I heard on NPR that the U.S. Postal Service is in trouble. That it’s in danger of going bankrupt. That a bunch of people who think they know everything think it shouldn’t be a government agency anymore. That it should be privatized to force it to become economically viable. That it needs competitors. That capitalism as always is the answer.
I don’t have a stake in this, I don’t. I know we need a way to send and receive mail, but, pragmatically speaking, I don’t think it’ll make any difference to us as consumers if it’s private or public. Philosophically, I don’t see enough of a difference between our government and a private corporation to stand on a soapbox about it.
But.
In my gut, it feels like corporatizing the postal service is a bad idea. I admit, I’m biased. I teach public school, and the people who advocate privatizing the P.O. sound an awful lot like the people who favor charter schools. And I really don’t trust those guys.
Which got me thinking. When was the last time I got a piece of mail? I mean real mail. Not bills, not ads, not unreadable medical claims forms. Christmas cards don’t count. I’m sorry, they just don’t.
The poor old P.O.! How we’ve neglected you! With our status updates and our internet banking and our visions of a paperless society! No wonder it’s going bankrupt! Nobody can be bothered to take down an address anymore unless it’s to program into a GPS. I took such extreme pity on the one government agency in more dismal shape than public education that I decided to do something about it.
I went down to the P.O. I waited in line for a really long time. I bought what felt like a lot of postage – 100 postcard stamps. I thought, it’s a new year. It’s a great time to start de-cluttering. Why not diminish that pile of postcards I've been accumulating for the last 20 years?
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