Join East Bay DSA for the newest installment of EBDSA’s Mexican Solidarity series! This will be a night school on Oswaldo Zavala’s book, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in the US and Mexican Culture.

With the recent escalation of Republican Party candidate demands to forcibly deploy US troops across the border, all in the name of “managing the drug trafficking problem” (what critics identify as a call for invasion), the need for a thorough assessment of narcotrafficking — and the underlying economic and political factors at play — stands more urgent than ever. In reading and discussing excerpts from Zavala’s 2022 text, we hope to discern the actual history of narcotrafficking in Mexico, its role in Mexican politics, its connection to US imperialism and foreign capital interests, and how Mexico’s more recent leftward political shift (with president AMLO calling to end militarized intervention in the “War on Drugs” and to increase social welfare resources for the Mexican people instead) has elicited US political aggression and, in some cases, full-on threats for invasion.

Readings

1. our selected excerpts from the book:

   1. Zavala, Oswaldo. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in the US and Mexican Culture. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2022.

2. further supplemental articles for those interested:

   1. Jose Olivares. “The US Is Unhappy That Mexico Is Spending Money On Its Own Citizens.” The Intercept, 26 May 2023.

   2. Rafael Bernal. “GOP Talk Of Military Action in Mexico Sparks Dire Warnings.” The Hill, 25 August 2023.
      
      This will be a hybrid event at the EBDSA office and Zoom.