I am a recent subscriber to The Nation magazine. To put it mildly, I love it. Unfortunately, Corporatists appointed the the USPS Board of Governors don’t. They love AOLTimeWarner. They love privatization. They love Ayn Rand and kicking puppies and stealing candy from children. (OK–I’m fibbing on the last three examples. I hope!). They love giving massive discounts to Time and other”big mailers”. And they love to give the “little people”–independent voices like The Nation, American Prospect, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and even the conservative National Review–the shaft.
From Mother Jones, Postal Service says killing small periodicals a “win-win” by Jonathan Stein (full story here):
Elijah Cummings was angry. The Democratic congressman from Baltimore represents a district that is home to the Afro-American Newspaper, a weekly publication that is in jeopardy of going out of business due to the United States Postal Service’s recent rate hike on small periodicals. Cummings’ testiness showed when a House subcommittee heard testimony on the rate increase from a host of postal officials earlier this week.
“If these small publications go out of business, is that a win-win?” Cummings asked James Miller, chairman of the USPS’s Board of Governors, the entity that approved the rate hikes, during one tense exchange.
“That’s a hypothetical,” Miller protested.
“Nah, nah, nah,” Cummings said. “You got a lot of businesses that put out publications that are saying that this is going to affect them in a negative way…. I’m asking you a simple question. If they go out of business, is it a win-win?”
“I would say if they cannot cover their costs, it is a win-win situation,” said Miller. “Let me tell you why I think that. Because other classes of mail would be covering their costs.” He went on to explain that every American letter writer pays 200 percent of the cost of shipping his or her letter because small magazines and periodicals don’t pay their fair share.
“So your answer is, it’s a win-win for everybody but the people who go out of business,” Cummings retorted.
“Yes, yes,” Miller said, adding, “It’s not that I’m heartless. It’s not that we’re heartless. We have to cover all sides. And I think the fairest thing is for every class of mail to cover the cost directly attributable to carrying their mail.”
The problem is, Miller’s comments muddled the issue, to put it charitably. Since the 1970s, all classes of mail have been required to cover the costs associated with their delivery, what’s called attributable cost. But periodicals, as a class, get favorable treatment: They don’t pay overhead, meaning that they don’t foot the bill for the Postal Service’s infrastructure, employees, and so on.
That’s a tradition that goes back to the origins of the nation. The founding fathers saw the press as the lifeblood of democracy—only informed voters could compose a true democracy, they believed—and thus created a postal system that gave favorable rates to small periodicals. (George Washington actually supported mailing newspapers for free.) For 200 years, small periodicals and journals of opinion were given special treatment.
Here’s some stupid questions for Mr. James Miller: Does the Post Office really “win” when thousands of small press and independents go “belly up” due to the rate hike? Isn’t that still, like, lost revenue? Or will the PO save more money by slashing jobs due to the decrease in mail volume? How will they accomplish this with the Postal Unions’ “no lay-off” protections?Does AOLTimeWarner and the like think subscription numbers for their mags are really going to skyrocket if they kill off all the independent voices?
I know the answer: They don’t care. Maintaining an informed electorate–HA! Morons buy more crap they don’t need more often. And they always vote for who they’re told to vote for. Upholding the will of the Founders of this country and Framers of the Constitution–Double HA! Those moldy relics? Who gives a shit what they wanted; what they realized was essential to maintaining our democratic tradition? Not the Postal Board of Governor’s or the Board of AOLTimeWarner, for certain.
Their goal is privatization. Privatization at any and all cost. Carve up the Post Office and sell the choice pieces to big donors. Flush the rest. Get the mega-corporations the biggest bang for the fewest bucks. Charge the people premium prices for services they once got for free. Universal service for all? F that. It sounds like a socialist-style entitlement program–which is a big no-no in a free market capitalist society. You live outside the hub cities or in the ghetto: sorry, no mail delivery for you unless you pay for it. No handouts, no free rides, no siree.
In Postal rate hikes, as in life, there are winner and losers. You can recognize the winners: They own islands and wear watches that cost more than you or I make in a year. The losers, as always, be us: Small publishers, postal employees, and the postal customers.
Springfield (MA) Union News 