I hate to keep harping about certain topics, but in this case I can’t help myself.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced last week he has a plan to “stabilize” the Post Office.

The Post Office has been under a tremendous financial burden placed on it by Congress to fund pensions in advance.

DeJoy, who contributed a lot of money to the Republican Party during the previous administration, has proposed slowing down mail delivery standards and cutting hours at some post offices.

So, this is how this would work unless President Biden removes DeJoy and installs someone with some common sense instead of a destructive political agenda: by decreasing the level of service, customers will seek other delivery services, insuring the Post Office would continue to fail until someone pushes for privatization.

And then, a constitutionally-mandated service of the government will die.

DeJoy obviously wants to weaken the Post Office as a means to prevent mail-in voting to be a regular and effective part of the election process. This is all part of the ongoing campaign to decrease voter participation because that might benefit one of the two parties at the polls.

This destructive and frankly coldly evil effort must be stopped.

The Post Office supplies a very real lifeline for millions of Americans – from people who use it to receive goods and services such as prescriptions mailed to the home to those you use it to vote.

You see, I hate to use the word “conservative” to describe the people supporting the effort to destroy the Post Office. The conservatives I once knew actually supported the Constitution. The people who are advocating for the Post Office’s destruction are people who see a way to better control the public by eliminating this service, as well as setting up a vacuum for a private business to fill.

I was in the main Springfield branch of the Post Office recently mailing some packages out. The line moved quickly and the staff member behind the counter was efficient and friendly.

I looked at my fellow customers and they ranged from someone trying to mail a huge package to people buying stamps.

The guy with the large package had a problem. The package was too large for the Post Office. The clerk worked very hard to figure out how this could be done, but ultimately the package was rejected. The customer expressed his profuse thanks to the clerk for her help and left with the package.

The Post Office is not perfect. Every time a discussion about it happens, people trot out horror stories about mail delivery. I just think that rather than try to destroy this service of government, it should be improved.

Removing DeJoy and those who think like him should be a priority.

Thank you

Some of you may have heard Reminder Publishing has added another edition. The latest serves Northampton and many of the hill towns north of it. It is the seventh edition we publish.

Like our other weeklies, the Northampton edition will have municipal government news, features about interesting people and stories about dining and entertainment.

We expanded twice last year during the height of the pandemic and now we are presently on track for three more expansions this year, with Northampton being the first.

As someone who started   writing professionally in 1975, I have to say the response from readers and advertisers to what we do has been heartening to say the least.

At a time when it’s popular to repeat assertions that “print is dead,” it’s clear that in our little corner of the world, it is not dead.

Thank you to our readers and advertisers for their continued support.