#1367 The Post Office and the Census, Unmaking the American Institutions That Most Bind Us Together
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2020
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 9/15/2020
Today we take a look at two of America's oldest institutions which are both under attack, the US Post Office and the Census. The clear through-line of the attacks on both is a classic struggle over power.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: The Long, Slow Chipping Away of the USPS - On the Media - Air Date 8-21-20
According to New Republic staff writer Alex Shephard, when journalists start talking about public sector programs like the postal service, they tend to be sucked into a partisan, ideological narrative.
Ch. 2: A wildcat strike in 1970 solved the last crisis at USPS - The Real News - Air Date 8-24-20
Labor activist Paul Prescod gives context to the fight over the future of the post office.
Historian Philip Rubio, who teaches at North Carolina A&T State University and worked as a mail carrier for two decades, says decades of political interference have caused a "manufactured crisis" at the U.S. Postal Service. "The damage has been done,"
Ch. 4: Crisis At The Post Office - Planet Money - Air Date 8-21-20
The fight over the US Postal Service is a lot bigger and goes back a lot further than the appointment of Louis DeJoy. It's a fifty-year-old battle between public service and private enterprise.
Take action! Click the title and/or scroll down for quick links and resources from this segment. For more, visit Bestoftheleft.com/2020Action.
Ch. 6: Liz OuYang on Census Sabotage - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-14-20
We’ll talk about the White House’s transparent campaign to sabotage the census with civil rights attorney Liz OuYang.
Ch. 7: Census Suppression & Why It Matters - The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Air Date 7-15-20
Dulcé Sloan meets voter suppression’s nasty cousin, census suppression, and talks to Dr. Jeanine Abrams McLean, Stacey Abrams’s sister, about the 2020 census and the fight to get Black folks accurately represented via the Fair Count organization.
Ch. 8: Why The Census Matters - Another Way, by Lawrence Lessig - Air Date 1-30-20
Adam Eichen is joined by Beth Huang, executive director of Massachusetts Voter Table. The two discuss how the decennial census works, why it is so important, the difficulties involved in enumeration, and what groups are doing to ensure an accurate count.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 9: White people are tired of living up to the myth - Scott from Arizona
Ch. 10: Voicemail Description – Person from City, State
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 11: Final comments on the importance of a racial understanding of economic policy and contrasting two foundational myth
TAKE ACTION
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Voting in person is still an option, but be prepared for people to disobey health rules, and for long lines and reduced polling places. Find your polling place
EDUCATE YOURSELF & SHARE
Voter Registration Deadlines (Vote.org)
Voting by mail in a pandemic: A state-by-state scorecard (Brookings)
How to Vote by Mail in All 50 States (Vice)
The Most Important Mail You'll Ever Send: A Ballot (NPR)
In battlegrounds, absentee ballot rejections could triple (AP)
If You Can Grocery Shop in Person, You Can Vote in Person (The Atlantic)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast in which we shall |
| 0:06.9 | learn about two of America's oldest institutions, which are both currently under attack, the |
| 0:12.9 | US Post Office and the Census. |
| 0:15.9 | The clear throughline of the attacks on both is a classic struggle over power. |
| 0:21.5 | Clips today are from On the Media, The Real News, Democracy Now, Planet Money, Counter-Spin, |
| 0:28.1 | The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and another way by Lawrence Lassig. |
| 0:35.1 | Now, over the past couple of months, we've observed Trump's overt meddling into the Post |
| 0:42.4 | Office. |
| 0:44.0 | In the person of his new postmaster, General Lewis DeJoy, he is an underqualified Trump |
| 0:51.9 | mega-donor with financial ties to Postal Service competitors. |
| 0:57.2 | And next thing you know, he was cutting overtime for workers in the middle of the pandemic |
| 1:01.8 | in advance of an election and had removed male sorting machines from Post Office's nationwide, |
| 1:10.0 | which raised media eyebrows, but not exactly at first at least alarm until about a week |
| 1:16.8 | ago when Trump blurted out his sabotage scheme on Fox Business. |
| 1:22.3 | These aha journalistic moments about public sector institutions follow a pattern. |
| 1:29.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:30.3 | In the case of USPS, there are a few things happening where you know, at the same time, |
| 1:36.2 | Lewis DeJoy is fulfilling this longstanding conservative project of hobbling USPS, |
| 1:42.9 | of creating space in which its competitors can thrive. |
| 1:47.0 | He is also doing so at a time where it will almost certainly, if not aid the president's |
| 1:52.9 | re-election campaign, then certainly bolster claims that he may make challenging the legitimacy |
| 1:59.2 | of the election. |
... |
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