Private militias have provided criminal groups with greater mobility and fighting power, enabling them to engage in large-scale violence and seek control of criminal markets and territories beyond their home towns. The Mexican case highlights the need for democratic elites to reform authoritarian judicial and security institutions and to punish state agents who protected organized crime, in order to prevent the intertwining of democratic politics and the criminal underworld.

The spread of subnational party alternation in states with drug trafficking routes and the proliferation of private militias led to the outbreak of intercartel wars. The development of private militias allowed cartels to contest their rivals' control over drug trafficking territories, leading to largescale criminal violence.

political alternation and the rotation of parties in state gubernatorial power undermined the informal networks of protection that had facilitated the cartels' operations under one-party rule. Without protection, cartels created their own private militias to defend themselves from rival groups and incoming opposition authorities.

The power dynamics shifted when the Colombians began paying Mexican traffickers in product rather than cash, allowing the Mexicans to invest in their own drugs. This led to Mexican gangs controlling 90% of the cocaine entering the United States, worth an estimated $70 billion a year.

The Zetas' business model was based on imposing protection fees on businesses, including illegal activities such as drug trafficking, and licit businesses such as farming and shopkeeping. Those who refused to pay were killed or threatened with violence. This led to a culture of fear and intimidation, where businesses were forced to pay protection fees to avoid violence. The violence in Mexico was further fueled by the struggle between powerful groups for control of drug protection rackets and the pursuit of aggressive counternarcotics policing. This led to a cycle of violence, where struggles between rival groups sparked aggressive policing, and aggressive policing generated increasing struggles between rival groups.

The sale of drugs was no longer limited to tourist areas and border cities, but spread to small towns and rural areas. This led to an increase in violence as local drug gangs fought over control of drug-selling areas.

In Mexico, drug traffickers began selling drugs in bulk to the domestic market, leading to an increase in drug use and addiction.

The violence in Mexico escalated due to several factors, including changes in American narcotics demands, the gun market, and criminal practices in Mexico. The availability of guns increased after the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons was lifted in 2004, leading to a global boom in gun manufacture and sales.

New organizations emerged, armed with high-caliber weapons and prepacked political creeds and religious messages. The Familia Michoacana, a Sinaloa-linked group, tossed the heads of five Zetas into a Michoacán bar, declaring that they did not kill for money, but for divine justice. The conflict continued to spread throughout Mexico, with cartels fighting each other, and soldiers and police often caught in the middle.

extort small-time smugglers, torturing and killing those who refused to pay.

In the mid-1990s, the Gulf Cartel recruited members of the Mexican army special forces, known as the Zetas, leading to an increase in violence connected to the drug trade.

we just included some of the artwork from the book. This is by Patrick Cruz was a mexican artist, activist, organizer and he's just riffing on this term that we use in the book, which is re characterizing, you know, the Anthropocene or the color Yuga. This period we're in as the age of consequence.

A productive debate about the oil and gas industry in transitions needs to avoid two common misconceptions. The first is that transitions can only be led by changes in demand.

exican–American War (1846-1848)

Sergio: Did the Mexican government provide help in that transition?Rodolfo: The Mexican government, they provided some help. They provided 50 pesos when I first got here. And they just give me a whole bunch of pamphlets of school and housing, right? But I feel as though independent organizations were the ones who ultimately would have helped me a lot more. When I first got off the plane, they told me about all the resources, all the help, all the things that their company or their organization did for other people, deportees.

Well, since I learned that I was living illegally in the United States, I got discriminated for that. They would call me “illegal Mexican.” So I took that as a positive thing and said, "Yes, I am," and I felt like I needed to represent that not just for myself but for a whole generation because there's a lot of people just like me whose parents took them to the United States, and they struggled through the same thing. I felt that I needed to represent them. I didn't get the tattoos until I came back to Mexico. That's how it started. I do remember in high school, most of my friends that I hung out with were all Mexican, we were all born in Mexico. I guess that's how it started, just hanging out with friends and making jokes about it.

I don't want to say that I'm Mexican or American. I am both. I'm bi-cultural. I just don't like that. I don't like what they say. I'd rather we say, "Hey, we're human. You and I are human." Yes, later on we get that, later on they tell us, "Okay, you were born in Mexico so that makes you Mexican." But since we're born, we're born as human, not even as a woman or a man. We're born as a human. Yeah. I get asked that question a lot.

Luisa: I think they've gained a lot. I think Mexico has gained a lot, but they don't know how to appreciate it. They pretty much throw us aside. Unfortunately, the Mexican government does not think that people who are returning from the States have anything to offer, and they're dead wrong about that. Honestly, if you look at a lot of these people that are coming back, they have so much to offer. They have so much to give and they have so much drive and they're hungry, but they don't make it easy for us.

Introduction "This Land Belongs to Me"