This is relevant to climate politics.
My experience with this song that it is good tune, well sung, well played, but fairly bland – that’s my taste no big deal, people are free to disagree.
The lyrical plus of the song is that it acknowledges some of the problems faced by working people in the US and elsewhere, in modern captialism
“Working all day Overtime hours For bullshit pay”
A real and serious problem. It locates the problem with
“These rich men north of Richmond” who “Just wanna have total control”
All true, and the Republican party elite is all about supporting those rich men and having total control, but this identification is not made, and the problem is said to be tax….. ???
Surely the problem is that ordinary people don’t get paid enough? And the rich don’t pay enough tax as a percentage of their income to fund government and its services for ordinary folks? This largely occurs because of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, and the destruction of unions, which has transferred a lot of the tax burden to you, along with the bullshit pay. Bullshit pay is a political decision not to share the USA’s riches more equitably.
“I wish politicians Would look out for miners”. Yes me too. Politicians look out for mining companies a lot, as mining and fossil fuel companies are wealthy and powerful, but mining companies think of the people who work on the mines as a cost center which needs to be cheapened, used and discarded when the mine is no longer ‘economic’, often with their health wrecked. That system needs change, but no suggestion of that
“Lord, we got folks in the street Ain’t got nothin’ to eat” True, partly because there are no jobs as rich men have exported them elswhere and fought politically to decrease the share of wealth the workers get, and workers can’t fight back as they have no organisation or unions, and social security has been taken from them (as part of the defunding services for enable tax cuts for the wealthy) so its hard keep alive in this engineered misfortune.
“And the obese milkin’ welfare” Ok so let’s attack fat people, and people who are injured and sick, or long term unemployed, because they are the problem. Not the rich men outside Richmond but people who depend on welfare. A good Republican move there, but not exactly useful to people in Richmond, especially those who are poor and without hope.
“Young men are putting themselves Six feet in the ground’ Cause all this damn country does Is keep on kicking them down”. Yep, but not because of fat people, but because there are no jobs, no meaning, no future, in the form of capitalism we have nowadays. Some of that is because drugs are criminalised, and young people and their parents can’t afford help for addictions, even if there was any, and would prefer to avoid jail. Young men, and others, are abandoned by the Republican rich people outside Richmond, who don’t give a shit about the people of Richmond as long as they (the rich people) are making money.
Similar stuff happens with the politics of climate change. We have climate change because of the Rich Men using pollution and poisoning to make a profit, while inflicting heat and weather catastophies on those who are abandoned and working for bullshit pay, and they are encouraging ordinary people to attack gays, transpeople, fat people and people on welfare, instead of the cause of the problem
“I’ve been selling my soul Working all day Overtime hours For bullshit pay” Yep that is what happened since Reagan boosted neoliberalism and corporate power. It is Republican policy, usually hidden under the name of free markets. Democrats are not uninvolved in this either. Ordinary people need to take their own power, not attack other ordinary people. and not support the party of business and rich elites.
The main reason this song seems to have been taken up by the right is, because the problem it states is real, but the solutions it proposes leave the rich safe, with more tax cuts for them, and less support for working people, plus it encourages attacks by some working people on others who are even less fortunate than themselves. Divide and Rule. The song seems to be saying, let’s partially blame the Rich Men north of Richmond but give them a tax cut, and ignore them, certainly not take the fight to them.
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