Friends, acquaintances, and fellow human beings, it is with great distress, I present you with this news article.
[link]Yesterday, the US postal service announced huge losses in business, concluding it may only stay afloat if it makes major cuts in its framework. This includes eliminating Saturday delivery and 30,000 jobs.
While many of you may not care whether you get mail on Saturday or not, and even less of you are postal workers, I ask you to think about this situation for a second. Isn't this a big red warning flag? Yes, we are in a depression, but something is up when the federal government wants to hack off the leg of a staple that's been around for over 225 years.
First of all, cutting 30,000 jobs from the postal system is only exacerbating our spluttering employment rate. Our government is supposed to be creating jobs right now, not cutting them. And secondly, aren't there companies that are in a lot more financial trouble than the postal service that got bailed out? Because they were "too big to fail." Tell me, should a service that is stationed in almost every town across the country be allowed to cannibalize itself while severely corrupt companies such as AIG and Fanny and Freddy, are picked up and brushed off when they get a little scraped?
Because my friends, it will not stop with the Saturday mail. This is what we call the first step on a slippery slope. There has been talk that the postal service should be completely eliminated, as we wean ourselves from the tangible tactile to the technological world. With our smart phone instant messaging, internet, and emails, we have excess connection to the world around us. Snail mail just isn't efficient or necessary when we can contact someone at the touch of a button. This is part of the reason our postal service could survive the last depression, but struggles with this one now. Congress doesn't believe the postal service is worth it.
What are we doing?! I surely can't be the only one that feels wary about a complete technological transition. There is something about tactile mail that we connect to far more than its virtual counterpart. It is almost as if we send a piece of our souls inside everything we write, be it a letter to a long distance lover, or flame mail, or even your college acceptance letter. Snail mail is slow, yes, but it is a process. And process is what gives value to a product. We seem to have lost that with all of this new found instant gratification. But it is still rooted deep within us. How many of you treasure a letter from a parent or grandparent? How do you college students feel when you receive a care package from home? What about those of you with long distance lovers? Do you wait eagerly for a heartfelt response? And then there are us mail artists that without the postal service, would not exist.
Yes, I may come from a biased background, but this tangible side of communication is an integral part of all of us, and will effect
everyone's relationship when it goes extinct. We need to hold on to some shred of what we can see and touch. It is one of the only real parts of us left.
So what can we do?
If you value a tangible connection as I do, I encourage you to pass this message along to your friends, family, coworkers, or even people on the street. Use the postal service for its purpose! Instead of instant messaging all of the time, write your loved ones every once in a while. It doesn't take long. I'm sure they would be a hundred times more excited to receive a letter in their mailbox than a text in their inbox. Your support of the mail doesn't have to be more than 50˘ for a postage stamp, as long as you use it! And don't get this confused with the mail art I so often talk about. There doesn't have to be a shred of illustration in it. Write your congressmen! Tell them how much the postal service means to you. Provide alternatives! I have been doing all I can on this end, but my reach only goes so far. It will take many to keep up this postal CPR.
We cannot take our mailboxes for granted anymore.
3.6.10 
Mortified
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