Statement NALC PresidentYoung on Bush-Cheney Charge About Letter Carriers

[seemslikeadream]

Statement of NALC President William H. Young on Bush-Cheney Charge About Letter Carriers

10/21/2004 5:58:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Drew Von Bergen of the National Association of Letter Carriers, 202-662-2489; 703-623-9207 or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following statement was issued today by William H. Young, president of the 300,000- member National Association of Letter Carriers, in response to a letter by Thomas Josefiak, general counsel of Bush-Cheney '04, to Postmaster General John E. Potter charging that letter carriers may be failing to deliver election mail in Florida and other states "from homes that appear Republican":

"I am outraged at the allegation - without any substantiation - by the Bush-Cheney campaign that letter carriers may be attempting to influence the presidential election by failing to deliver election material in Florida and other states. Letter carriers for over a century have played a vital role in maintaining the integrity of our nation's election process and have no interest in altering that tradition by attempting to sabotage the results of this election.

"It is a shame the Bush-Cheney campaign chose to denigrate the reputation of hard-working letter carriers across the nation by publicizing these unsubstantiated rumors without any evidence of their validity.

"The Bush-Cheney campaign owes every letter carrier in America an apology."

http://www.usnewswire.com/
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=38655

[Kimber Scott]

1. Well let's just hope all letter carriers vote for Kerry! nt

[happynewyear]

11. Edwards

Edwards is a great lure for them. His mother was a letter carrier.

KERRY/EDWARDS 2004!!!!!! :D

:kick:

[Born Free]

23. Unfortunately far too many postal workers are for the bush coward

Not only are a lot of the postal workers for the bush coward, they hate paying union dues and refuse to do so, but they love the benifits they get from the union. The non-dues paying members are the first to cry if they don't get something they think they should get, these idividuals alo love the bush coward. Even though the postal service is under a lot of pressure to privatize by the bush coward, these individuals believe they are exempt, it will never happen to them. It's all a blind faith type of thing they just truly believe the bush coward is the answer.

[progressivebydesign]

2. Letter carriers have no love for Bush/Cheney after the anthrax thing..

.. The postal workers were left out to dry by this Administration, while Bush and his cronies ALL got Cipro doses right away.

It's disgusting to think that Bush and his pals would make those allegations.. just sick.

[soothsayer]

15. More than 800,000 postal workers out there! n/t

[NVMojo]

3. how rude of them to make an accusation like that ...

this smells like a juvenile temper tantrum to me.

I get 3 to 4 Bush campaign things in the mail a day, expensive paper and color printing, what a waste. If someone wanted to steal them from my mailbox or throw them out before I got it, no big deal. I don't read that crap anyways, no matter who sends it to me. Rove loves direct mail. I say, shove it. It's mail box spam.

[qanda]

4. Bush-Cheney owes every letter carrier... an apology.

Ah, good luck on that one!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

18. Bush-Cheney will apologize to no one - ever!

Apologizing means admitting you made a mistake, and admitting a mistake shows a lack of resolve, and if you show even the slightest sign of weakness the terra-ists will attack.

Damn those terrorist-helping letter carriers!

[aquart]

5. P.S. Have they caught the anthrax killer yet?

[Jim Sagle]

14. Last I heard, he was in the Oval Office.

[FormerOstrich]

6. My letter carrier complimented

my yard sign the other day when I had to sign for a letter. He told me that he had been meaning to pick up a bumper sticker but hadn't yet. So I gave him one of mine.

I have a really good feeling about who he is going to be voting for!!

[allalone]

7. how do they do it?

whenever you think there can't be anybody else for the bushies to piss off, they come up with someone else. Letter carriers don't have time to weed out stuff they don't want to deliver.

[Eloriel]

8. Another pre-emptive strike

They'r setting up all kinds of scenarios (most if not all of them no doubt false) before the election so they can conceal and "normalize" their own fraud ("See, the other side does it too!") AND setting the stage for eletion challenges.

The nightmare continues...

[daleo]

10. That was my first thought too

They seem to be spreading enough accusations around to set up any number of legal challenges, hoping one will stick long enough for the election to be thrown to the Supreme Court. It is a very cynical abdication of democratic responsibility.

[Eye and Monkey]

13. Would it be paranoid to posit a prelude to privatization moves?

Maybe, but I think probably not.

[July]

24. Ding, ding, ding!

Mark Racicot was just asking Kerry to denounce vote fraud and voter intimidation a day or two ago, when we all know that the people being caught screwing with ballots, registrations, and machines have been Republicans.

They're shameless, but we're on to them.

[Laelth]

26. Absolutely ...

got to create the widespread perception that the election was stolen in order to then argue on Nov. 3, with righteous indignation, that the election was stolen ... thus legitimating Rove's challenging the results in every state that's even remotely close.

We need to spread this theory far and wide. The only way to combat this orchestrated campaign is to make it clear that this was part of Rove's plan all along.

:mad:

-Laelth


Edit:Laelth--corrected typos.

[Eye and Monkey]

9. This is outright paranoia - "the postman's out to get me" -

And that dog, he pee'd on my fence, because he was out to get me.

[sonias]

12. Boy they're really getting desperate

They're setting up excuses for why they're going lose this election already. I don't believe for a second, that one piece of election mail has been purposely not delivered by the postal carriers. Lying, stealing and cheating on elections is much more the m.o. of the repuke party.

Let's keep reminding ourselves that repukes will do anything to win an election except get more votes at the polls. They recount, stop recounts, redistrict, they recall and of course their favorite back up is SCOTUS just hands them the election.

Go "cheney yourself" Bush-Cheney!
:mad:

Sonia

[bagimin]

16. I deliver that righty bullshit every day.

every carrier knows you can't waste one deliverable piece,it could cost you your job.

[Occulus]

19. and I sort it in our plant

Just today, I saw a B/C ad using the Kerry/Jane Fonda at an anti war rally pic, and I sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo wanted to trash the damn things, but I *wouldn't*.

Why? POSTAL WORKERS BELIEVE IN FREE SPEECH. It's our job.

I *wish* I could reject Bush*/Cheney ads the way they ejected those teachers for their "protect our civil liberties" shirts. I really, really wish I could do that.

But I WON'T. It's my job to make sure ALL mail is delivered if it's been paid for.

PERIOD.

:grr:

[PATRICK]

30. Dad was NALC president of his local

And what would be the point with the huge flow of this stuff? If makes money for us so we can donate to the Democrats. I don't think anyone realizes how sensitive to loss of mail the system is. This slur is to drive a wedge between the route customer and the mailman who will campaigning on the streets and phones for the Democrats.

Probably just a spiteful payback for the devastating anti-Bushco magazine that was mailed out to all combined union members. Letter carriers make up some of the most effective street workers for political campaigns even though all of us are hampered by the Hatch Act restrictions that forbid activity in the workplace or using the workplace uniform and ID outside.

[PROUDNWLIBERAL]

17. Return to Sender

If you get mail from the republicans draw a line through the address and write 'Return to Sender'. Swamp their asses with their own mail.

[saracat]

20. Our Kerry HQ is in the Letter Carriers Union Hall!

I'll bet they don't charge us rent after this!

[Carolab]

21. Actually

We just write nasty responses and send the literature back with them. MUCH more effective.

I don't get their accusation at all--like ALL letter carriers are somehow Kerry supporters? What's up with that?

[coreystone]

22. I work in the USPS as a clerk. At one time..

Once, I was performing a job that required me to view mail that the carriers would deem to be undeliverable. It is quite amazing how "outdated" some of the mailing lists were for both political parties. Much of this mail was sent "standard" (third class), or, what many call "junk" mail. If there are no markings on this class of mail for any address services, it is thrown away. If it was First Class, it would be returned to the "sender".

[PATRICK]

29. Still am a clerk

And I can assure you that no one stoops to doing that, nor could anything so specific be organized or carried out, probably even by one carrier or clerk.

We get so much nut mail, anti-labor mail, even occasional mailings that imply they don't trust the mail delivery, so MANY RW or GOP mailings, mostly in huge hard to process mega envelopes, or the famous dollar bill showing through the transparency that did cause one case of convicted theft several years ago, that the temptation to target any of it is kind of pathetic and deadly to one's future.

The most that anyone ever might feel is to hurry on those postage dues back to campaign headquarters. Postal people are just not wired that way. Trying to get every piece possible out to the customer is the only likely extra motivation that effects delivery.

I do notice the stuff being returned and spurned, the freebie magazines sent to all educators rarely getting a bite for a continued subscription, the number of The Nation mags(which need to be made better to withstand our wonderful new automation) versus the slick RW rags.

Besides, everyone knows the mail isn't the only or most effective conduit of info on politics. No one even thinks that way and the GOP would have to be paranoid brainless to plant the seeds. Of course ignorance how bad MOST mailing lists are, typos, spoilage, improper packaging, machine spoilage is what keeps those problems coming. Even POSTAL mailings have tons of errors and returns.

What this is REALLY about. Thousands of union people will be hitting the streets for the election. The GOP is trying to plant mistrust for letter carriers in advance, to blunt the influence of a trusted neighborhood figure.

Or maybe Ashcroft needs another excuse to go after Democratic supporters?

On the other hand our union brochure, in a slick all color magazine in a plain manila envelope format, trashes the Bush horror show in detail and urges members to vote accordingly.

[PoiBoy]

25. The NALC endorsed Kerry...

..at their national convention back in July...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=147x227

http://www.nalc.org/news/release/pr072004.html


The B/C campaign is grasping at straws.... desperately...

[Ernesto]

27. "Unions are a detriment to the economy"

A quote from the chimp.

[seemslikeadream]

28. It can't happen here?

Sundance channel last night documentary, Injury to One!
"Lynching of 1917 IWW Union organizer in Butte, MT and juxtaposes it with the eviromental lynching of the area" 2003.




The weathered epitath on Frank Little's grave in Mountain View Cemetery in Butte reads "Slain for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Men."

Frank Little came to Butte to persuade miners to join the One Big Union, the Industrial Workers of the World.

Little gave public speeches telling the miners that the Great War in Europe was a conflict that should be left to the capitalists who started it to finish. Workers, he argued, had more in common with each other, regardless of their nationality.

These were not tolerant times in Montana and Little had picked the wrong time and place to incite dissent and to encourage what the Company- backed newspapers called acts of sedition.

In the middle of the night on August 1, 1917, six men, identifying themselves as officers, abducted Little from his boarding house room. They beat him, dragged him behind a car, and finally hung him from a train trestle on city's edge. No one was ever convicted of his murder.



A procession of thousands followed his coffin as thousands more lined the streets to show their solidarity. While few workers subscribed to Little's radical message, all were uniformly outraged at the way the messenger was so brutally silenced.
http://www.butteamerica.com/flit.htm