A picture says a thousand words. Back when priorities were different and service was a marketable notion; something not hoped for but expected. A national mail service wasn’t established to serve urban centers, Capital one, Amazon or EBay. It was established to provide a public service that gave EVERYONE in America access to a timely and dependable means of commerce, communication and connection. The First Class letter remains the single most secure means of non-face to face communication between private citizens. Is it by accident that Congress has been the arm to force the USPS into a shrewdly crafted disaster? In an age of identity theft, seemingly endless breaches of security from foreign/domestic threats and electronic monitoring; this service is even more important today.
Rather than market this great service for what it is, we have 3 consecutive Postmaster Generals telling us that the less secure means of communication are the better option. Rural America does not opt out of online bill paying because it is backwards or doesn’t have other options; it opts out because it still knows the value and importance of a secure, trusted postal service. It opts for the safer means of paying its bills, communicating on holidays, birthdays and anniversaries with distant contacts.
A history of bi-partisan Congresses understood this, making this service mandatory by Constitutional decree. Now a bi-partisan Congress is the very body which seeks to end it, in the name of profit for few over
service for all.
The mailbox, local post office, letter carrier, transportation force, mail clerks and maintenance employees are seemingly the last link to future generations and a past that held better days and memories for those who remember the way service was a marketable ideal, rather than an outdated pipe dream.
Some say that America’s best days are behind us. For future generations, we can only hope not. Service to the people, by the people and for the people; I think that it still sells.