THE NATION KNOWS THE TRUTH

Brownsville is the most impoverished and ignorant city of its size in the nation. Unlike the dying Brownsville Herald, TV station KRGV printed the facts straight: "The Rio Grande Valley is the most corrupt area in the country according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice."

Brownsville is the capital of this corruption.

Reporter John Burnett has aired Brownsville and RGV's dirty laundry to the nation via NPR. He observes: "The Rio Grande Valley is an extremely valuable transshipment zone for the Gulf Cartel across the river in Matamoros, so there's a whole lot of dirty money down there. There is also a good size local retail market for drugs.

"So there's drug money, which can be used to bribe judges, to bribe district attorneys, to bribe sheriffs, to bribe local cops, to bribe border patrol agents. Then you have people going to the courthouse and bribing courthouse officials. You have to pay to play. You have enormous health fraud. And you have vote buying."

This isn't news to Brownsville citizens although the dying daily does it best to hide these truths. The newspaper has no qualms providing a disservice disseminating disinformation.

"If the Herald were our police force, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas would be fighting downtown for control of our Third-World City," opined a former columnist. "The newspaper's priorities are completely backwards, but what should we expect from a publisher and an editor who live in fear of an apple falling on their heads.

"They would rather publicize the news that a chain is opening while three locally owned restaurants are closing. They would rather congratulate the citizenry for walking within the crosswalk instead of lambasting the jaywalkers.

"The Herald not only tolerates corruption, it promotes corruption. Our political and community leaders can rob the public coffers to put taxpayers' money into the pockets of their compadres and cronies and the Herald lauds them for their unselfish contributions to the community."

With the imprisonment of many officials as well as the indictments against several politiqueras, even the stupid people of Brownsville recognize that their political and economic system is controlled by crooks. But kept ignorant by the Herald, they are too apathetic to face the problems, let alone solve them.