This over the transom during the wee hours, from John McCreary’s NightWatch:
A brief living systems analysis of the caravan that trekked from Honduras to Tijuana provides insights about the phenomenon of the caravan.
The caravan emerged as a living system when it left San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras. There is a history of anti-government unrest and demonstrations in that city.
In January, anti-government demonstrations in San Pedro Sula were disrupted by the earthquake that month in Honduras. The slow pace of reconstruction appears to be the government’s response to entrenched opposition activity and would explain a lack of jobs and prospects.
There is a political undercurrent to the caravan that has not been reported. Honduras seems to have exported political agitators. If so, the Tegucigalpa government would have been pleased to facilitate their departure.
The fact that the caravan held together through the journey means that all 20 subsystems of a living system received their share of the information, matter and energy required to sustain the life of the system, the caravan.
Inputs of information, matter and energy sustain life in all living systems, from amoebas to the United Nations.
The information requirement for a mobile living system is substantial. People need to be counted, identified and monitored. Special needs must be met.
The caravan moved purposefully which means that some people were providing guidance and direction and possessed problem-solving authority and resources. No reporters pursued their identities or their motives, but those are key traits of the information processing subsystem of a living system.
It is vital for the leadership to provide information in a living system about the sources of food and water; public health and hygiene; places to camp and find entertainment; the sources of tents, toilet tissue and soap; how and where to obtain essential items and how to allocate them.
Somebody charted the route for the caravan to take and ensured it followed it.
In terms of matter, a few reporters posted images of the lines of tractor trailer trucks that supported the movement. These apparently contained the supplies, including tents and daily necessities, needed to provide about 2,000 calories per day for each of up to 7,000 people, mostly men.
A key subsystem of a living system is waste extrusion. 7,000 people leave about 3.5 tons of waste every day.
Relative to matter, good walking shoes would be vital for making a long hike, not sneakers or flip-flops, which were common on videos.
The most important unanswered question about matter is by whom and how was this caravan financed. Some videos showed unidentified individuals passing out cash to caravan members at road stops, but the source of the funds was never reported by open source reporters.
Concerning energy, the line of tractor trailers means that access to motor fuels was as essential as food and water. It also suggests that the caravan members did not rely primarily on shanks’ mare in making the trek.
In a living systems analysis, the caravan was a complex living system. Nothing about it looks spontaneous or unorganized. It was well financed and effective as a living system. Its ultimate purpose will not be known until the leaders and backers are identified and questioned.
6 Comments
I think you raise an important problem that doesn’t receive the attention it deserves. Accepting refugees can have a deleterious side effect, of letting original homeland governments off the hook. It can also be a subtle abdication of hondurans’ – or any other peoples’s – responsibility to hold their leaders and fellow citizens accountable (although admittedly corruption and authoritarianism are very difficult to root out).
A most apt adage is: “Amateurs think tactics; professionals think logistics”.
Well, right, Jason. It “boils off” anyone who actually might make the source countries a better place.
Right also, bomag. Tactics win battles; logistics win wars.
Logistics=Professionals.
Informed speculation: Per Trump there are at least 500 criminals in the caravan.
The criminals are the organization, whether merely hired contractors or no – and no is quite possible. Criminal cartels in Central America including Mexico passed naturally from commerce into politics – naturally as the state became the chief threat to their commerce. Politics and the struggle for power became necessary to the survival of their business when the state cracked down on their operations and mere bribery no longer sufficed. This happened from necessity not ideology.
The cartels of course are also in the lucrative human trafficking business as well as drug trafficking and various other enterprises. Closing off the border is contrary to their interests. So they ‘resist’ and organize the refugee theater.
Interest drives all including the struggle for power. As the criminal cartels no longer have the state and the Democratic Party as partner there is conflict. Open borders is also a core leftist interest so we see at least converged interests and sympathetic media coverage. No conspiracy is necessary when core interests converge, simple recognition of interests will do.
The future: if unchecked large numbers of Central Americans are allowed North legally or otherwise then Central American politics and power relationships will follow as naturally as cuisine. The pattern of Criminal Organizations becoming insurgencies organically from their own needs will continue. So far the Cartels policies North of the border aren’t violent outside their own ethnic groups – within them they are extremely violent in the USA already. When the density of their communities in the USA gets to the point where their business interests are in direct conflict with the state they will challenge the state from the motive of self interest: translation – what you see in Mexico and Central America with criminal insurgencies will happen here if current trends aren’t dramatically reversed.
It’s simply a matter of interest. Ideology is sh*t next to real interests, real motives.
Real motives drive any movement beyond talk and into action -not education, propaganda or emotions. That there is an alliance between Leftists in America and criminal organizations from the south is driven by interest – and interests are what armies march on as much as food. Ideology is a bar fight – Interests make war.
There will be various organizational names, but when you follow the money, it always works out that their own governments send them. That has been shown time and again. Vicente Fox found a way to capitalize on Mexico’s unwillingness to provide for its people, and now these other countries all want their share of the Remittance Pie.
In recent years, the US has begun to balk at having $50 Billion dollars shipped out of our economy in cash – usually by people who are not paying any tax on that money to start with, instead of putting that money back to work building America through spending or investing here where they are earning it.
Honduras rakes in about 20% of their total GDP in Remittances sent from the USA by illegal aliens.
Once the World Bank came up with its scheme to count Remittances as part of a nation’s GNP for purposes of qualifying them for loans, they also worked with the UN and think tanks to come up with ways to both push people out of their home country and to help those sending countries put a chain on their expats to keep them shipping that money back “home” instead of assimilating as true citizens of what should have been their new home nation. Only the descriptive language is new though. In practice, it is nothing but the ugly old Patron/Peonage system writ large.