Progressive Wednesday

Take urgent action to protect us from the Stamp People. Seriously.

April 19th, 2007 by Matt

I’m in love with the United States Postal Service. I’m amazed that I can drop a postcard of a cow wearing galoshes in the mail up in my corner of Western New York, and two days later, my grandmother in Tampa can read about the wet weather she’s missing. I think the Postal Service is egalitarian in its current format: it essentially costs all citizens the same amount of cabbage to stamp a letter, regardless of their income or locale.

But the USPS is about to do something that will severely undercut the little guys and gals, particularly those who are independent publishers. As independent publishers ourselves, we feel a comraderie with the privately owned magazines and journals we subscribe to and read: Paste, Sojourners, The Nation, Utne Reader, and Consumer Reports, amongst others. So that’s why we’re going to ask you to take a minute or two and take some important action.

To quote The Nation:

America’s founders understood the First Amendment would be worth little without a postal system that encouraged broad public participation in America’s “marketplace of ideas.” Thomas Jefferson called for a postal service that allowed ideas to “penetrate the whole mass of the people.” Along with James Madison, he paved the way for a system that gave low-cost mailing incentives to small publications of information and ideas.

We seek to protect this. The USPS is upping their rates on July 15th. This, on its own, might not be a problem, but the mega media conglomerates, like Time-Warner and Hearst, are being given a hefty break. Smaller publications are going to take it on the chin for the big-wigs, potentially shutting down hundreds or thousands of “lesser” journals and magazines.

We’re not talking about a few bucks: this unbalanced postage raise will cost The Nation 500 grand each year. And this is impacting magazines on the left and the right (and in the middle). That’s why the National Review, American Spectator, and American Conservative are all protesting this postal hike too.

The public “commenting period” on this hike ends on April 23. Time is of the essence. Since you read this site, we know you believe your news and information shouldn’t only come from media titans. Since you value information and news from independent and smaller magazines, let’s all take some action.

Congress and the public weren’t let in on these under-the-table deals. Go to the Free Press website by clicking this sentence, and protest. Tell Congress to step in and stop this deal from being done. The odds are against us. But at Progressive Wednesday we don’t believe in odds: we believe in action.

Photo by this stamp collector.