"Eat The Poor"

"Eat the Poor"

by Donald Unger

A Modern Proposal for Preventing the Poor and Homeless in New York and Other Cities of the United States from Being a Burden and a Nuisance to the State and, Particularly, to Commuters, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.

   In the present hour, it is difficult if not impossible to travel the thoroughfares and transit ways of any great city in this land and not be assaulted, both visually and sometimes physically, by the surfeit of the poor and the homeless who populate to overflowing every available public space.

   We know, of course, that theii presence has nothing to do with current or recent government policy, that they would not consent to be housed or fed if we attempted to help them, that all of them are in their current state by conscious choice and that most are the victims not of Reaganomics but of the liberal social policies that released them from mental institutions and that prevent us from incarcerating them anew.

   We are agreed, I am sure, that a solution is called for, if for no other reason than the constant annoyance that these people now give to their more ambitious countrymen who, while attempting to maintain their stable and prosperous states are constantly put upon on the streets, in the subways, and in the public areas of the transportation facilities that they daily must pass through.

   But what kind of solution? We know that the govemment has no funds for frivolous projects. We are building invisible planes for unforeseeable wars. We are building new missiles, lest the ones we have now come to seem overly dowdy and outdated. We have a reputation for strength and efficiency to tain intemationally.

   And yet, on the same international markets, we find both a disturbing deficit, an imbalance in our trade, and - remarkably enough - a paucity of food. Would that we could solve these problems in addition to the problem of rudeness and intrusiveness on the part of poor people on the streets. This would be a feat. We can. And it is the Private Sector, of cour.se, that shows the way.

   I am assured by a very knowing Thatcherite Briton of my acquaintance in New York that poor people - properly preserved, irradiated, and seasoned - are a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I am sure that the same holds true if they are microwaved or barbecued.

   Imagine the savings! Families can become self sufficicnt, simply selling off surplus children and relatives. In addition to the obvious domestic market, which could on the one hand provide much needed nourishment to the poor themselves and on the other hand build a booming business in select breeding for those of more refïned tastes, intemationally we could both better meet our obligations to the developing nations, who are also desperately in need of food, and also decrease our balance of payments deficit. If the Germans and the Japanese want their pound of flesh from us, let them have it.

   Some will probably object to this scheme, find it distasteful, not to their liking. This is able. But what are the altematives? Are we to provide jobs for these people instead? Should affordable housing be built? Are education and medical care to be provided without regardfor people' s ability to pay? What kind of society would these people have us build? No. The ideas above are beyond consideration and unless and until they gain greater public acceptance, I submit that the solution I offer here is the only course open to us.

   I would point out as well, to those troubled by the seeming inequity of this plan, that the idea is not new and that it did not in fact originate with the upper or middle classes. It is the poor themselves who have been agitating and causing a nuisance. In the very subways they are making unbearable, there has been graffiti for years exhorting people to: "Eat the Rich." If we do not take action now, there is no telling who will end up eating whom.

   Finally, if the people do not rise up and implement this solution, we are in danger from the govemment itself, which is losing its will to keep this problem under control. Federal Judge Leonard Sand has ruled that begging is speech, protected by the First Amendment, and that it may not be infringed. No one disagrees with him, of course, in principle. But not while we're eating; that would just be rude.