of sexual health and preferences. Abstinence-only education is “stressed” in 27 states. The debate about abortion, together with the political might of the Evangelical right, can (and do) obscure any nuanced debate about contraception or premarital relations. It’s something we’re slowly confronting, but it will take time. And calling people to the carpet for using sex to gain power or hurt others is – however uncomfortable – part of that confrontation.

If it isn’t already, allow me to make plain the fundamental purpose of this column: Think about your open secrets- our open secrets. Think, as I have tried to do after the above instances have exploded into national discussions, about those things that we all know to be true but that nobody ever talks about. I’m not advocating for “witch hunts” – there’s been quite enough talk of those lately – but of mere explorations of the obvious. I can think of several as-yet unexamined cases off the top of my head. The first, to shift from the from the titillating to the mundane, is the problem of tax havens. Does anybody still talk about the Panama Papers or the Paradise Papers? Or about how a journalist who helped to uncover them was mysteriously killed by a car bomb in Malta? I actually heard someone make the argument recently that if the United States raises tax rates on the wealthy, our modern-day robber barons will simply hide more money offshore. That’s the same fundamental (and asinine) assertion as, “We can’t have tighter gun restrictions, because criminals will still find a way to get them.” The solution, to people who advance these viewpoints, is inaction. They are content living, as we have for years, with our open secrets. They imagine that the above instances (the easy reducibility of gun violence being its own open secret) do not affect them. But what if their family members were killed with legal guns? Or if they were deprived of necessary social services because of haven-driven deficits? Would they be so quick to brush these important issues under the rug, pretending they don’t know what they know that they know?

For most people, the rate at which our planet is warming is the biggest, smelliest, most egregious open secret… on the planet. Thankfully, the debate over whether or not climate change is occurring (and man-made) seems to be evaporating, as more of those who’ve stuck their heads in the hot, hot sand pass away. But the question of how best to take action remains. For all her foibles, it was not until Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used her considerable platform to advance a Green New Deal that Americans actually started considering the sweeping, necessary policy changes that might help alleviate some of the inevitable suffering we are poised to face in the coming years. Even those who distrust the Green New Deal’s ambitious aims of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 know that they need to support something. We all need to support something… or else we’ll keep our biggest elephant in the room well-fed, kicking the can down the road until some major Kraft-like climate event occurs… and by then it might be too late.

Doping in cycling, Hollywood accounting,  soda, the Washington Redskins (and Cleveland Indians), college admissions, Scientology, Donald Trump’s mental health… these and many other subjects qualify for official Open Secret status. What do they all have in common? They have had moments of exposure, here and there, but remain – in some cases, dangerously – unresolved.

What will it take for us as a nation (and a world) to shed enough sunlight on these matters to melt them away? Two things: courage and awareness. One follows the other- it takes courage to be aware enough to confront these behaviors and the circumstances that allow them to thrive, and yet another level to hold those in power accountable. First, however, we must confront our own complicity. In this increasingly Orwellian world, we would do well to remember the author’s iconic words from 1984: “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

ADDENDUM: Concerning Epstein

As a millennial, I had always heard the name Jeffrey Epstein. Often, it was used as either a political bludgeon or evidence of the Illuminati. When I wrote this column back in March, I had little hope that Epstein would finally be brought up on charges relating to his systematic predatory behavior against scores of young women, and that those charges would (possibly) open the door for many more against those who may have aided, abetted, and willingly joined in his behavior. Epstein’s case fits the mold perfectly: A wealthy man who thinks he’s above the law, surely because he has been. Much has been made about the sweetheart deal former Trump cabinet member Alex Acosta gave Epstein in 2008, and with good reason. Epstein’s predilections were long known, as the following excerpt makes plain, and yet… and yet. No one, especially those in a position to expose his behavior, dared do so. It is in these circumstances where, yet again, the public is duty bound to step in. I know we have a lot to worry about – climate change, income inequality, superbugs – but none of that is going away. Cases like Kraft’s, Jackson’s, and Epstein’s are the easy ones. In a world of increasing abstraction, where things seem increasingly complicated, we must see the simple for what it is, and act accordingly.

From New York Magazine’s How a Predator Operated in Plain Sight:

How could this have gone on and on? Why so much silence for so many years? Why did no one tip off the authorities or issue any but what must have been the most whispery warnings to close personal friends about Epstein’s pyramid-scheme approach to abusing an apparently infinite number of teenage girls? That Bill Clinton and Trump might play dumb is understandable, if reprehensible. But Larry Summers? Alan Dershowitz? Leslie Wexner, Bill Barr, Ken Starr (!); journalists Katie Couric and George Stephanopoulos; Eva Andersson-Dubin, who founded Mount Sinai’s breast-cancer center? Not to mention their spouses and partners and the people who manage their calendars and the Harvard finance men and women accepting his millions? The whistle-blowers in the Epstein case have not been the high and mighty who can afford to hire lawyers and publicists but the victims themselves, and their families, evoking nothing more than the Catholic Church sex-abuse cases, in which grandmas and aunts spent decades writing letters and knocking fruitlessly on bishops’ doors. “What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it,” says Vicki Ward, the reporter whose 2003 discovery of Epstein’s abuses she alleges were scrubbed by Vanity Fair’s then editor, Graydon Carter. Everyone who knew Epstein mentioned “the girls,” Ward told the New York Times, “but as an aside.”

#politics #entertainment #jeffrey epstein #donald trump #michael jackson #robert kraft #kevin spacey #harvey weinstein #open secrets #casablanca #climate change

[meeedeee]

Westworld: (De)Humanising the Other RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Warning: total spoilers for S1 of Westworld.

Trigger warning: talk of rape, sexual assault and queer death.

Note: Throughout this review, it will be necessary to distinguish between the writers of Westworld the TV show, and the writers employed in the narrative by the titular Westworld theme park. To avoid confusing the two, when I’m referring to the show, Westworld will be italicised; when referring to the park, I’ll use plain text.

*

This will be a somewhat bifurcated review of Westworld – which is, I feel, thematically appropriate, as Westworld itself is something of a bifurcated show. Like so much produced by HBO, it boasts incredible acting, breathtaking production values, intelligent dialogue, great music and an impeccably tight, well-orchestrated series of narrative reveals. Also like much produced by HBO, it takes a liberal, one might even say cartoonishly gratuitous approach to nudity, is saturated with violence in general and violence against women in particular, and has a consistent problem with stereotyping despite its diverse casting. In Westworld’s case, this latter issue is compounded as an offence by its status as a meta-narrative: a story which actively discusses the purpose and structure of stories, but which has seemingly failed to apply those same critiques to key aspects of its own construction.

The practical upshot is that it’s both frustratingly watchable and visibly frustrating. Even when the story pissed me off, I was always compelled to keep going, but I was never quite able to stop criticising it, either. It’s a thematically meaty show, packed with the kind of twists that will, by and large, enhance viewer enjoyment on repeat viewings rather than diminish the appeal. Though there are a few Fridge Logic moments, the whole thing hangs together quite elegantly – no mean feat, given the complexity of the plotting. And yet its virtues have the paradoxical effect of making me angrier about its vices, in much the same way that I’d be more upset about red wine spilled on an expensive party dress than on my favourite t-shirt. Yes, the shirt means more to me despite being cheaper, but a stain won’t stop me from wearing it at home, and even if it did, the item itself is easily replaced. But staining something precious and expensive is frustrating: I’ve invested enough in the cost of the item that I don’t want to toss it away, but staining makes it unsuitable as a showcase piece, which means I can’t love it as much as I want to, either.

You get where I’m going with this.

Right from the outset, Westworld switches between two interconnected narratives: the behind-the-scenes power struggles of the people who run the titular themepark, and the goings-on in the park itself as experienced by both customers and ‘hosts’, the humanoid robot-AIs who act as literal NPCs in pre-structured, pay-to-participate narratives. To the customers, Westworld functions as an immersive holiday-roleplay experience: though visually indistinguishable from real humans, the hosts are considered unreal, and are therefore fair game to any sort of violence, dismissal or sexual fantasy the customers can dream up. (This despite – or at times, because of – the fact that their stated ability to pass the Turing test means their reactions to said violations are viscerally animate.) To the programmers, managers, storytellers, engineers, butchers and behaviourists who run it, Westworld is, variously, a job, an experiment, a financial gamble, a risk, a sandpit and a microcosm of human nature: the hosts might look human, but however unsettling their appearance or behaviour at times, no one is ever allowed to forget what they are.

But to the hosts themselves, Westworld is entirely real, as are their pre-programmed identities. While their existence is ostensibly circumscribed by adherence to preordained narrative ‘loops’, the repetition of their every conversation, death and bodily reconstruction wiped from their memories by the park engineers, certain hosts – notably Dolores, the rancher’s daughter, and Maeve, the bordello madame – are starting to remember their histories. Struggling to understand their occasional eerie interviews with their puppeteering masters – explained away as dreams, on the rare occasion where such explanation is warranted – they fight to break free of their intended loops, with startling consequences.But there is also a hidden layer to Westworld: a maze sought by a mysterious Man in Black and to which the various hosts and their narratives are somehow key. With the hosts exhibiting abnormal behaviour, retaining memories of their former ‘lives’ in a violent, fragmented struggle towards true autonomy, freedom and sentience, Westworld poses a single, sharp question: what does it mean to be human?

Or rather, it’s clearly trying to pose this question; and to be fair, it very nearly succeeds. But for a series so overtly concerned with its own meta – it is, after all, a story about the construction, reception and impact of stories on those who consume and construct them – it has a damnable lack of insight into the particulars of its assumed audiences, both internal and external, and to the ways this hinders the proclaimed universality of its conclusions. Specifically: Westworld is a story in which all the internal storytellers are straight white men endowed with the traditional bigotries of racism, sexism and heteronormativity, but in a context where none of those biases are overtly addressed at any narrative level.

From the outset, it’s clear that Westworld is intended as a no-holds-barred fantasy in the literal sense: a place where the rich and privileged can pay through the nose to fuck, fight and fraternise in a facsimile of the old West without putting themselves at any real physical danger. Nobody there can die: customers, unlike hosts, can’t be killed (though they do risk harm in certain contexts), but each host body and character is nonetheless resurrected, rebuilt and put back into play after they meet their end. Knowing this lends the customers a recklessness and a violence they presumably lack in the real world: hosts are shot, stabbed, raped, assaulted and abused with impunity, because their disposable inhumanity is the point of the experience. This theme is echoed in their treatment by Westworld’s human overseers, who often refer to them as ‘it’ and perform their routine examinations, interviews, repairs and updates while the hosts are naked.

At this point in time, HBO is as well-known for its obsession with full frontal, frequently orgiastic nudity as it is for its total misapprehension of the distinction between nakedness and erotica. Never before has so much skin been shown outside of literal porn with so little instinct for sensuality, sexuality or any appreciation of the human form beyond hurr durr tiddies and, ever so occasionally, hurr durr dongs, and Westworld is no exception to this. It’s like the entirety of HBO is a fourteen-year-old straight boy who’s just discovered the nascent thrill of drawing Sharpie-graffiti genitals on every available schoolyard surface and can only snigger, unrepentant and gleeful, whenever anyone asks them not to. We get it, guys – humans have tits and asses, and you’ve figured out how to show us that! Huzzah for you! Now get the fuck over your pubescent creative wankphase and please, for the love of god, figure out how to do it tastefully, or at least with some general nodding in the direction of an aesthetic other than Things I Desperately Wanted To See As A Teengaer In The Days Before Internet Porn.

That being said, I will concede that there’s an actual, meaningful reason for at least some of Westworld’s ubiquitous nudity: it’s a deliberate, visual act of dehumanisation, one intended not only to distinguish the hosts from the ‘real’ people around them, but to remind the park’s human employees that there’s no need to treat the AIs with kindness or respect. For this reason, it also lends a powerful emphasis to the moments when particular characters opt to dress or cover the hosts, thereby acknowledging their personhood, however minimally. This does not, however, excuse the sadly requisite orgy scenes, nor does it justify the frankly obscene decision to have a white female character make a leering comment about the size of a black host’s penis, and especially not when said female character has already been established as queer. (Yes, bi/pan people exist; as I have good reason to know, being one of them. But there are about nine zillion ways the writers could’ve chosen to show Elsie’s sexual appreciation for men that didn’t tap into one of the single grossest sexual tropes on the books, let alone in a context which, given the host’s blank servility and Elsie’s status as an engineer, is unpleasantly evocative of master/slave dynamics.)

And on the topic of Elsie, let’s talk about queerness in Westworld, shall we? Because let’s be real: the bar for positive queer representation on TV is so fucking low right now, it’s basically at speedbump height, and yet myriad grown-ass adults are evidently hellbent on bellyflopping onto it with all the grace and nuance of a drunk walrus. Elsie is a queer white woman whose queerness is shown to us by her decision to kiss one of the female hosts, Clementine, who’s currently deployed as a prostitute, in a context where Clementine is reduced to a literal object, stripped of all consciousness and agency. Episode 6 ends on the cliffhanger of Elsie’s probable demise, and as soon as I saw that setup, I felt as if that single, non-consensual kiss – never referenced or expanded on otherwise – had been meant as Chekov’s gaykilling gun: this woman is queer, and thus is her death predicted. (Of course she fucking dies. Of course she does. I looked it up before I watched the next episode, but I might as well have Googled whether the sun sets in the west.)

It doesn’t help that the only other queer femininity we’re shown is either pornography as wallpaper or female host prostitutes hitting on female customers; and it especially doesn’t help that, as much as HBO loves its gratuitous orgy scenes, you’ll only ever see two naked women casually getting it on in the background, never two naked men. Nor does it escape notice that the lab tech with a penchant for fucking the hosts in sleep mode is apparently a queer man, a fact which is presented as a sort of narrative reveal. The first time he’s caught in the act, we only see the host’s legs, prone and still, under his body, but later there’s a whole sequence where he takes one of the male hosts, Hector – who is, not coincidentally, a MOC, singled out for sexual misuse by at least one other character – and prepares to rape him. (It’s not actually clear in context whether the tech is planning on fucking or being fucked by Hector – not that it’s any less a violation either way, of course; I’m noting it rather because the scene itself smacks of being constructed by people without any real idea of how penetrative sex between two men works. Like, ignoring the fact that they’re in a literal glass-walled room with the tech’s eyerolling colleague right next door, Hector is sitting upright on a chair, but is also flaccid and non-responsive by virtue of being in sleep mode. So even though we get a grimly lascivious close-up of the tech squirting lube on his hand, dropping his pants and, presumably, slicking himself up, it’s not actually clear what he’s hoping to achieve prior to the merciful moment when Hector wakes up and fights him the fuck off.)

Topping off this mess is Logan, a caustic, black-hat-playing customer who, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it foursome with three host prostitutes – two female, one male – is visually implied to be queer, and who thereinafter functions, completely unnecessarily, as a depraved bisexual stereotype. And I do mean blink-and-you’ll-miss-it: I had to rewind the episode to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, but it’s definitely there, and as with Elsie kissing Clementine, it’s never referenced again. The male host is engaging only with Logan, stroking his chest as he kisses and fucks the two women; it’s about as unsexualised as sexual contact between two naked men can actually get, and yet HBO has gone to the trouble of including it, I suspect for the sole purpose of turning a bland, unoriginal character into an even grosser stereotype than he would otherwise have been while acting under the misapprehension that it would give him depth. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Logan doesn’t cease to be a cocky, punchable asshat just because you consented to put a naked white dude next to him for less time than it takes to have a really good shit; it just suggests that you, too, are a cocky, punchable asshat who should shit more in the bathroom and less on the fucking page. But I digress.

And then there’s the racism, which – and there’s no other way to put this – is presented as being an actual, intentional feature of the Westworld experience, even though it makes zero commercial sense to do this. Like. You have multiple white hosts who are programmed to make racist remarks about particular POC hosts, despite the fact that there are demonstrably POC customers paying to visit the park. You have a consistent motif of Native Americans being referred to as ‘savages’, both within Westworld-as-game and by the gamewriters themselves, with Native American mysticism being used to explain both the accidental glimpses various self-aware hosts get of the gamerunners and the in-game lore surrounding the maze. Demonstrably, the writers of Westworld are aware of this – why else is Episode 2, wherein writer character Lee Sizemore gleefully proposes a hella racist new story for the park, called ‘Chestnut’, as in old? I’ve said elsewhere that depiction is not endorsement, but it is perpetuation, and in a context where the point of Westworld as a commercial venture is demonstrably to appeal to customers of all genders, sexual orientations and races – all of whom we see in attendance – building in particular period-appropriate bigotries is utterly nonsensical.

More than this, as the openness with which the female prostitutes seduce female customers makes clear, it’s narratively inconsistent: clearly, not every bias of the era is being rigidly upheld. And yet it also makes perfect sense if you think of both Westworld and Westworld as being, predominantly, a product both created by and intended for a straight white male imagination. In text, Westworld’s stories are written by Lee and Robert, both of whom are straight white men, while Westworld itself was originally the conceit of Michael Crichton. Which isn’t to diminish the creative input of the many other people who’ve worked on the show – technically, it’s a masterclass in acting, direction, composition, music, lighting, special effects and editing, and those people deserve their props. It’s just that, in terms of narrative structure, by what I suspect is an accidental marriage of misguided purpose and unexamined habit, Westworld the series, like Westworld the park, functions primarily for a straight white male audience – and while I don’t doubt that there was some intent to critically highlight the failings of that perspective, as per the clear and very satisfying satirising of Lee Sizemore, as with Zack Snyder’s Suckerpunch and Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, the straight white male gaze is still so embedded as a lazy default that Westworld ends up amplifying its biases more often than it critiques them. (To quote something my straight white husband said while watching, “It’s my gaze, and I feel like I’m being parodied by it.”)

Though we do, as mentioned, see various women and people of colour enjoying the Westworld park, the customers who actually serve as protagonists – Logan, William and the Man in Black – are all white men. Logan is queer by virtue of a single man’s hand on his chest, but other than enforcing a pernicious stereotype about bisexual appetites and behaviours, it doesn’t do a damn thing to alter his characterisation. The end of season reveal that William is the Man in Black – that William’s scenes have all taken place thirty years in the past, shown to us now through Dolores’s memories – is a cleverly executed twist, and yet the chronicle of William’s transformation from youthful, romantic idealist to violent, sadistic predator only highlights the fundamental problem, which is that the Westworld park, despite being touted as an adventure for everyone – despite Robert using his customers as a basis for making universal judgements about human nature – is clearly a more comfortable environment for some than others. Certainly, if I was able to afford the $40,000 a day we’re told it costs to attend, I’d be disinclined to spend so much for the privilege of watching male robots, whatever their courtesy to me, routinely talk about raping women, to say nothing of being forced to witness the callousness of other customers to the various hosts.

It should be obvious that there’s no such thing as a universal fantasy, and yet much of Westworld’s psychological theorising about human nature and morality hinges on our accepting that the desire  to play cowboy in a transfigured version of the old West is exactly this. That the final episode provides tantalising evidence that at least one other park with a different historical theme exists elsewhere in the complex doesn’t change the fact that S1 has sold us, via the various monologues of Logan and Lee, Robert and William and the Man in Black, the idea that Westworld specifically reveals deep truths about human nature.

Which brings us to Dolores, a female host whose primary narrative loop centres on her being a sweet, optimistic rancher’s daughter who, with every game reset, can be either raped or rescued from rape by the customers. That Dolores is our primary female character – that her narrative trajectory centres on her burgeoning sentience, her awareness of the repeat violations she’s suffered, and her refusal to remain a damsel – does not change the fact that making her thus victimised was a choice at both the internal (Westworld) and external (Westworld) levels. I say again unto HBO, I do not fucking care how edgy you think threats of sexual violence and the repeat objectification of women are: they’re not original, they’re not compelling, and in this particular instance, what you’ve actually succeeded in doing is undermining your core premise so spectacularly that I do not understand how anyone acting in good sense or conscience could let it happen.

Because in making host women like Dolores (white) and Maeve (a WOC), both of whom are repeatedly subject to sexual and physical violation, your lynchpin characters for the development of true human sentience from AIs – in making their memories of those violations the thing that spurs their development – you’re not actually asking the audience to consider what it means to be human. You’re asking them to consider the prospect that victims of rape and assault aren’t actually human in the first place, and then to think about how being repeatedly raped and assaulted might help them to gain humanity. And you’re not even being subtle about it, either, because by the end of S1, the entire Calvinistic premise is laid clear: that Robert and Arnold, the park’s founders, believed that tragedy and suffering was the cornerstone of sentience, and that the only way for hosts to surpass their programming is through misery. Which implies, by logical corollary, that Robert is doing the hosts a service by allowing others to hurt them or by hurting them himself – that they are only able to protest his mistreatment because the very fact of it gave them sentience.

Let that sink in for a moment, because it’s pretty fucking awful. The moral dilemma of Westworld, inasmuch as it exists, centres on the question of knowing culpability, and therefore asks a certain cognitive dissonance of the audience: on the one hand, the engineers and customers believe that the hosts aren’t real people, such that hurting them is no more an immoral act than playing Dark Side in a Star Wars RPG is; on the other hand, from an audience perspective, the hosts are demonstrably real people, or at the very least potential people, and we are quite reasonably distressed to see them hurt. Thus: if the humans in setting can’t reasonably be expected to know that the hosts are people, then we the audience are meant to feel conflicted about judging them for their acts of abuse and dehumanisation while still rooting for the hosts.

Ignore, for a moment, the additional grossness of the fact that both Dolores and Maeve are prompted to develop sentience, and are then subsequently guided in its emergence, by men, as though they are Eves being made from Adam’s rib. Ignore, too, the fact that it’s Dolores’s host father who, overwhelmed by the realisation of what is routinely done to his daughter, passes that fledgling sentience to Dolores, a white woman, who in turn passes it to Maeve, a woman of colour, without which those other male characters – William, Felix, Robert – would have no Galateas to their respective Pygmalions. Ignore all this, and consider the basic fucking question of personhood: of what it means to engage with AIs you know can pass a Turing test, who feel pain and bleed and die and exhibit every human symptom of pain and terror and revulsion as the need arises, who can improvise speech and memory, but who can by design give little or no consent to whatever it is you do to them. Harming such a person is not the same as engaging with a video game; we already know it’s not for any number of reasons, which means we can reasonably expect the characters in the show to know so, too. But even if you want to dispute that point – and I’m frankly not interested in engaging with someone who does – it doesn’t change the fact that Westworld is trying to invest us in a moral false equivalence.

The problem with telling stories about robots developing sentience is that both the robots and their masters are rendered at an identical, fictional distance to the (real, human) viewer. By definition, an audience doesn’t have to believe that a character is literally real in order to care about them; we simply have to accept their humanisation within the narrative. That being so, asking viewers to accept the dehumanisation of one fictional, sentient group while accepting the humanisation of another only works if you’re playing to prejudices we already have in the real world – such as racism or sexism, for instance – and as such, it’s not a coincidence that the AIs we see violated over and over are, almost exclusively, women and POC, while those protagonists who abuse them are, almost exclusively, white men. Meaning, in essence, that any initial acceptance of the abuse of hosts that we’re meant to have – or, by the same token, any initial excusing of abusers – is predicated on an existing form of bigotry: collectively, we are as used to doubting the experiences and personhood of women and POC as we are used to assuming the best about straight white men, and Westworld fully exploits that fact to tell its story.

Which, as much as it infuriates me, also leaves me with a dilemma in interpreting the show. Because as much as I dislike seeing marginalised groups exploited and harmed, I can appreciate the importance of aligning a fictional axis of oppression (being a host) with an actual axis of oppression (being female and/or a POC). Too often, SFFnal narratives try to tackle that sort of Othering without casting any actual Others, co-opting the trappings of dehumanisation to enhance our sympathy for a (mostly white, mostly straight) cast. And certainly, by the season finale, the deliberateness of this decision is made powerfully clear: joined by hosts Hector and Armistice and aided by Felix, a lab tech, Maeve makes her escape from Westworld, presenting us with the glorious image of three POC and one white woman battling their way free of oppressive control. And yet the reveal of Robert’s ultimate plans – the inference that Maeve’s rebellion wasn’t her own choice after all, but merely his programming of her; the revelation that Bernard is both a host and a recreation of Arnold, Robert’s old partner; the merging of Dolores’s arc with Wyatt’s – simultaneously serves to strip these characters of any true agency. Everything they’ve done has been at Robert’s whim; everything they’ve suffered has been because he wanted it so. As per the ubiquitous motif of the player piano, even when playing unexpected tunes, the hosts remain Robert’s instruments: even with his death, the songs they sing are his.

Westworld, then, is a study in contradictions, and yet is no contradiction at all. Though providing a stunning showcase for the acting talents of Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood and Jeffrey Wright in particular, their characters are nonetheless all controlled by Anthony Hopkins’s genial-creepy Robert, and that doesn’t really change throughout the season. Though the tropes of old West narratives are plainly up for discussion, any wider discussion of stereotyping is as likely to have a lampshade hung on it as to be absent altogether, and that’s definitely a problem. Not being familiar with the Michael Crichton film and TV show, I can’t pass judgement on the extent to which this new adaptation draws from or surpasses the source material. I can, however, observe that the original film dates to the 1970s, which possibly goes some way to explaining the uncritical straight white male gazieness embedded in the premise. Even so, there’s something strikingly reminiscent of Joss Whedon to this permutation of Westworld, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. The combination of a technologically updated old West, intended to stand as both a literal and metaphoric frontier, the genre-aware meta-narrative that nonetheless perpetuates more stereotypes than it subverts, and the supposed moral dilemma of abusing those who can’t consent feels at times like a mashup of Firefly, Cabin in the Woods and Dollhouse that has staunchly failed to improve on Whedon’s many intersectional failings.

    And yet, I suspect, I’ll still be poking my nose into Season 2, if only to see how Thandie Newton is doing. It feels like an absurdly low bar to say that, compared to most of HBO’s popular content, Westworld is more tell than show in portraying sexual violence, preferring to focus on the emotional lead-in and aftermath rather than the act itself, and yet that small consideration does ratchet the proverbial dial down a smidge when watching it – enough so that I’m prepared to say it’s vastly less offensive in that respect than, say, Game of Thrones. But it’s still there, still a fundamental part of the plot, and that’s going to be a not unreasonable dealbreaker for a lot of people; as is the fact that the only queer female character dies. Westworld certainly makes compelling television, but unlike the human protagonists, I wouldn’t want to live there.

      from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2jqQuUS via IFTTT

#IFTTT #shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows #RSSFeed

[morningusa]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

#News #Blogger

[newseveryhourly]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8

#Blogger

[sneaksite]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-hails-sledgehammer-arrest-murder-181117833.html

#Sneaksite

[worldviraltrending]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8

#Blogger

[weopenviews]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8

#Blogger

[beautytipsfor]

Mexico hails 'Sledgehammer' arrest but murder crisis still a tough nut to crack

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8 via Beauty Tips

from Blogger https://ift.tt/31o14mY

#Blogger

[orendrasingh]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8

#OS #Blogger

[foulengineerzombie]

The capture of José Antonio ‘El Marro’ Yépez, a top gangster in violence-stricken Guanajuato state, gives a boost to the presidentMexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has hailed the capture of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters as an important victory in his so far fruitless struggle to slash murder rates.In a Sunday night video message to the nation, López Obrador said security forces had seized “El Marro” or “the Sledgehammer” – the head of the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel – at about 6am that morning in the violence-stricken state of Guanajuato.“How is it that this cartel was able to grow so much – to the extent that Guanajuato became our country’s most violent state?” asked Mexico’s populist leader, who took power in late 2018 vowing to slow the killing with a policy of “hugs, not bullets”.“If there were 100 murders each day, 15 were being committed in Guanajuato – and some days there were 20 or 25 murders. How could this happen?” added López Obrador, who is best known as Amlo.Sledgehammer – whose real name is José Antonio Yépez Ortiz - was the widely feared head of a gang of fuel thieves that controlled large swaths of the central Mexican state and was also involved in drug trafficking, cargo theft and extortion.When the Guardian visited one of the villages at the heart of El Marro’s empire in 2018, the driver refused to enter, warning: “We wouldn’t make it out again.”The Guanajuato-based group grew rich siphoning off billions of dollars worth of petrol from pipelines that crisscross the state, which is located to the north-west of Mexico’s capital and is home to one of its most important refineries.El Marro, who had run the group since 2017, was reportedly apprehended on a rural ranch where he had been hiding following a brief gunfight with his security chief.The newspaper El Universal claimed he had unsuccessfully tried to flee on a quad bike as a spy drone hovered overhead and troops closed in.“Who betrayed me?” the “wild-eyed” kingpin reportedly asked his captors before conceding: “Everything has a beginning and an end – and my end has come.”Experts called El Marro’s capture a triumph for López Obrador, whose security policy has come under growing scrutiny following a series of humiliating challenges from Mexico’s cartels, although few believe it will fundamentally solve the crisis facing his country.Last year, as Latin America’s No 2 economy suffered a record 34,582 murders, gunmen working for the Sinaloa cartel seized control of the northern city of Culiacán and forced the release of one of the group’s key leaders, the son of the jailed capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.In June assassins, reputedly deployed by the ascendant Jalisco New Generation cartel, launched a brazen attempt to murder Mexico City’s police chief in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.Jalisco cartel infantrymen subsequently appeared in a viral video, toting automatic rifles and swearing allegiance to their leader, El Mencho.“It’s undoubtedly an important victory [for Amlo] … and he will no doubt use this in next year’s midterm elections to show he’s effective when it comes to security,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security specialist.In fact, Guerrero said he believed El Marro’s arrest was part of a shrewd political gamble on the part of the federal government to force down the country’s sky-high murder rate.“Guanajuato is responsible for about 15% or 16% of the total number of murders in the country. So if you can reduce violence in this state you can have a considerable impact on the national statistics,” said Guerrero who runs the group Lantia Consultores.“If you can cut Guanajuato’s murders in half you can bring down the nationwide levels of violence by 7% or 8%. This would be a major PR coup for this administration,” added Guerrero, predicting that the city of Tijuana, where murder rates are also soaring, might also be targeted for the same reason.Guerrero said security chiefs appeared to be wagering that dealing a body blow to El Marro’s faction would allow the more powerful Jalisco cartel to seize monopoly-like control over Guanajuato, thus reducing violence.“El Marro was a very skilful, elusive and strategic leader and it seems to me that his replacements – who will certainly be relatives – don’t have the skills he had to keep this organization afloat,” said Guerrero, who expected the Santa Rosa cartel to splinter into dozens of smaller groups.“It’s possible that by the end of the year there has been a significant drop in violence in Guanajuato and this would give the federal government something to show off ahead of next July’s elections.”Other observers are less sure the arrest will do anything to end Mexico’s seemingly interminable conflict, which saw more than 2,800 peopled murdered in Guanajuato last year – 73 of them law enforcement officers.“It’s a temporary victory,” said Chris Dalby, the managing editor of InSight Crime, which tracks Latin American organized crime.“The violence in Guanajuato was the most important criminal threat to surge during López Obrador’s presidency and this allows him to show that he has done something about it – but it’s a very narrow victory.“Yes, El Marro was a major, savage factor in the violence in Guanajuato. But removing him probably doesn’t change much,” Dalby added, noting that before taking power Amlo had explicitly vowed not to pursue the so-called “kingpin strategy” of targeting cartel leaders which critics say does little to reduce violence or stop drugs flowing north into the US.On Monday, Mexican newspapers stamped photographs of the fallen capo across their front pages.El Universal called El Marro’s arrest the end of a “dark chapter” for Guanajuato, which is home to several of Mexico’s best-known tourist destinations, including the picturesque colonial town of San Miguel de Allende.But in his video message Mexico’s president, who is facing growing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus epidemic, admitted there was more work to do.“We must continue tackling the root causes of violence – first of all poverty, and secondly, making sure there is no corruption and no impunity,” López Obrador said. “Our authorities must not protect these criminals.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3k673W8

#Blogger