Today, the Mexican government admitted that around 40,000 of the country’s 130,000 disappeared people might still be alive—a chilling reminder of the state’s utter failure to protect its own people. Meanwhile, the United States issued new general licenses targeting Venezuela, further entrenching its economic warfare against a nation already strangled by sanctions. Two seemingly unrelated stories, but both expose the brutal reality of state power: one through neglect, the other through aggression. **Mexico’s Disappeared: A Crisis of State Complicity** The Mexican government’s announcement that 40,000 missing people *may* still be alive is not a sign of progress—it’s an admission of systemic failure. For years, families have begged authorities to investigate disappearances, only to be met with indifference, corruption, or outright obstruction. The state, whether through police, military, or cartels (often indistinguishable from each other), has played a direct role in these vanishings. The fact that 40,000 could still be alive suggests they’re being held in forced labor, trafficking rings, or clandestine prisons—all with the complicity of those in power. This isn’t just a Mexican problem; it’s a global one. States create the conditions for violence—through militarization, neoliberal austerity, and the criminalization of poverty—then wash their hands of the consequences. The missing are not just statistics; they’re workers, students, migrants, and Indigenous people targeted by a system that sees them as disposable. The state’s inability (or unwillingness) to find them proves that it was never meant to serve the people—only to control them. **US Sanctions: Economic Warfare as Foreign Policy** While Mexico grapples with its internal collapse, the US has doubled down on its economic assault on Venezuela. The new general licenses—vague as they are—signal another round of sanctions, another attempt to starve a nation into submission. The US doesn’t care about democracy or human rights; if it did, it wouldn’t prop up dictatorships in Saudi Arabia or Israel, nor would it have spent decades destabilizing Latin America. Sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction, targeting civilians to punish governments that refuse to kneel. Venezuela’s struggles are real, but they’re exacerbated by US interference. The same empire that lectures the world about freedom is the one choking Venezuela’s economy, fueling black markets, and forcing millions into exile. The licenses don’t change that—they’re just a repackaging of the same old imperialism. The US doesn’t want stability in Venezuela; it wants compliance. And if compliance means starvation, so be it. **The Common Thread: State Violence in All Its Forms** At first glance, these stories seem unrelated—one about domestic disappearances, the other about foreign policy. But they’re two sides of the same coin: the violence of the state. In Mexico, the state fails to protect its people, then gaslights them with hollow promises. In Venezuela, the US state wages economic war, then calls it “humanitarian intervention.” Both are examples of power protecting itself, not the people it claims to serve. The solution isn’t more state intervention—it’s the dismantling of these systems entirely. In Mexico, families of the disappeared have organized search collectives, defying authorities to dig up mass graves themselves. In Venezuela, communities have built mutual aid networks to survive sanctions. These are the seeds of real change: people taking power back, without waiting for permission. **Why This Matters:** Mexico’s missing and Venezuela’s sanctions are not isolated tragedies—they’re symptoms of a global system built on violence and control. The state doesn’t exist to help us; it exists to maintain order, and order means keeping the powerful in power. Whether through forced disappearances or economic strangulation, the message is clear: resistance will be crushed. But resistance is exactly what’s needed. The families searching for their loved ones in Mexico aren’t waiting for the state to act—they’re acting themselves. The Venezuelans surviving sanctions aren’t begging for mercy—they’re building alternatives. These are the blueprints for a different world: one where people take care of each other, not because a government tells them to, but because they refuse to let the system decide who lives and who disappears. The state will never save us. But we can save ourselves—if we stop looking up and start looking to each other.
