Delivering the mail isn’t a side-business the Government has become stuck with. It is part of the business of governing. Privatizing the mail is like privatizing democracy because it makes the flow of information that democracy can’t exist without something to be bought and sold and therefore something that can be owned and controlled by those few who can pay the most for it. Ordering the Postal Service to make money, even if only enough to break even, is part of the ongoing conservative effort to commodify all that ought to belong to all of us and by doing so make it theirs. Theirs to sell, theirs to hoard. Theirs to use as a way to control us.
While I'm not as romantic about the postal mail as Lance is, I generally agree with his position that the Postal Service should be operated whether it generates money or not. I grow weary of the entire notion that a thing is only worthwhile to the extent it makes money.
I'm reminded a bit of the pressures that public libraries face. If I had a nickel for every time some conservative has told me that libraries are kinda-sorta superfluous in the days of Amazon.com, I could probably treat my family to a nice pizza dinner. Same thing.
1 comment:
I am with you. As much as I like that extra hour in the fall I hate the loss of the hour in the spring more than anything. Takes me weeks to get my clock realigned again.
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