Looks like another step in the purposeful dismantling of USPS

[suffragette]

[ashling]

1. This is only shown about

46 gazillion brazillion (obligatory reference) times between Halloween and New Year.

A tribute to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of postal workers and the United States Post Office (before Republicans)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqOkYDqNw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFpX0arnPqc&feature=related (start at 1: 15)


on edit:

This should be mandatory viewing by the GOP, having tried their damnedest (and I use that word advisedly - and descriptively) to dismantle the Post Office. It was made a government corporation under Nixon - if I recall correctly - because of the mantra (intended by those idiots to be said with a sneer, a la their chief exemplar Snidely Whiplash): "if you like the Post office, you'll love government run healthcare"

The fact is, there would be a lot to love in both systems - if the GOP (Gross Obfuscatory Plutocrats) would keep their slimy hands off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ooglymoogly]

2. Why do you think it is, that if you ask the man on the street...

about this mega hijack, as I have, you get a glazed stare.

[No Elephants]

3. How far does the comfortable, familiar "blue team, red team" paradigm stretch?

Please see Reply 68 and the article cited in that post.

[suffragette]

4. I doubt that would move them. Issa and his ilk want to break the union

and privatize this important service - a twofer in their minds.

They've been doing everything they can to push USPS to the edge of a precipice and then over it.

Democracy Now has a great piece on this. Here are a few excerpts:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/27/shock_doctrine_at_us_postal_service


CHUCK ZLATKIN: —on that act. Well, my union and the people we represented, we opposed it from the beginning, because we saw what was going to happen in our future, because it wasn’t just creating this arbitrary payment that had to be made. It limited the amount of debt that the Postal Service could use, and it also pegged any price increase to the Consumer Price Index. You put those things together, it was dooming the Postal Service. This is a manufactured crisis that was brought about by the same Congress that you’re saying that we shouldn’t go to to correct it. They caused the problem. We have to go to the cause of the problem and then come together and deal with this on behalf of the people who depend upon the Postal Service. As far as the union is concerned, if there’s service to the public, we’ll have jobs. We don’t have to manufacture jobs. The people who want to destroy the Postal Service had to manufacture a crisis.

~~~
CHUCK ZLATKIN: to accomplish this, you have to go to Congress to pass laws that will negate a contract that the Postmaster General, Patrick R. Donahoe, negotiated with the union in April. In July, he was going to Congress and saying we have to pass laws to break this contract. What happened between April and July? Absolutely nothing. If Donahoe did this contract, which was attacked by Issa, was so bad, why is Donahoe in his job now? He should have been fired. And/or at least if he was a decent guy, he should look at the situation and resign.

And we should also look into the sweetheart retirement package, filled with bonuses and pensions, that his predecessor, John E. Potter, got. If Potter left the Post Office in such a dire straits, why did he get these millions of dollars that was voted to him by the Postal Board of Governors? We need Donahoe out of his job and an investigation into what took place with the financial payoffs to his predecessor, and then we’ll be dealing with some of the real problems that the Postal Service is facing.

~~~

CHUCK ZLATKIN: Well, the unions are an important factor, because part of the reason that it looks so good to privatize is, as they see this business and they’re saying, "Look at this, we’re paying close to 600,000 workers a living wage, benefits and retirement package. Well, if we could break the union and eliminate that, we could bring in people, at-will workers for an hourly wage with no benefits, and that money could go to, not the American people or costs in government, that would go to profits. This is another situation where working-class people and poor people are being asked to suffer and sacrifice to benefit the rich.