In response, Atinsky offered two counter-arguments. First was an appeal to pity for the "small guy," basically saying that small town is their way of life, they are poor and hit hard, and they have few other options. The second argument, which Atinsky called "philosophical" was the need to preserve the "small town" as an alternative to urbanization and globalization. He did not even try to address the issue of behavior modification raised in the letters - e.g. car pooling which implies cooperation and opens the door for further collective action - the traditional string point of the left. That seems like an obvious way to go, turning the social networks that Atinsky claims prevent these folk from leaving these ghost towns into collective action and even political organization. But instead all that we were offered was the old trite welfarist mantra of indiscriminate welfare handouts with little regard of their social impact. Atinsky did not answer the fundamental question "what is the philosophical-political rationale for any public subsidies" - not to mention elaborating a left version of such rationale.
After reading the piece, the letters, and Atinsky's response I came to the realization that it primarily the US liberal left, not just the small towns, that are running on fumes. Appeal to pity for a small guy who simply won't change his ways and evoking nostalgia for that old myth - the small town with its Main street - are rather weak policy arguments, probably the weakest one can possibly conceive. Anything weaker that than would be basically tantamount to "because we say so."
If that is all that the US liberal left can muster, - there is indeed no alternative in sight. It is quite clear that the left does not have very much to offer to change the status quo. It does not have a vision for a new social order the way the old fashioned commies did - all it proposes is a regression to the mythical good old times. If it was just the nostalgia for the past that never was, it would be basically cute and charming, a mental Disneyland for the lefties, so to speak. But unfortunately, such liberal myth making serves a more insidious function - providing human face for the policies of the right that are based on cold profit calculations.
Not long ago, Michael Pugliese posted a link to a piece by the right-winger Steven Hayvard http://www.policyreview.org/mar98/cities.html accusing urban liberals for gutting the US cities. The argument is disingenuous, to say the least, because it omits the factors that were far more powerful than any influence urban liberals could even dream of - the politics of land use/development and the transportation policy. But the paper does illustrate that the left often serves in this country as a useful idiot providing a cover for otherwise inhumane policies of the right.
The right wanted to gut the mental health system and dump its patients into the streets to cut social spending. That would pose an image problem, though, but lo and behold a bunch of useful bleeding hearts come out of the woodwork and start arguing for the "right" of mentally ill people to freely roam the streets. Next thing we see is mental health care system being gutted to "improve" civil rights of the patients, and homelessness is skyrocketing.
Developers and landlords wanted to put their greedy paws on public money to provide cheap substandard and racially segregated housing. Sounds like crass pork and barrel until liberal poor advocates come out of the woodwork and start calling for housing subsidies and public housing for the poor. So it is not fattening the developers and landlords anymore, but "helping the poor." The next thing we have is crime-ridden hopeless inner city apartheid with no prospect for the future and vicitimizing people trapped in it, while landlords and developers are laughing all the way to the bank.
To add insult to injury, certain type of lefties work hard to portray the barbarism and dysfunctionality of the ghetto life (crime, drugs, gangs, violence) as either an "alternative" life style or altogether source of "pride" and "power." Next thing we see is a bunch of young people falling for that canard, and acting it out, which gives the law-and-order crowd a legitimate excuse to incarcerate a large segment of the inner city population. Of course, when the suburban kids act "gangsta," they do not go to jail, the worst thing that happens to them is pissing off their parents and teachers, which makes the counter-culturalist lefties pee themselves in their pants with joy.
Which brings us to another issue that many these self-styles lefties and radicals are really secure and well off middle-classmen who are merely bored with the bourgeois life style, and view politics as a form of boredom breaking excitement and a way of standing out of the crowd of middle class Babbitts. Wearing outrageous hairdos, listening to weird music, and swearing in public is more "radical" for these folk than, say, working with a union, or teaching life- and job-skills to street children.
So the bottom line is that, indeed, the US left does not have much to say lately. The more conventional liberals simply chase after the shadows of the past, while the more "radical" crowd is really a bunch of enfants terribles seeking fun and excitement by pissing off their parents, teachers, and other authority figures. They all kvetch about the right and its policies, but offer no credible alternative to the vision of the right - which while poisonous and detrimental in the long run, at least sound appealing to the "medial voter."
As Doug aptly pointed out lately, most of the US voters do not have definite political opinions of any kind, and thus follow policies that they find most appealing and making "common sense." At this point, the right is clearly the only game in town, while the left is either chasing shadows or acting weird and has no alternative vision attractive to the mainstream voters.
Personally, I find it quite depressing. It seems like the forces of corporate capitalism are on the march, but nobody can offer any meaningful resistance to that juggernaut, or even claim a moral victory in the absence of a real one, a plausible vision of a better society when the tables turn around one day. All that is left is snide schadenfreude when a bunch of punks or terrorists "scores a hit" here or there, which I find utterly repulsive. I do not even know if having a hope for better society is all that important to most people anymore - probably not, as the pop-culture, consumerism, or religion fill the void - but for someone who is an atheist an has no taste for pop-culture, politics is one of the few options left. And the politics that is available does not give much hope, indeed.
Wojtek