As you may or may not know, I left America August 2006. I've returned to the U.S. on three occasions for brief visits, but basically I've been living as an expat in 21 countries, including five in Europe, three in Africa, and thirteen in Asia.
This has given me the rewards of seeing how a variety of other people live, as well as how their respective governments treat them as citizens and human beings.
Now I live in on the outskirts of a rural town in Japan situated a little over an hour northwest of Osaka, also near Kobe and Kyoto.
In my previous blog I listed the amazing array of services provided by Japan Post, Japan's equivalent of the U.S. Postal Service.
- Regular Mail
- Stamps
- Parcels
- Letter Packs
- International Express Mail
- Savings
- Loans
- Cash Transfers
- Money Orders
- International Remittances
- Government Bonds
- Investment Trusts
- Life Insurance
- Local Government Services
- Compulsory Automobile Liability Insurance
I reiterate, Japan Post does all of this with care, courtesy, efficiency, incredible attention to detail and a dedication to providing good service. It is among the most loved and respected service institutions in this country. All of these services are available in the main area for 57 hours every week, Monday thru Saturday. Mail services are available for 67 hours per week via a special service window, also open on Sunday. Moreover mail is delivered to each and every home in Japan, regardless of how off the beaten path they might be, Monday thru Saturday, with special deliveries also made on Sunday.
Contrast this with America.
It was recently announced that Saturday mail service for the entire country was being eliminated, effective sometime in the fall.
So . . .
We can deliver lethal explosives via unmanned drones to kill innocent people 1000s of miles away in faraway countries which have no aggressive intentions toward America.
We can deliver enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 25 times over with 12,000 active ICBMs, and fleets of nuclear submarines and long range bombers.
We can deliver billions of dollars of freshly printed $100 bills to buy the toxic assets of corrupt, blundering too-big-to-fail investment banks across the economic landscape.
We can deliver weapons of every shape, size and destructive power to buyers throughout the world, often ruthless despots and criminal governments oppressing decent people.
We can deliver trillions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees to incompetent and deceptive banks to allow them to continue impoverishing the many to enrich the few.
We can deliver through the corporate media, empty platitudes, unfulfilled promises, and patriotic blather to a populous craving some order from the chaos we're submerged in.
We can deliver bilious and vapid television dramas, vulgar reality shows, celebrity gossip, mindless sitcoms, and orgies of violence and salacious sex on DVDs and cinema screens.
We can even deliver hugely expensive and exotic space weapons systems, spy satellites, and futuristic laser guns into orbits around our planet.
BUT WE CAN'T DELIVER THE MAIL ON SATURDAY!
With changes in technology, and the growth and proliferation new businesses and services, Japan Post understandably has had to adjust. But rather than succumb purely to the often anti-social forces of a completely unregulated free market, the government offers responsible countervailing guidance, responsive to the needs of its citizens.
As private companies, like FedEx and UPS, have introduced their own assortments of delivery services __ and yes, Japan has a thriving private sector in this respect __ Japan Post has kept itself viable and solvent by offering the many other services listed above, making itself a one-stop-place-to-shop when people are running their errands.
While the U.S. Postal Service keeps announcing more and more layoffs, Japan Post makes an important contribution to keeping Japan's unemployment rate down by staying fully staffed with competent, well-trained, unionized workers. Unemployment was last reported at only 4.2%.
Japan Post, as with every other service agency in Japan, not only keeps itself fully staffed, but keeps its staff efficient and knowledgeable with new and ongoing training programs. These assure that whether you are making financial transactions, securing life or auto insurance, setting up an investment trust, planning your vacation, or just selecting and shipping a gift to a friend or relative, you are being assisted by a courteous, competent, eager-to-please individual, intent on providing the best possible service.
And America can't even deliver the mail on Saturday?
What is going on?
Like it or not, here the simple straightforward truth . . .
Our country is being stolen. It is being painstakingly dissembled piece by piece. Our jobs are disappearing. Our freedoms are disappearing. Opportunity is shrinking. The American Dream is dissolving like a ghostly puff of smoke that hinted at better times. Our political and policy decisions are now made by the highest bidder. Our once-amazing country is falling apart. Frankly, America is viewed as in decline by most of the rest of the world.
"Oh! But you're so wrong. America is #1!"
Oh, excuse me. I forgot. I must be some unpatriotic America-hater to even consider such offensive allegations. I do apologize.
But the question still remains . . .
If America is #1, then why can't it deliver the mail on Saturday?
Why can't it maintain and even improve on a service so fundamental and necessary to an organized, functioning society, one that already has a long history of success and approval in our own country, and somehow works just fine in every other country in the world?
The answer is no secret and is appalling: The U.S. Postal Service is being sabotaged by play-for-pay politicians who at the bidding of private corporations intend to take it apart and privatize it, turning it into another money-maker for interested parties.
The destruction of the U.S. Postal Service is just another in a long list. The corporate vampires will not rest until they've sucked the last blood out of every institution in our once-great nation. They're destroying the educational system, they are bleeding the treasury, they are after Social Security and Medicare, they are already bankrupting the nation leaving people sick and dying while delivering second-rate medical services. They are after every government program, every initiative, every community service agency, to divert tax dollars exclusively to enterprises which improve the bottom line of multinational corporations, bloodsucking institutions which have no loyalty to America, to its citizens, to its families, to its communities, or to actual human beings. With these corporations, the only concern about any of us, our lives, our communities, our country, is what can be extracted in terms of profit.
The tragic disembowelment of the nation's postal system is just the latest round in their long, calculated crusade to dominate and control every aspect of our lives, to disempower us, and leave us at their mercy, beck and call.
With all that seems to be going wrong with America's economy, its democracy, its foreign policy, its media monopoly, human rights and privacy abuses, fiscal plunder and national bankruptcy, rampant corruption in all branches and at all levels of government, it certainly makes it difficult, if not impossible, to know where to begin. They always tell you to choose your battles carefully, ones that you have some hope of winning. Maybe this is a place to start. Maybe not.
I know one thing for sure.
We need to take a stand and take it now.
We need to tell the corporate oligarchs . . .
"Enough! Stop destroying our country or we will destroy you!"
Perhaps we can start by trying to saving the U.S. Postal Service.
Or is it too late?
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
Services and hours for the main post office in my hometown, Sasayama, Hyogo, here in Japan.
The full version of the unofficial creed of the U.S. Postal Service, as it appeared in the USPS Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations in 2001:
"We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever."
A noble sentiment to be sure, but one which unfortunately which no longer applies to the postal service in the U.S.
Let me introduce to you the postal service here in Japan first with a video. It's short (less than 2 minutes) but you'll get the idea 20 seconds in. Click here.
As it is in America, New Years Day is a big holiday here in Japan. But here they celebrate it by sending out New Years cards, the way we send Christmas or Hanukkah cards, millions and millions of them. It is so important to the Japanese people that these cards arrive on New Years Day that the post office sends an army of their employees into the communities far and wide to deliver them.
These postal employees are working ON a national holiday.
It gets better.
A quick glance at the photo appearing at the beginning of this article shows that all of the services of JP Post are available 9 am - 7 pm Monday - Friday, 9 am - 4 pm on Saturday. The ATM room is open 8:45 am - 7 pm Monday - Friday, and 9 am - 5 pm SATURDAY and SUNDAY. Why is this significant? Because there is a window in the ATM room where you can still mail packages, envelopes, whatever, locally or internationally, and pick up mail being held for you at the post office, vacation mail or mail which they attempted to deliver to your home needing a signature.
Let me also mention that mail is delivered each and every home six days a week, important packages also delivered on Sunday. On a few occasions, I have seen the mail deliverer for my little village on the outskirts of town appear TWICE at my mail box in a single day.
If your mind isn't blown already by the level of mail service JP Post provides, let me go on to describe what else it does. Here is the entire range of services available through this efficient and valued institution . . .
- Regular Mail
- Stamps
- Parcels
- Letter Packs
- International Express Mail
- Savings
- Loans
- Cash Transfers
- Money Orders
- International Remittances
- Government Bonds
- Investment Trusts
- Life Insurance
- Local Government Services
- Compulsory Automobile Liability Insurance
Japan Post does all of this with care, courtesy, efficiency, incredible attention to detail and a dedication to providing good service. It is among the most loved and respected service institutions in this country.
At JP Post I can pay bills __ everything here is done electronically and I have never seen a check in my entire five plus years in Japan) __ or send money to an individual.
They have gift and travel catalogs. I can select a gift (sending gifts is a national compulsion here) and send it off anywhere in the world. I can plan and book travel. I can withdraw from my bank account in America. I can transfer money all over the world.
At the post office.
I just read that the U.S. Postal Service will be cutting back and no longer delivering mail on Saturday, starting sometime in the fall.
I can't begin to express how frustrated and angry I get with America when I see what's going on there. Especially when I know from first hand experience what things are like in other countries __ countries like Japan, which ignorant, bellicose commentators in the U.S. love to smugly ridicule.
You may not want to read my next blog posting called . . .
Going Postal!
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
- "I'm America's CEO."
In the post-election euphoria, we've been led to believe that President Obama's trip to Asia is about spreading goodwill, creating new friendships, renewing old alliances, and making the world safe for democracy.
It's a charm offensive that's much longer on "offensive" than "charm".
What this trip is actually about is selling TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership" __ "selling" here being the equivalent of jamming a building the size of the New York Federal Reserve between the spread cheeks of the leaders of the countries in this part of the world.
TPP is not exactly popular even in the U.S. In fact, the more people learn about it, the more they realize that it's a Trojan Horse, another so-called trade agreement, which in point of fact mitigates the effectiveness of many environmental and worker-protection laws, compromises the sovereignty of nations, and puts in place yet another powerful mechanism for the already bloated and rich transnational corporations to amass more socially unproductive profits. Encouragingly, more and more people are outraged and speaking out against it. This is predictably being countered by a public relations campaign using our public officials as spokespersons for the transnational corporate elite who are promoting this onerous, ill-conceived weapon of economic destruction.
Don't be fooled by this self-serving and bogus propaganda.
Yesterday, for example, I read an article called Canada Sued under NAFTA for Banning Fracking which tells about an American corporation initiating a lawsuit for damages of $250,000,000. You see, if a business entity feels that the laws of a participating country interfere with their now inalienable rights to exploit that country, NAFTA sanctions "investor-to-state" litigation. In this case, Lone Pine Resources Inc. spent large sums of money securing mining permits, but Quebec Province, where the mining was to take place, later determined that exercising those rights would cause grave environmental damage. NAFTA allows U.S. and Mexican companies to sue the Canadian government if they feel they have been wronged by a government policy or action. This is saying that Lone Pine Resources had no responsibility in determining in advance the environmental impacts of its plans. It can throw money down, then if local authorities discover that their proposed mining will pollute the water, dump toxins in the soil, subject people to carcinogens and other life-threatening chemicals, Lone Pine Resources has to be compensated for their own shortsightedness and stupidity.
As the article goes on to say: "Amazingly, instead of looking for ways to scale back and eliminate the rules in our trade agreements that threaten public interest policies in favor of corporate profits, eleven countries, including the United States and Canada, are currently in the middle of negotiations to expand the NAFTA investment rules in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact."
This is madness!!
TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Yes. Anyone who has looked at this "trade agreement", as its being misrepresented, can see it's nothing but another monstrous assault weapon being handed to transnational corporations to bulk up their bottom line at the expense of just about everything having to do with quality of life __ safety, human rights, worker rights, sustainability, environmental protection. Please! Just read this and this and this, then do your own research. This is not a shades of gray issue. It's black and white, folks.
Let me give a brief example from my own experience.
Japan Post is the postal service here. It is truly amazing in every respect. It's essentially a privatized, public service institution that with scrupulous government oversight, conjoins several organizations to provide a variety of services. At Japan Post, not only can you mail letters, cards, and packages locally and internationally, but you can pay your bills with a fully-functioning cash transfer system, do banking with an ATM machine, secure an entire range of insurance (home, life, auto, accident), purchase gifts, make travel plans and purchase tickets. When I look at the shell of an institution the U.S. Postal Service has become under the relentless assault of private corporations there, it's no contest. It's like comparing a scrub game of neighborhood football to the Superbowl.
The Japanese are furious about TPP. Under TPP, corporations in the U.S. through legal challenges would tear Japan Post apart. They'd claim the panoply of services and the incredibly competent and efficient delivery of those services are "unfair competition".
It's competition alright. It actually works! It provides useful services making the lives of Japanese citizens better and more hassle-free.
This is just one small example. I'm not going to do all of the work for you. Just extrapolate from this, read the recommended articles and imagine what will happen if these countries are "persuaded" __ read that as "coerced" or "bullied" __ into this agreement. America's military and economic power often makes such negotiations a sham. America is good at making less powerful nations an offer they can't refuse.
For those of you who might not have heard, America is a very unpopular country in most of the world. Despite the whitewashed image which is promoted by corporate media in the U.S., anti-Americanism is exponentially on the rise. I have experienced this first hand.
People defensively suggest that I don't love my country. This is both silly and ignorant.
I've always loved and always will love what America represents. I love the energy, the optimism, the whole idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people.
But TPP is not America. Corporation X and Corporation Y just because their registered in Delaware isn't America. The tiny powerful coterie of wealthy elite investors and Wall Street bankers who are turning our government into a puppet show isn't America.
You and I are America __ the people referred to in "of the people, by the people, for the people." We are America.
And no proud, sane, decent American would get behind TPP and the expanding corporate juggernaut that's being done in the name of proud, sane, decent Americans. Proud, sane, decent Americans believe in opportunity, justice, fairness, the "general welfare". Proud, sane, decent Americans truly love their country, and would never put corporate profits ahead of how America is supposed to serve its citizens. Proud, sane, decent Americans don't compromise the integrity of communities and schools to improve the bottom line. Proud, sane, decent Americans understand the hope America represents to the world. Proud, sane, decent American respect human rights and human life.
No, I don't hate America. But a lot of people in the world do. And if TPP and similar such agreements are put in place, the worst is yet to come.
We won't have time to spread the love.
We'll be too busy defending ourselves from all the hate.
[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
