Is reconciliation automatically the most desirable outcome for the two divided factions of the previous years BRCPO? Let's consider the alternative - divorce and separation, at least for a year. If there is a fatal flaw in one or both camps, existing separately will reveal that flaw. One group will flourish, and the other will spend it's time blaming the world, the universe, the BMORG, the other camp, etc, for their non-functionality.


Let's look at some of the functions of the Post Office, with an eye towards whether or not they are duplicable.


1) The Name
2) Intra-Playa Mail (Potsal Mail)
3) Playa to USPS
4) USPS to Playa - deadlettered
5) USPS to Playa - certified
6) window operations

Let's start with some of the easy ones:

#2) Intra-playa mail. Anyone with any sort of window can run a Potsal board or delivery service, and participants can and will provide content. Under no legal obligations, Potsal or Intra-playa mail can be fucked with, destroyed, bartered for, etc.

#3) Playa to USPS - anyone can take mail to the post office. To avoid trouble with the post office, the person taking the mail needs to be clear that this is their personal favor to the mailor, and that no representation has been made that the mail has been 'mailed' until it actually reaches a cancellation stamp location. A mail camp could collect mail out in deep playa to be delivered to Gerlach or a BMCPS cancellation location, and as long as they were clear that the mail had not YET been mailed until further steps were taken, they should be fine.

With Cancellation Stamp: If a cancellation stamp is present, the mail is considered 'mailed' at that very moment. The Gerlach postmistress has had spotty performance from the BRCPO in relation to the cancellation stamp in the past, and appreciated the diligence of last year's postal signers, specifically, Lady Kay. The Gerlach post office is NOT likely to grant two camps each a cancellation stamp.

#4) USPS to Playa - deadlettered
Regular first-class mail is considered 'deadlettered' and 'delivered' the moment it leaves the hands of the USPS and is given to a duly registered representative of the BRCPO/BMCPS. This mail could be easily split/shared between two mail camps. While there is an expectation that mail with return addresses be _given_back_to_the_USPS_ when not delivered, a good handful of it has ended up in the hands of the Dead Letter Crew in years past.

#5) USPS to Playa - certified mail
The mail is signed for, each and every piece, by a person that the USPS trusts. There is QUITE a lot of it. These pieces are then delivered to participants, the participants IDs are checked (or a good faith effort made to confirm identity). Each of these pieces of mail, if it goes astray, counts as one potential felony charge of interference with the federal mails. Thus, the person signing for the mail takes quite a risk. If posties take it upon themselves to fuck with, open, or otherwise misdeliver a piece of certified mail, they are crossing the line of 'do no harm' with their art - the harm being taken by the person who last signed for the certified mail. Last year, it was Lady Kay.

#6) Window Operations, Potsal Boards, etc.
Anyone can create a postal window for postal-based art on playa, and there have been many different versions of these over the years. The Dead Letter Truck, the Potsal Service, Ped Ex, BRSD, and BRCPO/BMCPS aren't even the only mail projects out there. This is inherently replicable.



And the first shall be last: the Name.

#1) The Name:
The General has already applied for a theme camp under the name, BRCPO/Burning Man Community Postal Service. While the BMORG refuses to discuss placement till after August 1st, I am pushing the General to take 3:00 or an Esplanade location in order to set a new tone with the BMCPS.


The summary:

#1) Name: There is not likely to be a BMCPS _and_ a BRCPO this year.
#2) Intra-Playa Mail - there's enough for everyone
#3) Playa to USPS - Anyone can take mail going for off-playa, and one camp could be a local drop-point for off-playa mail, or the other camp could take it straight to gerlach. As long as they make no representations that giving it to the non-cancellation camp counts as "mailed"
#4) USPS to Playa - first class deadlettered - there's enough for everyone
#5) USPS to Playa - certified - this goes with the cancellation stamp and the legal responsibility to deliver
#6) Window Operations - there's enough for everyone.


The only real points of contention to be worked out in a DIVORCE are

a) shall there be two camps (divorce) at all?
b) who shall have the placement, name and cancellation stamp?
c) all else is splittable between two camps



With two camps, the camp of Blue, Brian, Pedro, Doodlebug nominally spoken for by The Philosopher isn't really bartering from a place of power. Application for theme-camp done by the new BMCPS group, facade done by the new BMCPS group, liaising with the Gerlach PO done by the BMCPS, and decisions on who can _CAMP_ with the BMCPS are all being decided independently.


So in regards to Blue's recent 'call for reconciliation' - my own read as a 'fiercely independent operator' is that one group of people is hitting the ground running, handling application, name, cancellation, placement, and physical infrastructure, and the other is still living in the world of fantasy while typing furiously, thinking that typing and talking, at the end of the week, will somehow magically create an actual camp.


Let me know, Blue and others, what progress you've made on _actually_ applying for, building, and creating an alternative camp. Alternatively, please argue clearly and coherently why they should do all the work and then allow you to cherry-pick the symbolic jobs of _administering_ the post office, once all the pre-operations work has been done by others.


The Story of the Red Hen: Whoever bakes the bread, gets to EAT the bread.


;-b