The Postman is
a 1997 American post-apocalyptic action-adventure film produced and
directed by Kevin Costner and features him in the lead
role. The screenplay was written by Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland,
based on David Brin's 1985 book of the same
name. The film also features Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo,
and Tom Petty.
It is set in a post-apocalyptic and
neo-Western version of the United States in the then near-future year
of 2013, sixteen-plus years after unspecified apocalyptic events, starting with
the breakdown of society through “hate crimes and racially motivated
attacks (by) a militia-like group” led by Nathan Holn, progressing to war,
followed by plagues, that collectively left a huge impact on human
civilization and erased most technology. Like the book, the film follows the
story of a nomadic drifter (Costner) who stumbles across the uniform of an
old United States Postal Service mail carrier,
and unwittingly inspires hope through an empty promise of a "Restored
United States of America."
Released on Christmas of
1997 from Warner Bros., The Postman was
a major critical and commercial
failure, grossing a total of $20 million worldwide. Nonetheless, it
was nominated for three Saturn Awards.
If some of the phrases shown above sound familiar, here is
why:
“Hate crimes and racially motivated attacks” –
currently, Asian-Americans in this country have been attacked because some of
our leaders have been saying “Wuhan virus” or Chinese virus” instead of the correct
term, which is “coronavirus”. If you want another example, how about "They're
sending people that have a lot of problems, and they're bringing those problems
with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And
some, I assume, are good people."
Plagues – COVID-19 is the worst disease to
hit the world since the Spanish flu of 1917-1918.
“Restored United States of America” – sounds a
lot like “make America great again", doesn’t it?
Today, mail carries are more important that ever, and I’ll
explain why.
The postal service is actually older than the United States of
America. It was established on July 26, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress.
Benjamin Franklin was its first
postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the foundation for many
aspects of today’s mail system.
My dad was a mail carrier from 1955 until 1976, so I have
always been fond of the postal service, which provided my dad (a union man)
with an income adequate to support a comfortable middle class living.Today, the postal service has
collective bargaining agreements with seven different unions, representing
nearly 500,000 employees. Every two weeks, the Postal Service pays $2
billion in salaries and benefits.
Last week’s disastrous election in Wisconsin highlights why voting
by mail should be available to everyone in the country. Due to the fact that
voters in Wisconsin had a choice between being exposed to the coronavirus or
not voting, the House of Representatives just introduced the Universal Right to
Vote Act, which would allow everyone in the country to vote by mail in federal
elections.
Many of our Republican leaders, including Donald Trump, vote
by mail, but don’t like the idea for the rest of us, since low voter turnout benefits
the Republican Party, and high turnout benefits the Democratic Party. 14 states have passed voter ID laws since
2011. Since there is virtually NO evidence of voter fraud being committed in
this country, the real purpose of the laws is to prevent minorities (who tend
to vote for Democrats) from voting. A few of these laws have been revoked by
court systems. In the case of North Carolina, the judge had ruled that blacks
had been excluded “with surgical precision”. I’m not quite sure how it would be
possible to reverse those voter ID laws, but I suspect it would need to be done
by a non-partisan review of the laws by members of Congress to determine if
they are actually necessary.
In the 2000 Florida election,
at least 1,100 eligible voters were wrongly dropped from voting rolls in an
attempt to purge a list of felons.Many of those who
were dropped showed up to vote and were told they could not. In a presidential
election decided by 537 votes, that erroneous purge may have been a factor. Twelve years later, Gov. Scott ordered state officials to clear
the rolls of non-citizen voters.
The state department whittled a list of
182,000 potential noncitizens to about 2,700 by comparing driver's license
data, which contains some citizenship data, against voter rolls. County
supervisors, again, were told to notify those listed by mail of the need to
urgently prove their citizenship. Like last time, some supervisors decided to
sit out the purge.
Already, a Pasco County woman and a
91-year-old World War II veteran from Broward County have made headlines for
being wrongfully targeted. In fact, elections supervisors found that most names
on the list belong to citizens — probably because the motor vehicle
department's citizenship information is out of date, the Miami Herald reported.
In 2018, Brian Kemp, who was simultaneously Secretary of State
(and overseer of elections) and gubernatorial candidate, purged 340,000 voters from
voter rolls.
Stacey Abrams lost the election by 55,000 votes.
Prior
to the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, House
Democrats unveiled a plan for a different stimulus package that included a $25 billion cash injection into the
Postal Service. The Senate compromise left that provision out, instead providing
USPS with a $10 billion line of
credit. In a letter to congressional leadership on Tuesday, a group of House
Democrats renewed their push for a $25 billion appropriation in a forthcoming
“phase four” coronavirus relief bill expected to receive a vote in the coming
days.
Trump and other
Republicans want to privatize the post office, which is why they keep claiming
the postal service has lost money. It has not.
In 2006, Congress
passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The
Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a
$72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or
private corporation.
If the costs of
this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial
statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of
the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis”
that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal
privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be
devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.
Postal employees today need to be considered “critical workers”,
but they don’t have the option of working from home like many people do. Our mail
carrier wears gloves and a mask while delivering our mail, since it is a fact
that the virus can be present on the mail that they are delivering to our homes
(which is why I wash my hands with soap and water after opening our mail.)
In order to protect the integrity of this year’s presidential
election, it is CRITICAL that the USPS gets an immediate injection of the $25
billion it needs to stay in business, and it is also critical that Congress passes
the Universal Right to Vote Act. If those two things don’t happen, it’s
possible that the Russians could win.
Again.
