A Day In The Life

I read the news today, oh boy

I spent this past Sunday wandering the neighborhoods in and around Guadalajara Centro (I am in Guadalajara on business, I don't live here; nor did I listen to any Beatles songs, despite this post’s title and subtitle). I jogged up and down Avenida Vallarta, which is closed to car traffic on Sundays until 2PM. It was a nice day, and there were thousands of people on Avenida Vallarta - riding bikes, skateboarding, rollerblading, riding scooters, jogging, walking. Families, couples, friends, dogs - all out enjoying the warm sun (and the relative lack of air pollution).

In the neighborhoods surrounding the length of Avenida Vallarta - Los Arcos, Americana, Lafayette, Centro - people were enjoying each other's company in cafes, restaurants, bazaars, parks. Children were tugging at their mothers' arms, coercing them toward candy stores. Fathers came down the streets with ice cream cones and paletas in hand, toward their eager and smiling children. Other kids played in fountains. Dogs pulled on leashes toward one another as their human walkers approached from opposite directions.

This is the Mexico I know the best. I was going to say that it is sad that so many people in the U.S. won't ever get to experience this side of Mexico (well look there, I just said it), but that is not what I want to say. It is ok that many or most people in the U.S. will never experience this side of Mexico; people get to have a choice about what they want to experience, and many people don't want to experience Mexico at all and that is fine. What is sad is that many people in the U.S. won't even acknowledge that there is this side of Mexico - a Mexico that is a safe, engaging, hard-working, welcoming and family-oriented place.

A few days ago, several U.S. lawmakers called for designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and they have called for U.S. military intervention in Mexico to address these terrorist organizations. Let's assume for just one minute that this isn't just lawmakers pandering to their constituents with phony tough guy bravado and little boy heroics. Let's assume they really mean that they'd like the U.S. military to invade Mexico and clean up all that cartel drug activity. Furthermore, let's assume that their knowledge of history dates back no further than 2 weeks prior to the last time they made a clumsy pass at one of their female interns. Yes, let's assume that these lawmakers are completely unaware of the United States' track record of military invasions and occupations of foreign countries: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. Let's assume that they've also missed the news cycle around Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, absolutely, let us assume that the U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. treasury have nothing better to do with their money than fund a military incursion into and occupation of the world's 13th largest country.

And while we're assuming all of that, let's not forget to assume that the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S. military has the manpower and resources to find all the bad guys and arrest or kill them without killing innocent Mexicans and destroying innocent Mexican lives. Oh and let's assume that the United States' second largest trade partner will be just a-ok with all this invading, and that the U.S. economy won't suffer catastrophically while U.S. boots are on the ground in Mexico.

Yeah, that is a lot of assumptions. But what the hell, this isn't anything new. The U.S. has invaded Mexico twice in the past, in 1914 and 1916. And for the spoils of the U.S.-Mexican war of 1846-1848, the U.S. took half of Mexico's territory. So this isn't really a new game at all - we've been there, done that, everything turned out just fine. Nothing has changed between then and now, right? Except that now the U.S. has more and better guns.

OK, I seriously doubt that the U.S. will invade Mexico. But it isn't beyond the realm of possibility. All it takes is a crazy person to be elected commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, and that has happened before. But still, I doubt it will happen. These adolescent politicians just want to get air time on Fox News.

But it is sad. It is sad that so many people in the U.S. have a warped perspective of the world, one that leads them to believe that they are better, the rest of the world is worse, and that they have a moral right to "fix" the rest of the world through warfare.

And today I wandered around Guadalajara and never feared for my life, didn't worry that some guy with a gun would start shooting in the crowded parks and squares and plazas I visited. But I recognize that guys with guns can and do start shooting in Matamoros. And in Fresno, Colorado Springs, Newtown, Aurora, Portland, San Bernardino, Orlando, Dallas, Cincinnati, Little Rock, Plano, Parkland, Jacksonville, El Paso, Poway, San Jose, Boulder, Buffalo, Highland Park, Half Moon Bay. Etcetera. But by all means, let's invade Mexico.