Thread by @doctorow

The USPS is amazing. A fully self-supporting federal agency that provides universal service as well as good, well-paid jobs with benefits and pensions. It's also a vital lifeline during crises.

wired.com/story/us-posta…

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Since the Cold War, posties have been integral to America's crisis plans. They were once deputized to catalog the dead and the living after a nuclear holocaust, distributing Safety Notification Cards (POD Form 810). Mail trucks would have been repurposed as ambulances.

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Both Obama and GWB integrated posties into their plans for biological attacks, planning to have masked and gowned letter carriers deliver Cipro door to door (the "Postal Plan").

obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-offi…

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As the DHS noted in its prep documents, the USPS is the only federal agency that could knock on every door in America in a single day.

When (if?) effective covid meds are available, it's likely a postal worker will deliver them to you.

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Now is a good time to remember that the GOP have been trying to dismantle the universal, self-funding, vital USPS for decades, so that private carriers like UPS and Fedex can cream off the most profitable parts of its business and leave rural Americans in the cold.

eof/