We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

How the Postal Service Is Being Gutted

Click here to access article by James Royal from The Motley Fool.

It's clear that the Postal Service is the latest public entity to fall victim to neoliberal strategies to privatize the world. However, the author from this investment advisory website appears to live in a world constructed by capitalist propagandists when he asserts the following:
If capitalism is about delivering the best goods and services at the cheapest prices -- and not about plutocrats wringing profits from the rest of us -- then why is the USPS being forced to slowly kill itself?

The privatization of public assets is something we've seen over and over and it rarely, if ever, works for the public. The example of Chicago parking meters is just repeated time and again. With a strong profit motive, private companies are highly incentivized to cut service to the bone and raise revenues as fast as possible. That's not in the interest of good public service, where the origins of the post office are.