by Jeremiah M
It’s been awfully hot so I try to have something cold to drink to offer my mail carrier. He’s never been interested but I feel compelled to offer. It’s not a problem for me to do so since I work at home and he’s one of the people I see everyday. Like a coworker almost. He comes to my door every day but Sunday, every day of the year, except holidays.
It’s kind of amazing, thinking about it, but every day the Federal Government sends one of its agents to every house in the country. Lest you forget, you’re part of this giant beast – a uniformed agent of the state appears unbidden at your house. It would be pretty impressive, actually, if not for what the letter carrier brings me.
The national government, every day, can reach out and deliver an important personal message to every American. And every day I’m told that values are king, that I owe money to strangers, that other strangers want my money and that I may have to be a juror. If we look at the mechanism of delivery, the whole post office, it’s a fantastical service that performs a daily miracle. This miracle’s entire purpose is to extract money from people.
Every day we are buried in coupons and bills and limited offers to participate in usury. Turning the miracle from gold to lead in the anti-alchemy of the profit motive. Where a miraculous act should edify and uplift, this one invalidates the self, turns a citizen into an occupant and a neighbor into a mark. Commerce serves to expand the distance between people and it’s always trying to make that distance that much greater; any division is a beachhead where commerce can wedge itself, a place where it can start extracting value from a subject populace.
I can’t help but imagine a post office that served the citizenry rather than their bosses. A service that dispersed information and coordinated connections rather than serving to isolate subjects seems like something that a government based on serving its citizens would do. When we examine the practical execution of the post office’s miracle we see that it serves the government’s true citizens, its only constituents, which are commercial concerns that prey on citizens. We’re reminded once again that we’re not regarded as citizens but as ‘civilians’ – irrelevant inessential objects that must be managed in service of the ruling class. A daily miracle that could reinforce connections and which could improve all of our lives is bent toward a ruthless purpose. The infrastructure of the nation has been placed into the hands of people who can’t help but misuse it.