The United States Postal Service as a Symbol of the Nation

In 1985 scientist and science fiction writer David Brin published a post-apocalyptic novel entitled The Postman. If you are not a reader of science fiction you might be more likely to remember the movie directed and starred in by Kevin Costner in 1997. During the early weeks of the pandemic shutdown back in April, when Trump first started making noises about undermining the U. S. Postal Service, I decided to re-read the book. 

The key idea of The Postman is that the United States Postal Service is more than simply a service to deliver mail and packages, it is a powerful symbol of our united nation. So much so that in a fragmented post-apocalyptic world,  men wearing the uniform of the USPS and carrying mail from community to community can be enough to jump start the economic, social and political unification of a country. 

The U. S. Postal Service provides enormous practical benefit to Americans regardless of their economic or social standing. In fact the lower your economic and social status is the more you may benefit from the USPS. Every address and community, no matter how small or rural must be served by the USPS.  If you don't get home delivery and can't afford a post office box you can still get your mail general delivery at your local post office. We may not be big senders of cards and letters in this age of digital communications, but we still do business by mail, pay bills by mail, get checks by mail, get medications by mail. 

However, the real point here is that far above and beyond the practical benefits of the U. S. Postal Service is the symbolic role it plays in our sense of all being citizens in one nation.  There are several examples that highlight this. One is the degree to which Americans have mythologized the Pony Express, a service that lasted a mere 18 months (April 3, 1860, to October 24, 1861), that tied the eastern United States to the relatively new state of California.  For something that lasted such a very short time, the Pony Express lives in the American psyche as the epitome of nationhood - physically linking states together across a wilderness. Another is the beloved Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street in which the U. S. Postal Service delivers bags and bags of mail addressed to Santa Claus to Kris Kringle in the court room. If the mighty U. S. Postal service, an official government agency  could recognize Kris Kringle as Santa Claus, then that was enough for the judge. 

All those people salivating with dollar signs in their eyes, over the prospect of carving up the business of the Post Office and distributing it to for-profit corporations, miss this very important fact about the U. S. Postal Service. It is far more than a set of services, it is part of the fabric of America, and it is a symbol of our national unity. 

If we lose the United States Postal Service we lose our national soul. 

Open Letter to Barack Obama

Please do not write off eastern Kentucky and the rest of central Appalachia. There have been two excellent pieces in the last few days, by West Virginian dawnt on the daily kos and by Dee Davis of Whitesburg, KY on Salon.com about the need for Obama to include central Appalachia in any campaign for the presidency. Both writers explain why it is a huge mistake to write off this region of the nation. Appalachians can be won over. We just have to be asked -- in person -- for our support.

Appalachians are the last American ethnic group that it is socially acceptable to negatively stereotype. While I'm not suggesting that no basis exists for some of the stereotypes, the stereotypes blind people (inside and outside the region) to the reality of the rich human tapestry here.

Folks living here in Appalachian include affluent business owners, educated professionals, solid middle class white collar workers, technical and health care workers, hard working skilled blue collar workers, dedicated factory workers, minimum wage workers who scramble to make ends meet for their families, retired folks on social security, and poor folks on SSI and temporarily on welfare. Yes, the percentage of elderly, disabled, and poor are higher here than suburban America, but they are not the majority.

We may live in "hollers," and the red-lining practices of banks may make manufactured housing ("trailers") easier to obtain than "built" houses, but folks here lavish care on their homes as much (or maybe more) than folks anywhere. [All photos are of homes in my "holler" in Hemphill].

People in Appalachia care about the same issues as other Americans: Health care, the economy (jobs and prices), the war in Iraq, the environment. In fact, I would argue that each of these issues is even more important to us here, since there are fewer jobs that provide health insurance, lower median incomes mean that economic uncertainties hit harder, a higher percentage of our young people are likely to enlist, and the nasty consequences of strip mining have immediate impacts on us here.

One of the most damaging stereotypes that has been brought up in this election is of Appalachians as racist. Sure there are racist folks here, as there are in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., Eugene, Oregon, etc. But there are also African Americans who live and work peacefully along side whites in Appalachia. There may not be many African Americans in eastern Kentucky, but there also aren't any ghettos in eastern Kentucky. In Letcher County, there are black teachers, administrators, sanitation workers, surgeons, ministers, housewives, coal miners, secretaries, and many other occupations.

Moreover, being a lower income region, a very higher percentage of the physicians in this region are from the middle east and the Indian subcontinent (and many of whom are Muslim and Hindu). A brief perusal of the physicians listed in this region includes names like Ahmed, Alam, Alchureiqi, Ali, Ambalavanan, Appakondu, Bajwa, Chandarana, Chandrasheker, Chaturvedi, Garimella, Guindi, Gutti, Ghazal, Khater, Khouzam, Mehrpouyan, Mohmand, Narola, Pampati, Paliwal, Podapati, Quddus-Roopani, Rahman, Sahay, Singh, Abubakar Tidal, Valavalkar, Yalamanchi. These are highly respected members of the professional community. For example, folks around these parts swear by Dr. Tidal. I can't even begin to count the number of times in the past 12 years, that one of my students has said started a sentence with "Dr. Tidal says..." Until I did this little search for this post, I had no idea that Dr. Tidal wasn't an native born American of European descent.

I believe that most folks in Appalachia would welcome Barack Obama if he'd just take the time and come and visit with us face-to-face. We like to judge people as individuals, on their character, but we're folks who want to make those judgments in person. We need to see and talk to folks to decide whether or not we trust them. We don't like to depend on media images or stereotypes.

unintended consequences

I've started by summer vacation off by reading Lester R. Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilization to Save Civilization. [This book is available free on-line in its entirety, with the bonus of Excel data tables at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/ I've read the earlier edition (Plan B 2.0). I think this is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about how societies must change to deal with the scourges of over-population, poverty and environmental degradation world wide. Having read only three chapters today, I can already see many things worth comment and discussion in this blog and Blue Island Almanack.

Tonight, I want use a quote from the book to point to a common problem with any kind of social change -- unintended consequences. Social systems, especially when one gets to the level of nations and world civilizations, are very complex. Even very small changes in one part of a social system can have significant consequences throughout the entire system; not all of which can be anticipated. Even when they can be anticipated by some, calls for caution are not always heeded.

Brown writes about the very real problem of over-population. The human population of earth, now more than 6 billion, and growing, has by many calculations already exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth's biosphere. (See Meadows, Randers and Meadows Limits to Growth 2004 and Mathis Wackernagel 2002 study published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences). Bringing population growth under control is certainly necessary for preserving civilization.

Brown writes about an intrinsic benefit of rapid reduction in birth rate:

…[help] countries that want to slow their population growth to do so quickly. This brings with it what economists call the demographic bonus. When countries move quickly to smaller families, growth in the number of young dependents—those who need nurturing and educating—declines relative to the number of working adults. In this situation, productivity surges, savings and investment climb, and economic growth accelerates.

Japan, which cut its population growth in half between 1951 and 1958, was one of the first countries to benefit from the demographic bonus….This effect lasts for only a few decades, but it is usually enough to launch a country into the modern era.
(http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/pb3ch7.pdf pages 149-150)

While the "demographic bonus" is real, and has the consequences described above, it is disingenuous not to also acknowledge the unintended consequences and problems produced by rapid reduction of birthrate 50 years later.

Japan is one of the best examples of the unintended consequences. Japan epitomizes the future problems that will be faced by all nations that make this demographic shift, especially those that make it quickly. This is the problem of a rapidly aging population, where those over 65 are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the Japanese population. The burden of caring for and paying for the needs of an aging population is becoming apparent throughout the developed nations, but it is particular acute in Japan, because that nation's demographic transition was so sudden, so abrupt. The flip side of having a smaller number of young dependents compared to the working adult population, in the decades immediately following the demographic transition, is inexorably followed fifty years later by having a much larger number of elderly dependents compared to the working population.

One could argue that a rapid decline in birthrates and demographic shift provides the potential for 50 years of economic growth that will make dealing with a large elderly population easier. But it is necessary for people invoking the need for a decline in birth rates to acknowledge the future consequences of these changes. Nation's making significant demographic transitions need to have full knowledge of the long term consequences and begin planning for those now.