[HN Gopher] Red Snapper Filet Might Have Been Caught by Drug Run...
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       Red Snapper Filet Might Have Been Caught by Drug Runners
        
       Author : Amorymeltzer
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2021-11-12 12:01 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.texasmonthly.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.texasmonthly.com)
        
       | sweetheart wrote:
       | So much of the article explains how US seas are being illegally
       | fished by Mexican lancheros because Mexican waters have already
       | been so overfished. The article also mentions some of the pretty
       | terrible effects of this overfishing that we are starting to see
       | in the Gulf, like sharks being caught in nets, which really
       | throws the food chain out of whack (after all, nets catch
       | everything, not just the snapper).
       | 
       | I wonder when people will start to realize that these terrible
       | things happen, and will get worse, as long as people choose to
       | eat fish. There is nothing in fish that the human body requires
       | (or can't get elsewhere), so we do it only because we like the
       | taste.
       | 
       | We are willing to let ecosystems collapse, drug cartels profit,
       | and issues with the ocean continue to worsen because we want to
       | taste fish.
       | 
       | It's hard to argue that's a reasonable exchange.
        
         | pibechorro wrote:
         | Fish is one of the healthiest food you can eat, take your diet
         | agenda elsewhere. The problem here is our role in the
         | ecosystem, which is extractive and not in harmony. The main
         | culprit is land locked people eating far away foods, its not
         | sustainable. Everything should be optimized for local, in
         | season consumption. Imported food aught to be a treat, not a
         | staple.
        
           | alisonkisk wrote:
           | This makes no sense. If landlocked people moved to the coast,
           | that would solve your "local" problem but not fix overfishing
           | at all. And if fish is so important to eat, landlocked people
           | mustn't be deprived of it.
           | 
           | You are conflating transportation costs with nutrition and
           | getting a meaningless argument.
           | 
           | Take your local agenda elsewhere.
        
           | BrianOnHN wrote:
           | This comment is spot on.
           | 
           | Furthermore, this year alone, I've seen _megatons_ of dead
           | fish wash up within a week because of a single
           | phosphorus(fertilizer) dump into the gulf.
           | 
           | So to reiterate, eating fish isn't the problem. The current
           | human role in our ecosystem, is.
        
           | sweetheart wrote:
           | There is remarkably little environmental impact when it comes
           | to shipping food around the world.
           | 
           | Also, you say the problem is our extractive practices when it
           | comes to nature. We only extract because people demand it. We
           | ought to stop demanding it.
        
           | msh wrote:
           | Many places in the world you can only produce food locally in
           | a limited season, so you have to store or import. I don't
           | think import is naturally much worse than storage.
        
           | heliodor wrote:
           | By the same logic, you should not be using Saudi Arabia's
           | oil.
           | 
           | Some places have more of something than they need for their
           | own consumption. Trade makes sense.
        
             | Fnoord wrote:
             | We are, for now, dependant on fossil fuels (including from
             | nefarious regimes).
             | 
             | I like fish, practically all except
             | coalfish/pollock/seelachs (which does have a nice
             | advantage: cheap and widely available). Fish is supposedly
             | a good sourcevon omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and
             | vitamin B13. Which are all 3 difficult to come by if you
             | largely follow a vegan diet otherwise. Yes I have the
             | choice of eating things like cowmilk, chicken eggs, and
             | cheese, but I generally don't like them. For example, I
             | only molten cheese and non-boiled eggs. So I end up
             | regularly eating some Captain Iglo/Birdseye fish sticks
             | which are cheap and mask the taste and structure of
             | coalfish/pollock/seelachs.
             | 
             | One time in a German restaurant we got excited. Seelachs,
             | that's salmon, right? Wrong, salmon is lachs, seelachs is
             | coalfish/pollock. Such disappointment while I see people
             | getting served, price was too good to be true (it was a
             | large group deal though). I ended up eating one bite. See,
             | not many brands cover up the taste well. In this case, no
             | seasoning whatsoever was used.
             | 
             | The problem is, back 100 days ago, imported foods were a
             | luxury. You'd eat local unless you were rich (most people
             | were not). But we don't do that because those who pollute
             | get away with it; they don't pay a fair share to
             | destimulate the behaviour enough, and the bioindustry is
             | very efficient and caused an availability of meat for the
             | pleb folk. If we go on in this pace, major cities like
             | Amsterdam are unlikely to exist in 2100. But voters don't
             | seem to care, so the future of my children is likely not
             | near the city they were born, they can vusit it by boat or
             | drone or Maps by then, reading on Wikipedia what once and
             | how adults failed. All because we were too greedy and
             | unwilling to solve it on a macro level.
        
           | hellbannedguy wrote:
           | Being a vegetarian is healthy too.
           | 
           | We can't have everything.
           | 
           | There's just too many people on this wounded planet.
           | 
           | I would love to eat fish. I can't because of cost, and too
           | many people love to eat them.
           | 
           | We all can't have everything we want.
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | > The main culprit is land locked people eating far away
           | foods, its not sustainable.
           | 
           | > Everything should be optimized for local, in season
           | consumption. Imported food aught to be a treat, not a staple.
           | 
           | It's not like we don't know how this turns out. You're
           | advocating for pretty severe malnutrition in a lot of
           | landlocked populations.
        
           | merrywhether wrote:
           | You're basically saying that just because we haven't been
           | great at general fishery management yet doesn't mean we won't
           | get it right next time. But the problem here is that
           | fisheries are literally the textbook example of the tragedy
           | of the commons and there will always be someone looking to
           | capture the benefits while externalizing the costs. I'm not
           | disagreeing with you that unsustainable eating is the root of
           | this (and many other) problem but the only successful
           | solutions has been extremely strong semi-militaristic (eg
           | Coast Guard with teeth) enforcement of fishing quotas that
           | are quite unpopular for all involved: fishers who lose jobs,
           | eaters who lose access to a favorite taste, etc. No one likes
           | taking their vitamins as it were.
        
       | 1cvmask wrote:
       | The curious case of a country that sends its troops all over the
       | world to "protect" the borders of other countries but strangely
       | ignores its own border. Then again the government (through the
       | CIA) was involved in drug running. So you want an unfortified
       | border then.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Alliance_(book)
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
        
         | bufferoverflow wrote:
         | It's by design. Democrats want more illegal immigrants, because
         | they and their children tend to vote for them.
        
           | williamtwild wrote:
           | How do illegal immigrants vote?
        
             | Wistar wrote:
             | In the minds of those who believe unlikely things.
        
             | vadfa wrote:
             | Voter fraud.
        
         | short12 wrote:
         | In every thread someone has to post that like it's some huge
         | secret. It's been known for 40 decades. No one has ever looked
         | at those links and said "this is shocking knews to me"
        
         | IAmGraydon wrote:
         | Why not link to the actual article on the subject, which says
         | that it was investigated multiple times and found to be false?
         | Did I answer my own question?
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
        
           | slavboj wrote:
           | Even better, why not link to the far more expansive set of
           | proven allegations, instead of "the CIA investigated itself
           | and decided there was nothing wrong"?
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi.
           | ..
           | 
           | "U.S. Government Officials said in 1990 the Anti-Drug Unit of
           | the C.I.A. "accidentally" shipped a ton of cocaine into the
           | United States from Venezuela as part of an effort to
           | infiltrate and gather evidence on drug gangs. The cocaine was
           | sold on the streets in the United States. No criminal charges
           | were made in this incident, however C.I.A. officer Mark
           | McFarlin resigned and another C.I.A. officer was disciplined.
           | The CIA issued a statement on the incident saying there was
           | "poor judgment and management on the part of several C.I.A.
           | officers""
        
             | toss1 wrote:
             | i.e., it was a one-off mistake, and people were held
             | accountable (even if not to the degree you feel
             | appropriate), and it was not systematic as you and GGP are
             | attempting to imply
        
               | twofornone wrote:
               | The only part about this that was one-off was that they
               | were caught. It's an open secret that the CIA has been
               | involved in some form of drug running for decades.
        
               | tata71 wrote:
               | Intelligence agency black budgets are a one-off?
               | 
               | Keep reading.
        
               | toss1 wrote:
               | Of course black (classified) budgets are standard
               | operating procedure.
               | 
               | That does not mean that the expenditures are for the same
               | items and projects every year.
        
         | llamataboot wrote:
         | I would hardly call the US border "ignored"
        
           | frankharv wrote:
           | Your right about that. While the Feds have adjudicated their
           | duties the state of Texas has had to step up and bring in
           | state resources. Charging people with a misdemeanor
           | trespassing charges as a last resort when the Border Patrol
           | is hamstrung by politics. Why not build that wall? Just ask
           | Poland about the value of a wall. Europe is finally realizing
           | there is orderly migration on one hand and chaos by bandits
           | on the other.
           | 
           | Really sad situation. Poor people deserve better. To spend
           | their life savings on human smuggling is a pity.
        
             | dghlsakjg wrote:
             | Better that poor people should spend it on lawyers and
             | application fees trying to get to the top of a decades long
             | waitlist that may not even yield a visa?
             | 
             | From the perspective of a poor person, the coyote is a far
             | cheaper option, with a higher likelihood of success. Do you
             | really think that a wall is going to stop people who
             | travelled thousands of miles? It might slow them down a
             | little, but a quick youtube search shows people getting
             | past most styles of the border barriers in about a minute
             | or less
             | 
             | The CBP spends 18 billion dollars per year, which is up
             | from 6 billion in 2003. This doesn't look like a problem we
             | can spend our way out of.
        
             | abfan1127 wrote:
             | East Germany had a pretty good wall too.
        
           | redis_mlc wrote:
           | The US southern border is currently not enforced, thanks to
           | Biden's Open Border policy.
           | 
           | It's expected 2 million illegal migrants will walk across the
           | Mexican border into the US in 2021.
        
             | toss1 wrote:
             | riiight... that's why there's a scandal about border patrol
             | on horseback rounding up migrants to be sent back to their
             | home country, and significant encampments of people trying
             | (i.e., failing) to get across; this is not merely open
             | borders and walking across as you falsely imply.
             | 
             | Stop posting propaganda
        
       | echopurity wrote:
       | Prohibition and carnism destroy the ocean along with countless
       | lives? No surprise.
        
       | EdwardDiego wrote:
       | Are the snapper perhaps a fair exchange for the US caused
       | dramatic impacts on the health of the Colorado delta, and the
       | resulting massive impact on the Kwapa, a people whose entire
       | identity was based on the Colorado River?
       | 
       | Silly question, but I find the article's tone of polite outrage a
       | bit hypocritical. Bonus points for the DRUGGGS outrage angle.
       | 
       | Especially when Texas used to be the province of Tejas, until the
       | Anglos (who'd been invited) rebelled when Mexico tried to prevent
       | illegal migration from the US, and banned slavery.
       | 
       | Maybe Texas is a fair trade for snapper?
        
         | andrew_ wrote:
         | Try to ignore the political aspects of this for a moment. The
         | entire biome of the Gulf is at stake here when a single species
         | is threatened. The Gulf might seem like it's a huge body of
         | water on paper (and I mean, it is) but it's a rather small salt
         | water ecosystem by comparison. The smaller the ecosystem, the
         | bigger the impact of a disruption. NOAA, for all of their
         | faults and some questionable season closures, have helped
         | successfully bring back several species from near extinction
         | and in doing so helped keep the entire Gulf fishery alive. It's
         | bigger than petty politics.
         | 
         | I've been fishing for snapper for the last 8 years in the Gulf
         | off of the Florida coast, where most of the prized species are
         | heavily regulated (and heavily fined for breaking regs). The
         | Gulf has seen several rounds of disruption and keeps bouncing
         | back. Keeping the Gulf healthy is not only the right thing to
         | do from an environmental view, but also for what it provides to
         | the people who live in states and countries surrounding it.
        
           | splitstud wrote:
           | I've fished the gulf for 50 years. The gulf is better stocked
           | with fish now than in my youth. The thanks for this goes to
           | the GCCA and state regs.
        
           | cheese_van wrote:
           | I fished snapper all my life in the Gulf as well thinking it
           | was unique to the Gulf. I was delighted to find red snapper
           | in Indonesia during a visit there. The genus Lutjanus is a
           | fairly well distributed in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific
           | Ocean and they are all tasty.
           | 
           | The beachside Indonesian practice is to cook them in smoke
           | houses with coconut husks as fuel.
           | 
           | Anyway, snapper is everywhere, and everywhere over-fished.
        
       | stevespang wrote:
       | At the moment captains are reporting the snapper population
       | offshore in Texas have never been better, in fact, this month the
       | Federal season was reopened a bit for snapper. Texas Gov. Greg
       | Abbott has started using Texas National Guard and DPS troops to
       | arrest and imprison illegals crossing the Texas land border - -
       | -over 7,000 so far. Why not start arresting any illegal fishermen
       | caught in Texas waters and auctioning off their boats far inland
       | to US citizens to help pay for it ? Texas State waters go out 9
       | miles from the coast, and I have no problem with dragging any
       | found out farther into Texas waters to arrest them. Time to put
       | the cartels on notice . . .
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-14 23:02 UTC)