Congress to Postal Service: “Drop Dead!”

November 9, 2012

The fire sale of our post offices is accelerating while the media remain largely asleep at the wheel. In July 2011, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) gave an exclusive contract to liquidate the public’s property to the giant commercial real estate firm C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), which also advises the Postal Service on which properties to sell. It’s no surprise, then, that so many of the post offices listed for sale or already sold happen to be in expensive real estate markets.

FDR Four Freedoms Park Opens At Last

November 9, 2012

Forty years in the making, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park was finally dedicated on October 17, 2012. The new park takes its name from a speech President Roosevelt made on January 6, 1941 in which he said the way to justify the enormous sacrifice of war was to create a world centered on four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Update: Coit Tower Activists Win Preservation Measure

November 9, 2012

San Francisco activists are celebrating their successful campaign to protect and preserve the historic murals at San Francisco’s Coit Tower. In August activists won new rules restricting private events at the tower.

Berkeley Fights to Save Its Post Office

November 9, 2012

The Downtown Berkeley’s Main Post Office is widely recognized as not just a local treasure but also a national treasure. In June, the U.S. Postal Service notified the City of Berkeley of the impending sale of the downtown post office. Gray Brechin, Harvey Smith and Ying Lee of the Living New Deal quickly joined forces with labor and community organizers to form Citizens to Save the Berkeley Post Office.

Sell Berkeley’s Main Post Office? No Way!

October 29, 2012

Some 3,700 historic buildings across the country are on the chopping block as the US Postal Service moves forward with “realignment” plans. For more details on the fight to save the post offices watch for our October newsletter, coming later… read more

Huffington Post: “Romney Rally At Red Rocks Amphitheatre Raises Spectre Of FDR, New Deal”

October 25, 2012

File this one under New Deal ironies: a candidate running on a shrink-the-government platform, holding a key campaign event in a CCC-built jewel, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater. Matt Ferner wrote about it this week in the Huffington Post: “Red Rocks… read more

Jon Stewart on Romney, FDR and “Fiscal Responsibility”

October 11, 2012

If you have a spare 10 minutes, Jon Stewart’s Oct. 9 dissection of the Romney-Ryan fiscal plan offers some food for thought. You can read more about it and watch the three-segment video here. In the third segment, you’ll get a… read more

Government is Not a Balance Sheet

October 5, 2012

Susan Ives, of Susan Ives Communications, responds to the Oct. 3 presidential debate: Romney’s remark about “trickle down government” is pandering to the same segment of society that hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt and that still maligns the New Deal. Meanwhile… read more

Listen: WNYC Radio on the 75th Anniversary of Roosevelt, New Jersey

September 25, 2012

Here’s a nice radio piece on the history of Roosevelt, NJ, one of 99 New Deal resettlement towns. Roosevelt, which turns 75 this year, was unique as an experiment in community planning (it was one of three Greenbelt towns) featuring… read more

Post office sale is a surrender to corporate interests

July 30, 2012

The selling off of the U.S. Postal Service properties is the latest example of the movement to corporatize what’s left of the public sector. It comes in a long line of privatization efforts — from shrinking the public school system… read more