Reflection Final Post

My group has covered the Mexican Drug Cartels and their effect on the state of the Mexico and Mexico’s inhabitants. My group covered the viciousness of the Mexican drug cartels including witness testimonies of actual victims who had been maimed by the cartels’ enforcers. We’ve discussed the difficulty of being a journalist in Mexico due to the ruthlessness of the cartels, which constantly kill anyone who attempts to shed light on their actions. We’ve also discussed Calderon’s war on the cartels and citizens trying to retaliate, both efforts to no avail as the cartels grip on Mexico has increased if any change has occurred at all.  My group has elaborated upon the Mexican government considering legalizing marijuana in an order to decrease the violence due to marijuana’s sedating effects. My group has also written about how the escalating violence in Mexico is hurting Mexico’s tourism which it relies on heavily as a source for income, due to the cartels’ practice of kidnapping, robbing, and even killing foreigners with no hesitation.

            My research was done basically though looking up topics on the internet, and I researched the history of some of the cartels by watching Gangland documentaries on Youtube. My first post was about the history of some of the cartels, such as the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels. It was relatively easy finding new topics to talk about because even though this is a subject that isn’t at the forefront of many Americans’ list of worries, it extremely well-covered. It was extremely difficult for my group to communicate with each other, we actually struggled with that a lot, or at least between me and my other group members. Working in a group also made it much more doable, however, it kind of made me not get into it as much because individually we didn’t have to do many posts.

            I learned how big the cartels are, and gained a better understanding of how violent they are with… anyone. I learned about how many of their different actions have huge impacts on Mexico. I’ve also learned that this problem is much more than the Mexican government can handle alone, and since the U.S. loves meddling in the affairs of other countries they should deal with a threat a lot closer to home than Syria. I learned that researching information can be difficult when you get extremely specific. I also was reminded of the difficulty of succeeding in a group where effective communication is sometimes not present.