matter. This is how Greenwich Village sees us, and this is whyrnsome sharp Upstate pol, maybe a demagogue and maybe not,rnwill one day tap into the populist potential and try to set thisrnhouse on fire. Our preamble to battle could come fromrnWilliam Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech: “Our war isrnnot a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of ourrnhomes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, andrnour petitions have been disregarded; we have begged, and theyrnhave mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; wernpetition no more. We def’ them.”rnThe train of abuses and usurpations snakes into eternity. Wernare taxed to subsidize their squalid subway system, their welfarernindustry, and those artistic expressions deemed pleasing by culturernczar Kitty Carlisle. (Perhaps Annie Sprinkle playing thernhome version of To Tell the Truth?) Rural and working-classrnfolks are harassed by an array of gun laws, 5 5 m.p.h. paternalism,rnand extortionate regressive levies on everything from fishingrnto foodstuffs.rnThe vitality is gone up here; no ferment, no foment, no nothing.rnOr so it appeared to Governor Cuomo, who seriously overplayedrnhis hand and is facing an incipient rural rebellion.rnIn 1989, the governor determined to locate a low-level nuclearrnwaste dump in rural, money-poor Allegany or CortlandrnCount}’. Most of New York’s waste is generated in WestchesterrnCounty and around the City, but, well, you know: mustn’trnrouse the righteous dander of Joseph Papp, and E.L. Doctorowrnand Christie Brinkley. If d be so much easier to steal farmlandrnin our godforsaken region. The Times won’t make a peep.rnImagine Cuomo’s surprise when his likeness was hung in effig’rnacross Western New York. Protesters — not shaggy collegernkids but natives, many with roots generations deep —have keptrnstate inspectors off the threatened property. Raucous rallies recallrnWliiskey Rebels and Daniel Shays. Guitar slingers who’drntake Hank Williams, Jr., over Joan Baez any day sing rousingrnsongs. Top of the pops: “Allegany Count)’ is full of nasty boys /rnShotguns is their favorite toys.”rnThe anti-nuke firestorm is whipping up a great new cloud ofrnanti-urbanism. Most Upstaters, at least in my neck of thernwoods, have never even been to New York City. Nevertheless,rnas Norman Mailer has said, “the good farmers and small-townrnworkers of New York State rather detest us.” And why not? Yournsend your murderers and howling Son of Sam lunatics to Attica,rnand now you want to bury your nuclear waste in our woodlands.rnLike a boorish suitor who has already been to the niountaintop,rnyou don’t even flatter us into submission. You just seizernthe land by eminent domain, all the while crowing about howrnGreen thou art. (The upper-middle-class environmentalistrngroups, so exercised over plastic trash bags and snowmobiles,rnare shamefully silent on the rape of Allegany. Might they wantrnplum appointments in the Cuomo administration of 1993?)rnThe anti-Cuomo, anti-NYC sentiment is diffuse and unchanneled.rnIt has no public outiet. The parties, the chain papers,rnthe TV and radio stations are owned by Manhattan corporations:rnThe New York establishment really is one big happyrnfamily. Agrarian and small-town dissent embarrasses Upstaternelites, who have been to college and met people from all overrnthe world and learned never to trust their own judgment orrnthose of undegreed, untraveled neighbors.rnThis past November, the Republicans ran for governor arnManhattan millionaire economist named Pierre Rinfret, chosenrnfor his bulging purse. Rinfret yammered about the deathrnpenalt)’ and the fool drug war, as though serial killers and whiternpowder are what ails us. He called his Upstate campaign tripsrn”a waste of cash.” He squandered the rural vote with a remarkablernproposal that counties bid for the privilege of not hostingrnwaste dumps—thus ensuring that our poorest, most verdurous,rnleast populated shires would become the Metropolis’s latrine.rnWestchester would go scot-free, while Allegany would be foreverrndespoiled. Despairing Yorkers cried that the Cuomo-Rinfretrncontest proved that the system no longer works, though I suspectrnit proved just the opposite: the system by which Cities andrnMoney keep us in vassalage works all too well.rnSo what? some of my landmen say. Subjection is inevitable.rnDavid Harum, the cracker-barrel Yorker of a 19th-century regionalrnnovel, philosophized, “A reasonable amount of fleas isrngood for a dog—they keep him f m broodin’ on bein’ a dog.”rnThe problem is. Upstate has become a miserable whippedrncur. We haven’t elected one of our own governors since 1920.rn(The cousin-marrier of Hyde Park doesn’t count.) We lastrnelected a senator in 1958. We last had a candidate for governorrnin 1954. Estonia has more influence in Moscow than we do inrnAlbany. (At least they’ve let us keep our accents.)rnAs the republican ideal dims. We are becoming more likernThem. Henry Clune’s fine unknown novel Six O’ClockrnCasual (1960) describes an Upstate hamlet in which the prominentrnmen gleefully loot their patrimony. A native daughter, returnedrnfrom New York City, discovers nothing but sickness andrncupidity in her hometown. At novel’s end, she again flees to therncit}’, which is at least frank in its corruption.rnMr. Clune will turn 101 in February, and for all his pessimismrnhe remains in the village of Scottsville, just outside ofrnRochester. He tried New York Citv’ once or twice, but opted torncultivate a literar)’ career in hardscrabble local ground. He explained:rn”I longed for Main Street and the friendly nod, thernwarm greeting, the buttonholing by this, that, and the otherrnpasser-by. I wanted to be where 1 knew the folks. .. . Rochesterrnbecomes, not the small center around which the world revolves,rnbut almost the world itself”rnClune is sadly imlaureled, but he has lived a life richer thanrna thousand PEN benefits. We are a “culturally undernourishedrnhinterland,” according to Norman Mailer, and while Upstatersrndo exhibit a deplorable ignorance of their heritage, I’ll gladly pitrnEdmund Wilson against Alfred Kazin, William Kennedyrnagainst Jimmy Breslin, John Gardner against Philip Roth, JoycernCarol Oates against any New Yorker miniaturist, and, in the historicalrnnovelist category, Walter Edmonds against ArthurrnSchlesinger, Jr.rnFace it: New York Cit)’ has hit its cultural nadir. The magnetrnthat once drew William Dean Howells now repels us with thernsubsidized juvenilia of Karen Finley. (And what does that sayrnabout the decline of their Midwest matrix?) Free spirits. JackrnKerouacs cruising jazz clubs, are long gone. The undergroundrnhas a factitious, sham quality. New York City’s two punkrncelebrities were typical: David Byrne was a RISDE brat andrnJoey Ramone has a rich psychiatrist mother. By contrast, Buffalo’srnbest punk band, the Enemies, was led by a swimming-poolrncleaner and a cabbie.rnThe dark-eyed poet of the 60’s demimonde, Lou Reed, nowrnfinds Manhattan unlivable. “I’ve really got a lucky life,” hernsings, with “my writing, my motorcycle, and my wife.” And hisrnhouse in New Jersey. Rank and File, an incendiar)’ cowpunkrnband out of Seattle by way of Austin, visited after-midnightrnNYC and didn’t like it one bit:rnJULY 2001/21rnrnrn