In Oregon they are literally taking mail boxes off the streets.

[CanonRay]

A spokesman for the United States Postal Service confirmed that the agency has removed four blue boxes from Portland, and 27 from Eugene this week. The USPS plans to remove a few more boxes from Portland next week.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/08/13/united-states-postal-service-confirmed-it-has-removed-mailboxes-in-portland-and-eugene/?fbclid=IwAR24d_pJXieeU4xn5glyUk8eNwlcPh9PeM8AAbLeJvbcXvA5Ifh37H1DHc4

I cannot quite get my head around all of this.

[samsingh]

1. We are officially a banana republic. You would expect this in dictatorships

[spanone]

2. We are getting schooled in how a dictator takes over a nation

[2naSalit]

5. +1

[procon]

3. I'm confounded by the level of planning the Trump

Adm has set up to bring his evil scheme to fruition. They can't manage to anything else right, but when it comes to running this massive con game to cripple the USPS and diminish Democratic voters, they are doing world class corruption on a national scale.

[hedda_foil]

4. They've been doing this with every government agency behind the scenes.

The post office destruction is just harder to hide from the public.

[2naSalit]

6. +1

[sweetloukillbot]

7. Under normal times, I don't think this would be unreasonable

I sort of see it like the death of the pay phone.
With online bill pay and e-mail, people are SENDING mail less in general. And with COVID they are driving less and going out less in general. It makes sense to have less mailboxes in random locations if people can send mail from their houses or drop off at post offices, grocery stores, etc. That frees up mail carriers from having to pick up smaller amounts of mail from less random public locations.

Right now, with all the talk about slowing the mail down though? Not good at all.

[TheFarseer]

8. I use those boxes because

We have a real problem in our neighborhood with people taking mail out of our personal mail box.

[Kaleva]

9. With the decline in use of 1st class mail, this is to be expected.

[sweetloukillbot]

10. Exactly

It's a legitimate reason. I can't remember the last time I've mailed something from my house. I RECEIVE a lot of mail, mostly packages, but all my business is conducted electronically, so I'm never sending anything, and I always end up dropping my mail-in ballot off at the polling place because I procrastinate.

The timing is suspect though. Honestly, I think curbing vote by mail is an added bonus for Trump. He's been trying to dismantle USPS to punish Jeff Bezos since 2017. I don't think the initial intended consequence was to stop vote by mail, but I think he's taking advantage of it.

[Kaleva]

13. It's so rare I mail anything that I just go to the PO when needed.

If it wasn't for junk mail filling up my PO box, I wouldn't need to go to the PO often to get my mail as most everything is done on line now.

[TheBlackAdder]

15. The USPS is a SERVICE! It's meant for the people, not for profit. Many elderly & disabled need it.

[sweetloukillbot]

17. I'm not disagreeing with that

I'm disagreeing with the necessity of having a lot of freestanding mailboxes when most people do not send mail anymore, and a lot of people aren't leaving their houses right now.

Removing mailboxes that aren't used a lot improves efficiency of the service.

Closing post offices is another matter. And closing distribution centers.
But removing excess freestanding mailboxes? Again, I see that more like pay phones.

[TheBlackAdder]

19. That's what they say now. Then the remaining ones slowly get swept up in the middle of night.

[Doreen]

11. Can't have all of those protesters that they gassed and beat have a chance to fight by voting.

[Kaleva]

12. Can't beat them with tear gas but removing the blue boxes will crush the protesters

In the struggle for this nation some of us are willing to fight an go the extra mile while others quit when they can't drop off their ballot at a nearby blue box.

[marlakay]

14. Means the country clerks ballot boxes will be stuffed!

But also means meds and bills will be late. Ugh!

[sweetloukillbot]

18. Removing mailboxes from the street will have zero effect on med deliveries

People don't receive their meds at blue mailboxes.
It may slow down them returning their bills, if they are unable to pay online, mail from their home or go to a post office to drop off.
But removing blue mailboxes won't impede people recieving mail at all.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

16. Rethugs always diminish the effectiveness of an agency before trying to privatize it.

They're experts at all those carefully concealed "D" things: Defund, degrade, diminish, delegitimize, depersonalize and then.....

either maintain a shell of the old agency for show or privatize any functions that can be used for profiteering.


KY.......