PLEASE, PLEASE MR. POSTMAN…
The Marvelettes sang “Is there a letter, a letter for me?” and in the forties there was the film noir, The Postman Always Rings Twice. In 1997 there was a goofy-but-inspirational Kevin Costner movie called “The Postman”:
The year is 2013 and the future isn’t what it used to be. There are no highways, no I-ways, no dreams of a better tomorrow-only scattered bands of terrorized survivors in what was once called the United States. Into this apocalyptic wasteland comes an enigmatic drifter with a mule….
Our hero travels the post-nuclear barrens delivering mail to scattered communities of leftover humans. Eventually he leads a revolt and becomes a legend in the ‘Restored United States.’ Here’s a clip with Tom Petty, because Tom Petty:
The US Post Office has always been with us, since the founding. The humble act of delivering the mail is about human beings banding together, serving the common good, and providing for the needs of the many — in short, good government. The US Postal Service is the quiet, workaday essence of good government. So of course the Trump administration wants to destroy it — even though the USPS is mentioned in the Constitution (revered by conservatives, haha, not really.)
Republicans have attacked the USPS for decades. When postal workers demanded the right to collective bargaining, the Nixon administration marshaled the forces of repression and union-busting:
President Richard Nixon vowed to crush the postal workers. “We have the means to deliver the mail,” he claimed. It was a hollow claim. He dispatched 23,000 United States Armed Forces personnel to New York City to process the mail, but without proper training, there was no way they could do the job.
AFL-CIO The Great Postal Strike of 1970
They pulled out all the stops, but the workers eventually won and the APWU, the American Postal Workers Union, became one of the most successful labor organizations in history. Which put them in the crosshairs of the Powers That Be. In 2006, by a voice vote of a lame-duck Republican congress, The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was passed, requiring a “75-year healthcare ‘pre-funding’ mandate that applies to no other public or private institution in the United States” plunging the Post Office into a permanent funding crisis.
Since then, being a postman has become a drag in ways Kevin Costner and the Marvelettes never dreamed of. For instance, those vans the mail carriers drive around in? They’re so old and broken that hundreds of them have spontaneously combusted — check it out:
And now Trump and his minions are determined to crush the Post Office once and for all. Nixon only wanted to crush the union; he actually intended to provide mail service. Trump, on the other hand, wants to dismantle its core functions entirely. He has installed his corrupt crony, Louis de Joy, to oversee the USPS to bring it down. Read “Friday Night Massacre’ at US Postal Service as Postmaster General—a major Trump donor—ousts top officials” to understand his role.
The short version is, Louis de Joy wants to destroy the USPS for reasons of self-enrichment and financial aggrandizement because he has stock in private companies that will benefit, and because he is a despicable jerk. Trump wants to destroy the Post Office to rig the November election and prevent mail-in balloting. Here he is on the phone with Fox News, saying it right out loud…
But how is this move playing in the right-wing media? Are the Usual
Suspects at Fox and on talk radio championing the destruction of the
USPS? It seems not. Sean Hannity is mostly busy attacking “nasty woman”
Democratic VP candidate Kamala Harris:
Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh is spouting his usual grade-school-bully mockery of Trump’s opponents: Kamala Harris (dirty joke, hurhurhur) and nerdy old Dr. Fauci, and then falling into bouts of self-pity, Bless his heart
- Trump Trolls Media: “It’s a Peaceful Protest” — Aug 10, 2020: This is hilarious. This is along the lines of, “Hey, Russia, if you’re listening, maybe you could find Hillary’s missing emails.
- “Trump Calls Their Bluff, Now Dems Want to Talk — Aug 10, 2020: “Now that he has mandated these benefits, how can the Democrats take ’em away?” Don’t put it past them. They are all about creating chaos.
- Your Beloved Host Impugned and Ripped to Shreds — Aug 10, 2020: Our old buddy, Little Brian Stelter, decided to come after me. This is unbelievable.
- Good News: Dr. Scott Atlas Added to Coronavirus Task Force — Aug 10, 2020: Scott Atlas now has Trump’s ear, and he has a totally different take on all of this than Fauci had.
- Willie Brown Tells Kamala Harris to Turn Down Biden — Aug 10, 2020: “Harris is a tested and proven campaigner who will work her backside…” And, by the way, if anybody knows her backside, it’s Willie Brown.
It looks like trashing the Post Office may not be a popular move among the populists. Even deplorables (maybe especially the deplorables?) want to get their social security checks. Even the plutocrats want to privatize-for-profit, not stop delivery. Even QAnon aren’t passing around kill-the-mail-carriers memes in their crazy, online cesspool.
Only Trump, terrified of a possible landslide of mail-in ballots, wants to destroy the entire institution just for how it might affect him this November. And as MassMiss previously predicted, he’s right to be scared.
Now go sign this petition for the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service to remove Louis de Joy RIGHT NOW!
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