"As the survivor of what's being called a pirate assault on Falcon Lake, Texas, recounts the harrowing ordeal that likely took her husband's life, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is leading calls for a tough US response to spillover violence from Mexico's bloody drug wars onto American soil. The Falcon Lake attack, where three boats likely connected to the Zeta drug-running gang reportedly shot at 30-year-old David Hartley and his wife, Tiffany Hartley, while they rode personal watercraft, now threatens to become an international incident. The pirates, brandishing AK-47s, so far have confronted and robbed five US bass-fishing boats that have wandered into Mexican waters, which the Americans are allowed to do on the jointly administered lake. In some of those instances, the Zeta pirates have identified themselves as "federales," but their well-known and visible Z tattoos indicate that they're brigands, not Mexican officials. On Tuesday the mother of Mr. Hartley begged US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to intervene in efforts to try to locate his still-missing body. The pleas from the border came as authorities in Texas reported other evidence of Mexican drug violence in the US, including a bullet-riddled truck found on the US side of the border last week with the bodies of two Mexican nationals inside – an act of violence that Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia described as a cartel-ordered 'hit.' 'The larger significance of [the pirate attack] is whether it's an indicator of what we greatly fear, which is that violence would spill over [the US border] in a direct way,' says Robert Chesney, a national security law expert at the University of Texas, in Austin."Source: Christian Science Monitor
"During the contraction phase of the cycle, the 'have nots' will seek what they feel entitled to from the 'haves'. This will likely occur on all scales. As the mass social mood continues to shift down, what protective measures will be taken by governments and individuals to protect themselves?"
