Read on Twitter
5 thoughts: People r connecting calls to end USPS with Repub opposition to (some people) voting by mail. I am sure there’s truth in that. But as many have noted, they have been trying to kill USPS for years through death by a thousand (tax) cuts. So...
It seems more likely that this is disaster capitalism seeking its clean slate. This is no different from invading Iraq after 9/11. A plan that has been lying around for years and has nothing to do with the current crisis suddenly is touted as a remedy.
Next we will be hearing that the USPS has weapons of mass destruction. For neoliberalism that may be true: it is poison to privatizers’ wet dreams - it is a public thing that works well, is well-liked and mostly uncontroversial.
Its last big controversies were its hiring of people who were not white and its couriers traveling to deliver the mail on the christian Sabbath.
I won’t suggest it is perfect but these two traits suggest a whiff of the egalitarianism and secularism (or varieties of religius experience, at least) that democratic public things promise, instantiate, and solicit from us as democratic citizens - at their best.
Should have been the 6th tweet in this USPS thread:
From @LarryGlickman - “Here's a good short video by the @PostalMuseum on the importance of rural free delivery and the battle for parcel post delivery, fought against corporate competitors.”
http://nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/l …
http://nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/l …
Fixed link to video about USPS rural free delivery: https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/localfoods/exhibits/show/farm-to-table/rural-free-delivery
