What Can You Possibly Buy for 47 Cents These Days?
By
Jim Hightower for Creators.com
 |
| Delivering the mail in 1917 |
Buy one 47-cent stamp, and postal
workers will deliver your envelope to any address in the country by plane,
train, bus, boat, truck, car, bike, pushcart, mule, on-foot or all of the
above.
Stick
it on a letter, document or other missive, and our phenomenal network of postal
workers and letter carriers will deliver it within a few days right to the
specific mailbox of your addressee in any of the approximately 43,000 zip codes
covering every nook and cranny of this vast country.
For
47 cents! Also, that "Forever" stamp from our public postal service
means it's good for first-class delivery next year, next decade or forever —
protecting you from future increases in stamp prices.
What a deal!
That's the only floating zip code in the
U.S. It's a 45-foot mail boat that has been a registered U.S. Post Office since
1948. Named the J.W. Westcott II, this postal boat is the mail box for crew
members working aboard the giant freighters hauling grain, iron ore and other
commodities across the five great lakes. Except for loading at one port, then
unloading hundreds of miles away, these long-haul merchant ships never stop,
with crews stuck on board for weeks.
So the Westcott, based near Detroit,
chugs out to deliver letters and packages as each of the freighters passes by.
The skilled pilots of the mail boat maneuver it right up against a steep steel
side of the moving freight vessels, keeping perfect pace with the big ships'
speed.
The official motto of the 48222 zip code
is "mail by the pail." It's all part of our public Post Office's
amazing commitment to deliver service to all — not just to the rich and the
easy-to-reach.
But look out, for a deal-breaker looms
over your post office. A cabal of corporate predators and Koch-headed
ideologues have been scheming for years to take "public" out of this
public agency and strip "service" out of the U.S. Postal Service.
The
most effective ploy of these price-gouging privatizers has been a diabolical
Big Lie — a massive PR hoax to depict this essential public service as a
hopeless money loser, sucking billions from taxpayers every year.
Unfortunately, our lazy media
establishment keeps spreading their lie. Here's an August New York Times
article falsely asserting that "the Postal Service has sunk deeper
underwater — net losses for the second quarter of 2016 were $2 billion."
Bovine excrement!
In
fact, our Post Offices earned $1.3 billion in profit so far this year, making this
year the fourth straight that it has operated in the black.
The
discrepancy stems from phony paper losses manufactured by corporate lobbyists
and right-wing lawmakers who've insisted since 2006 that the Postal Service
must prefund retiree health benefits for 75 years in the future.
No
other agency and no corporation operates under this absurd and totally
unnecessary burden, which adds billions of dollars in fictional costs to the
agency's balance sheet.
Here's another reality the sloppy
corporate media ignores: Our
postal network costs taxpayers zero, for we consumers finance its
operations by purchasing those stamps and other services. It's time to put a
Forever stamp on this public jewel.
Jim Hightower is
a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The
Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Hightower
has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers
That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small
businesses, and just-plain-folks.
