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UID:Indybay-18763412
SEQUENCE:18880368
CREATED:20141028T140100Z
DESCRIPTION:Contact: Mike Wilson 510-299-0493, electionamend@gmail.com; Mike Zint  
 415-637-4291, mzint02@gmail.com; Belle Starr 202-904-4131; JP Massar 
 510-883-0580, massar@alumni.mit.edu; Carol Wolfley 510-549-3319 \nJam the 
 Sale of the Berkeley Post Office\nNothing’s better for sustaining 
 persistent resistance like persistent music\nWhen:   Saturday, November 1, 
 2014 – starting at 1:00PM\nWhere:  Downtown Berkeley Post Office, 2000 
 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA \nWhy:  To create a physical boundary of bodies 
 and voices blocking the transfer of ownership of our public post 
 office\nThe fate of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office has reached a crisis 
 point.  The transfer of that building to private ownership may be only days 
 away.  For this reason, the Berkeley Post Office Defenders call for 
 mobilization of all those who appreciate the danger of privatization.  It 
 is time to establish and support a physical presence at the Downtown 
 Berkeley Post Office so that, with arms locked, we can block any poacher of 
 our public property from taking possession.  By taking direct action to 
 defend our public goods, we will affirm our reasons for living in community 
 by sharing our energy and resources for the benefit of all.\nThe Board of 
 Governors of the USPS has done a skillful job of narrowing the focus of the 
 objections to the sale of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office to the issue of 
 two New Deal works of art contained therein.  At this time, the position of 
 the USPS is that they’ve done everything they can to satisfy the concerns 
 of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (an agency formed by the 
 National Historic Preservation Act of 1966) and concerns of the City of 
 Berkeley for the preservation of these artworks, even to the point of 
 promising that the USPS will provide that protection themselves in 
 perpetuity after the building is sold.\nThe Berkeley Post Office Defenders 
 re-emphasize two objections that have been largely ignored in the struggle 
 to save our post office:\n1.	The sale that the USPS intends to process is 
 one manifestation of the neo-liberal strategy of privatization, 
 deregulation, union-busting, and the cutting of government services, 
 pursued via the World Bank and the WTO, which – in the last half-century 
 – have proved to be so detrimental to the welfare of people living in 
 Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, the nations of the former Soviet 
 Union, Iraq, and many others.  Locally, the privately-owned Accrediting 
 Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is trying to bankrupt 
 the publicly controlled City College of San Francisco.  The capital 
 property of the USPS is a possession of the people of the United States as 
 a public holding, meaning it is a component of national wealth and 
 infrastructure, and the defense of that wealth is necessary for maintaining 
 the viability of the national enterprise.  The Berkeley Post Office 
 Defenders oppose the privatization of publicly owned property everywhere it 
 is threatened, and we have mobilized our opposition locally to shield the 
 erosion of the material foundation of community, of which the Downtown 
 Berkeley Post Office is an element.\n2.	With regard to the public ownership 
 of the New Deal artworks, the promise of the USPS to preserve them – 
 given its strategy of privatization – is a deception.  By selling more 
 than 300 of its properties since 2006, the Board of Governors of the USPS 
 has undermined the capital foundation of the enterprise it is publicly 
 charged with protecting.  This insidious strategy follows the steps to 
 complete privatization of postal services pursued by other countries – 
 the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany and The Netherlands.  
 Given that the Board of Governors is selling the USPS out of business, it 
 is their intention that, very soon, they will no longer be in a position to 
 preserve the public ownership of anything.\nThe Downtown Berkeley Post 
 Office is not only a monument to public organization, it is an organ of our 
 common body; without it we grow weaker.  The agents of privatization are 
 chiseling away at the investment our ancestors made to the survival of 
 democracy.  Our post office was built by the sweat equity of our 
 great-grandparents, and financed by their tax dollars.  As such, the Postal 
 Service has NO RIGHT to sell it.  Berkeley Post Office Defenders DEMAND 
 that this sale be halted and that the building continue to serve our - and 
 our great-grandchildren's - common good.\nFor more on the current status of 
 the Downtown Berkeley Post Office: 
 https://occupyoakland.org/2014/10/berkeley-post-office-contract-sold/\nBerkeley 
 Post Office Defenders: 
 http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/\nFirst They Came for the 
 Homeless: 
 https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999?ref=br_tf\nBPOD 
 is affiliated with Strike Debt Bay Area: 
 http://strike-debt-bay-area.tumblr.com/\nFor more on the Staples 
 boycott:\nThe Seeds of Protest Bloom. Staples Boycott Goes 
 National.\nhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/12/1313465/-The-Seeds-of-Protest-Bloom-Staples-Boycott-Goes-National#\nUSPS 
 mission:\nhttp://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/101\nFor more on the 
 privatization of the USPS:\nSaving the United States Postal Service as a 
 Public Enterprise: http://tinyurl.com/ltqq7ng \nPrivatization Is Social 
 Cancer; Saving the US Postal Service: http://tinyurl.com/mbcbzrf \n#      # 
      #\n\n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/10/28/18763412.php
SUMMARY:Jam the Sale of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office
LOCATION:Downtown Berkeley Post Office, 2000 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/10/28/18763412.php
DTSTART:20141101T200000Z
DTEND:20141102T200000Z
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