On issues of our time
Howe, Irving
want to mention very briefly--not discuss, not analyze--a few matters that we will be returning to in future issues of Dissent. They are central to our moment. A few facts, perhaps known but...
...Might some of it be wasted...
...In future issues of Dissent, over the next year or two, we're going to try to tackle them...
...and some intellectuals refer sagely to the "limits of social policy...
...9 In the Times Square subway station, reports the New York Times (March 10, 1989), a rush-hour crowd kept stepping across a sleeping man who lay "stark naked...
...The proportion of the poor living in metropolitan areas rose from 62 to 70 percent in 1985--an increase of 7.6 million people...
...A few facts, perhaps known but worth repeating: 9 Nearly one out of every four residents in New York lives on an income below the poverty line, which in 1987 was set by the federal government at $11,611 for a family of four...
...Is there a single solution to this complex of troubles...
...In 1988, 23.2 percent of the New York City population lived below the poverty line...
...Over 300 people, mostly blacks, were shot last year, within walking distance of the White House presided over by a gentleman who wishes a "kinder and gentler" America...
...I t ' l l save you a few bucks...
...This is the single greatest set of social issues-really, moral disgraces--facing American life today...
...But if you'd like to help us and make things more convenient for yourself: Please subscribe...
...Everyone with eyes to see is coming to recognize that beneath the surface of affluence and the ideology of the "free market," there is taking place in this country a steady, grinding process of social decay...
...The reality is a terrible dehumanization, the worst we have known in fifty years, and only Kojak seems able to cope with it...
...One woman with a sense of decorum "paused to cover his buttocks with a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag...
...Stay with us...
...And enough boosts would make things decidedly easier for Dissent...
...9 William J. Bennett, yesterday the education boss, has been appointed "drug czar...
...And only on television reruns...
...Would it cost a lot of money...
...it'll mean getting the magazine in the mail - - but at least as important, it will mean that, with less cost to you, our income will get a little boost...
...Probably not...
...Little if any additional funding will be provided the czar, who will have to get by on eloquence...
...No doubt there are limits, but it might be a good thing at least to approach them...
...Malaise, disintegration, pathology, "underclass": these are some of the key words...
...But we'll have some...
...Unquestionably...
...So, p l e a s e . . . FALL 1989 423...
...No, we don't have all the answers...
...Could there be a complex of programs that might alleviate this social disaster...
...Drugs, violence, poverty, gangs, homelessness, shootouts are but a few of the symptoms...
...9 The rate of killings due to "drug wars" has risen astonishingly in Washington, D.C...
...To Regular Readers Who Don't Subscribe We're glad, very glad, to have you...
...This--together with discussion of the remarkable changes occurring in the Soviet Union--seems to us the central theme for the months ahead...
...Government officials, from the conservative Bush to the liberal Cuomo, keep talking about "budget crunches...
...Probably...
...9 A study by the National League of Cities discloses that poverty in America's cities has grown more concentrated and persistent over the last two decades...
...At the very least, we'll try to stir up some feeling, some concern, some thought...
...But when you read about vast Pentagon "overcosts," you don't feel so bad at the possibility of spending a little extra to cope with the decay of the cities and the people who live in them...
Vol. 36 • September 1989 • No. 4
