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Keith Porteous's avatar

I think you are nailing it in your analysis David. And I love the idea of the folk tradition of appropriative alterations to it. Perhaps I am being too generous, but I see the “punching down” bits slightly differently, from a leftist critique perspective. What I project onto its meaning is that an entirely corrupt system creates food and other addicts, and people so depressed and full of despair that the only way to survive is to reach for what measly handouts that same cruel and crushing system will afford them. We see it everywhere, in the big box stores and the supermarkets. Obese people with blank faces, filling their carts with corn syrup sodas, processed salted foods, and sugar fats. They know it’s not good for them, while they are slowly killing themselves. They don’t have sufficient spirit to care anymore. From his written response to the song going viral (I hope you’ve seen it), Anthony describes the thousands of people he has met through his shitty pay job over the last several years, and it’s filled with those with these addiction and mental health problems, just as he describes his own drinking to drown his mental illness. Respect to you from Denman Island, B.C.

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Erica Etelson's avatar

Amen! What a refreshing truly Left take!

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