In Your Opinion: Postal Service Assaulting Middle Class

By Mark Grieco, Somerset. 

In 1779, a skirmish was fought in East Franklin between local Patriots and Loyalists raiders led by Colonel John Simcoe. The Patriots were fighting to defend liberties which they believed were being attacked by the Crown. The Loyalists had an unswerving allegiance to the Crown and, arguably, to a far-flung empire that trampled the rights of people all over the globe to the advantage of a privileged few. While Simcoe was captured during the raid near Franklin Boulevard and Hamilton Street, his Queen’s Rangers wreaked havoc in the Millstone and Raritan Valleys, including burning down the Somerset County Courthouse in Millstone. Again, it was a skirmish, not a battle, but one of a multitude fought in NJ that collectively contributed to the outcome of the war.

Fast forward to 2015 and we have another skirmish in another long war being fought only blocks from that one in 1779. This one is not so much about defending political liberty, but about defending the ever shrinking American middle-class and its once comfortable way of life from those devoted to consolidating economic power, and eventually political power, into the hands of the few. This is a skirmish, and a war, that 99 percent of Americans are losing. It is fought not by musket ball and saber, but by ink and paper. No courthouse is burned in this fight, but on May 15 the East Franklin Post Office will, for the last time, turn off its lights.