Occupy Post Offices

[marmar]

Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 by Common Dreams
Occupy Post Offices

by David Morris


The destruction of the Post Office has moved into a higher gear. Last year 3600 communities were put on notice that they will likely lose their local post office. “We will start to see post offices closing at the rate of a hundred a week,” predicts Steve Hutkins whose Save the Post Office is by far the single best source of information on all things post office. “They've been closing at a rate of one hundred a year for the past 40 years.”

The Postmaster General promises to close half the country's 32,000 post offices over the next four years. He will be closing more than half the nation’s 487 mail processing centers even more rapidly.

The high handedness with which the post office is undermining our communities infuriates growing numbers. Speaking for many, one lady in Lodi, Texas writes, “It appears that the USPS has set these closing procedures on autopilot and there is really nothing anyone can do to stop them…They don’t actually ‘study’ a post office for closure; they target it for closure and then proceed to process it. There is NO careful consideration made.”

A nationwide grassroots resistance is emerging that cuts across party lines, uniting rich and poor, rural and urban, black, white and Hispanic. Rallies protesting closures have occurred in half a dozen states. They are fighting to save a government institution that fundamentally contributes to their sense of community, of social cohesion, of well-being. “The postal service tries to say there is no historical significance to (our) post office”, writes William Duncan, a resident of Grapevine, Arkansas. “We beg to differ. 131 years in a community is historical no matter where you are located. It is the only office remaining in our community, due to school consolidations. But, without the post office, Grapevine no longer exists. It becomes a place, not a community. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/24

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[PETRUS]

2. Other costs.

The post office in my mother's rural community is among those slated for closure. It shares a lot with a general store and that location does serve as a gathering place. There also appears to be a symbiotic relationship between the PO and the store - I can't help but wonder what will happen to the business if the PO shuts down.

[serqet]

3. ahhhh,,,,the unintended consequences

of voting Republican!

[bemildred]

4. We all get crappy postal service because FEDEX and UPS don't like the competition. nt