Trump's attack on the
Postal Service is personal
By
The U.S. postal system has 30,000 outlets serving every part of
America. It employs 630,000 people in good middle-class jobs. And it proudly
delivers letters and packages clear across the country for a pittance.
It’s a jewel of public service excellence. Therefore, it must be
destroyed.
Such is the fevered logic of laissez-faire-headed corporate
supremists like the billionaire Koch brothers and the right-wing politicians
who serve them.
This malevolent gang of wrecking-ball privatizers includes such
prominent Trumpsters as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (a former Wall Street
huckster from Goldman Sachs), and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney (a former
corporate-hugging congress critter from South Carolina).
Both were involved in setting up Trump’s shiny new task force to
remake our U.S. Postal Service. It’s like asking two foxes to remodel the hen
house.
Trump himself merely wanted to take a slap at his political
enemy, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, by jacking up the prices the postal agency
charges to deliver Amazon’s packages. The cabal of far-right corporatizers,
however, saw Trump’s temper tantrum as a golden opportunity to go after the
Postal Service itself.
Trump complained about the Postal Service not charging Amazon
enough for mailing packages. But instead of simply addressing the matter, the
task force was trumped-up with an open-ended mandate to evaluate, dissect, and
“restructure” the people’s mail service — including carving it up and selling
off the parts.
Who’d buy the pieces? For-profit shippers like FedEx, of course.
But here’s some serious irony for you: The one outfit with the cash and clout
to buy our nation’s whole postal infrastructure and turn it into a monstrous
corporate monopoly is none other than… Amazon itself.
I’d prefer my neighborhood post office, thanks. To help stop
this sellout, become part of the Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal
Service: www.AGrandAlliance.org.
Jim
Hightower, an OtherWords columnist, is a radio commentator, writer, and public
speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.