Message to the Postal Workers
Brothers and Sisters!
I am honored to be called upon to speak in your defense as I have done for so many clients over the years. Yours is a most special case—as much a part of this nation from its inception as other institutions that no one suggests disbanding—like the Marines, Smoky the Bear and the National Park Service, the Statue of Liberty!
Everyone who has lived here is familiar with the Post Office and values its services—sending a money order to a kid in college, special delivery or now overnight delivery of some important document, proposal, plan or as Valentines Day is upon us, the use of the mailed letter or card as the way to a true love’s heart. In Prison, the mailroom is often the only link to the real world outside of the courts, lawyers, organizations; those people who can intercede and bring our grievances to a wider public.
Now Congress and the bloody corporate Right wing want to dismantle it, all for a crisis they have manufactured. Snail Mail cannot be replaced by email or Internet—you need a computer and you can’t get a package by email! The notion that the private entities—Fed Ex and UPS can replace it is not only untrue but a cruel hoax. Elder America, the Disabled, rural folks, and small businesses need door-to-door delivery. In NYC half the post offices slated for “termination” are in the Bronx—-the poorest County in the U.S. The post office is unprofitable? It’s not supposed to make money but provide a valued service to the 99 percent—the people.
Could it be that the proponents of destroying the Post Office are really focused on the strongest, largest public employee union in the Country? Because it provides decent wages and benefits that have been struggled for; to employees that are largely people of color and women? The use and misuse of your pension fund by the charlatans and scalawags to shore up their own fiscal missteps is obvious. Follow the dollars of the people who fund the campaign to do away with this institution—the Koch Brothers of Wisconsin infamy—and their guilt and pernicious greed are exposed.
The post office is an intimate part of everyone’s everyday life—whether you’re mailing an important letter or waiting for your check, the mail delivery person is the point person. Is it personal for me? It is. When I was first arrested by the FBI, free on bail, living in Brooklyn, the woman who brought us the mail spoke to my husband one morning to say she had been approached by “law enforcement” to “help” if she saw anything in my mail. She told them to go talk to her supervisors, she wasn’t going to become part of any dirty tricks or an informant network! Long Live the U.S. Post Office! And its employees! And its Union!
Write to:
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
Write to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at:
1070 Dean Street,
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
http://lynnestewart.org/