Blog Post: Defending the Postal Service

It seems strange to have to write in defense of the U. S. Postal Service, but it's a measure of the depravity of the man in the White House, and how far he's willing to go in his flailing attempt to win another term in office.  Removing sorting machines, removing mailboxes, doing whatever he can to gum up the works of  a service that everyone loves and has never been more essential in this our age of the COVID-19 pandemic and the upcoming Presidential election.   An election which could well determine the fate and future of democracy in this country.  An election which the person now in office will do anything to win,

It didn't start with COVID-19 and this build-up to the election.  Trump's hatred of Jeff Bezos, who created Amazon, became a billionaire, and bought The Washington Post, one of Trump's most effective critics, led him as early as 2018 to attack the Post Office,  Its crime?  It gave Amazon a good, special rate, a smart move both for Amazon and the Postal Service.

Trump's pretext back then in 2018 was that giving Amazon such a good special rate was bad business for the Postal Service.  But like Amtrak which is also often starving for funds, the Postal Service isn't and was never intended to be a profit-making business.  It is a governmental service provided to the people.  And in the case of the Postal Service, it is a service provided for in our Constitution.

But Trump now has a better reason to starve the Postal Service.  He wants to eliminate mail-in ballots, especially necessary in these COVID times, because he thinks (and polls say) that they will be used by Democratic more than Republican voters. (If we want to entertain a maybe only slightly paranoid explanation, perhaps Trump wants to handcuff the Postal Service because the Russians have told him they haven't come up with a way to hack votes cast through the mail). But whatever his reasoning, crippling the Postal Service is one of the things Trump is doing to win an election which current polls show him badly losing. Attacking the media, lying so often that keeping count is a bad joke, are no longer enough.  The fascistic impulse dictates an escalation of tactics.  Dampen, crush the democratic expression by physical means.  Send Federal troops or whatever exactly are into the streets.  Get in the way of people exercising their right to vote.

There are things we the people can do to oppose this.  Shine a light on it.  Pressure our state governments to provide alternate, safe means of casting ballots, like collection boxes.  But also support our Postal Service in whatever ways we can.   They are not only the carriers of our mail, of birthday cards and holiday greetings that we cherish, but now more than ever are carriers of our democracy.

And some people, who like Jeff Bezos are billionaires, can do even more.  If Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg, and Warren Buffet each donated a couple of billion dollars to the Postal Service, that could well enable it to stay whole and functioning through the election.   Fascism triumphs by undermining democratic institutions, eroding the foundations of freedom.   First the press, now the Postal Service, anything that conveys our freedom.   We have a chance to stop this, reverse this, in less than three months.  We have to do all in our power to keep that beleaguered arena for freedom open.

Santorum's Deficient Education

Probably Rick Santorum's blanket denunciation of colleges and universities as "indoctrination mills" is the least offensive of his 18th-century regressive, repressive views publicized in the past few weeks.  But that's because his views about contraception, for example - which he opposes, even though he always says he wants to reduce teenage pregnancies - are so far gone and off the wall.

But since I know a  little something about college education, I thought I'd mention how at variance with reality Rick Santorum also is about that.

First, I should say I'm no blind advocate of higher education.  I've always found some merit in Cole Porter's "a college education I would never propose, a bachelor's degree won't even keep you in clothes".   A university degree isn't necessary for everyone.  Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs all did just fine without one.

But the claim that a college education is a course in indoctrination is just nonsense.  Where I teach at Fordham University, no one ever told me or even encouraged me to present a specific political or cultural point of view.    That's what academic freedom is all about.

More important, I've never told a student what to think.  The goal, as every college professor knows, is to teach students how to think.  Or, in the Writing Workshop course I'm currently teaching, how to write, clearly and effectively, whatever your point of view.

Perhaps there are professors somewhere who teach differently.  But I've never met one.  And for those many that I have known, their emphasis has always been on teaching students how to think clearly.

Wherever Rick Santorum got his education, he obviously failed to learn that lesson.

Bill Gates Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria

I just saw Bill Gates interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on his new CNN Sunday show.

I've always been a supporter of Gates and how he changed America and the world with his vision. Indeed, I opposed the U.S. government's anti-monopoly campaign against Microsoft to the point of publishing "Leave Microsoft Alone" in the June 8, 1998 issue of The Industry Standard. (See my Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium, pp. 88-91, if you have difficulty locating that article.) My view, which hasn't changed, is that the very nature of the Internet, in which anyone can become a star, a millionaire, make an important contribution to the growth of knowledge, means that no corporation, however powerful, can really dominate it. Gates through Windows and the Internet gave everyone the best means of competing with him. Even if he had had a monopoly on the medium (which he did not), that medium made it utterly impossible for anyone to monopolize thoughts and ideas.

Zakaria's talk with Gates today is the longest and best I have ever seen Gates interviewed.

Among the points Gates covered:

.The US is not in such bad shape in our current credit meltdown and bailout crisis. We are still and will very likely continue to be leaders in information technology innovation - and in the higher education that makes that possible. (Gates is famously a Harvard dropout, but that doesn't stop him from seeing the value of education where needed.)

.Gates does not believe in leaving huge sums of money to his descendants - in fact, where philanthropy doesn't work, he's in favor of greatly increasing inheritance taxes. (I'm in favor of no taxes to anyone making less than a million dollars a year, but increased taxes for everyone making more - see I'm A Progressive Libertarian.)

.Gates was delighted to discover from his worldwide charitable work that when child mortality is reduced, the population does not increase. This is because parents in poor countries are likely to have fewer children when they know their kids will survive.

.Gates welcomes the competition of Google and Apple, and any one else who can come along with new ideas and alternatives to our current world of new media (which I call new new media). He talked about smart walls and cellphones you could use to make digital copies of receipts.

All in all, a fine 30-minute interview on Fareed Zakaria, GPS (Global Public Square). I've seen Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, and now Bill Gates on the show since it debuted in June. It's become one of my favorite interview shows, and I'd say Zakaria is becoming the Charlie Rose and the Mark Molaro of cable.