THE RABBLEROUSER

Nobody from the middle class comes downtown since there are no good stores or restaurants, but the working classes from both sides of the border fill the historical streets as they stream through the many businesses specializing in cheap merchandise. The customers stretch their thin dollars and pesos, buying cheap clothes and toys, the momentary gleam of their purchases worth the quick deterioration. I check my watch: It's 3:30. I'll stop by the newspaper to check on my story. I walk past the 19th century buildings that rival the French Quarter in quality and quantity. I drop into Lucio's Cafe for a cup of coffee in order to energize myself for the tennis game. The breakfast and lunch crowds are large, but at this time of the afternoon the restaurant is vacant except for Heriberto Longoria, the union organizer who struts around town like a barnyard cock. "Tommy! Come here. Got a minute? I need to talk to you." "What's up, big guy?" "Are you going to the city commission meeting tonight?" "I have other plans." "Things haven't been the same since you quit writing your column. Nobody is listening to us at the Herald. The working man is getting shafted. The developers keep dumping their infrastructure costs on the utility customers and our rates continue to zoom through the roof. I'm giving a speech tonight addressing these expenditures, which the millionaires should be paying instead of us." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. "This isn't long. I want you to listen and you can suggest changes that will make my argument more convincing." I pour more cream into my coffee and lean back in my seat. As the former voice of Brownsville, I had the obligation to be the town's ear. I have to listen to rabblerousers because they make better friends than enemies. And Heriberto would be mortally insulted if I insisted I had another engagement. "Mayor, Commissioners, City officials, ladies and gentlemen. We live in a country in which our President brazenly lies to us and sends our boys and girls to their deaths in the Middle East. We in Brownsville say, 'Big deal. When aren't our public officials lying, cheating and stealing?' We are gathered today in these august chambers so our city council can endure the inconvenience of a public meeting in order to cover their backsides legally so that their masters may continue to lie, cheat and steal from us. "The issue today in taxation without representation. The millionaires expect us to cover their infrastructure costs through impact fees in our utility bills. What right do they have to dump their expenses on us so they can assure themselves their huge profits? Other public entities at least ask for permission before they raise our property and sales taxes, but a few elite individuals use the politicians they have bought on the city council to keep their costs minimal and force the average customer to make up the difference. Like President Bush brainwashing us with dire consequences if we didn't go to war, these millionaires, with their puppets voicing the same empty rhetoric, complain that if they have to pay the rates recommended by an independent study, the economy will go into a nosedive. "According to these liars the hard-working man will not be able to afford his American dream if the developers have to pass their costs on to him. Nonsense! For the past 20 years the impact fees have been kept at a ridiculously low rate of $300 while the ratepayer has had to cover the difference that has amounted to rate increases that have totaled 400% over the same two decades. This is an outrage, yet the millionaires keep insisting that we should be responsible for their outlays so they can continue to collect their millions. The word on the street is that one of our developers bought a ranch valued at $7 million. Did he send any of our utility company's customers a thank-you card? Hardly. "The recommendation is to hike the rate from $300 to $3,000, which wouldn't seem so exorbitant if the increases had been implemented gradually, but the millionaires were too concerned with their windfall profits so their puppets kept their costs artificially low all these years. The developers, who consider generosity a curse, will, of course, pass the $2,700 to the homebuyer. We contend that these millionaires have already been passing along the cost and pocketing the subsidized difference for themselves.We are not talking about men who would be mistaken for the children of Mother Teresa. These guys are closet Nazis who would have ejaculated in their pants extracting gold from the mouths of dead Jews. "The blue-collar worker, instead, must pay for their profits while these plutocrats claim that they are passing on their costs so the blue-collar worker can afford a $50,000 home. Let's look at the figures. The developers have their rates raised to $3,000, $2,700 of which is immediately included in the price of a new home. Manuel Labor buys one of the millionaires matchbox houses for $63,000 instead of the original $60,000 since the developers are responsible for their fair share of the infrastructure costs. Every realtor that I've interviewed says that if an applicant qualifies for a $60,000 loan, he won't have any problems qualifying for a $63,000 loan. On a 30-year loan, the extra $3,000 will turn into $9,000 over the period of time. Thirty years time 12 equals 360. We divide 360 into $9,000 and the new homeowner is paying $25 more a month. For those who qualify for large loans, the extra $3,000 is even less a problem. "If the people voted on whether or not they wanted to be saddled with these hidden taxes to insure the profits of these millionaires, the proposition would lose, 10,000 to 100. Maybe worse. Fortunately for the developers, they have invested in quality rather than quantity. They need only four votes from this commission in order to assure their millions. The rich and powerful know that there are millions of young Americans available to sacrifice their lives for the former's economic causes. It's called ignorance, an ignorance which we know well in Brownsville since the rich and powerful can take our money without our permission in the name of prosperity. But whose property? While we are counting the pennies in our piggybank to pay our utilities, the millionaires are stacking the $1,000 bills one on top of the other before they call their servants to wheelbarrow the bucks to the bank. But we the people are pathetic. We say nothing as the national government steals our children and we say nothing as the local government steals our money." Sifuentes places his script on the table and looks at me. He has been giving impassioned speeches and fighting losing causes against overwhelming odds on slanted playing fields for three decades. This will be no different as the developers will pack the audience with their followers and count on the newspaper not giving the rabblerouser too much play because the newspaper has heard his rant on a thousand previous occasions. "Good stuff, but do you expect to make a difference?" "Probably not, but I can't surrender. The developers may think that I'm little more than a gadfly, but I've made a difference on more than one occasion. Of course, I've never had your influence." "Don't make me laugh, amigo. I wrote my column for more than 20 years. I may have stirred up the muddy Rio Grande with my columns, but this town is mired in more corruption than when I first started. But I agree with you: You can never stop fighting. It's all about the personal satisfaction of drawing your line in the sand. I've thought about giving up, but as the song goes, my heart just wouldn't have it." Sifuentes waves his speech in front of me. "You didn't give me your editorial comments." "I wouldn't change anything except removing the reference to the Nazis. Heinz is Jewish and he might take your remarks personally and cut you off in the middle of your presentation. You say things like that and the press will take that one line and depict you as a nut in the next day's pages."