Afternoon Comrades.
I am starting to think to make these Monday dispatches into regular reactionary themed venting session since the fuckening on all sides is increasing exponentially once again.
As a majority of US based self-proclaimed left-wing and even communist outlets are once again struggling with even the most basic actionable concepts, froth at the mouth at the slightest media situation for exposure - again, I am shuddering even writing this - let’s have a few words about this new “working class” hero, Oliver Anthony and “his” song “Rich Men North of Richmond”. For those among you that have missed this bucket of fascist dog shit, the song is a country themed tune about “sticking it to the man” - and insanely popular, amongst well, anyone that thinks that they can profit from this engineered propaganda campaign.
And that’s where the “propaganda” actually stops. I am not going to get into the nitty gritty details behind the rise in popularity of this song, nor the technicalities in how the US based fascist - I will no longer be referring to these lunatics as anything else - movements create these short-lived but impactful cultural movements - but nevertheless wanted to share a few thoughts on the subject. Predominately because I have been seeing people and organizations that align themselves with our cause loose their collective shit over this. As Marx said: “I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.”
Backtracking a little at first, I don’t think this pop cultural event was an orchestrated event such as that bullshit “try that in a small town” tune - and despite the visceral endorsement of the US fascist movement, both in their media and government, I sincerely doubt that they could have dreamt this one up, but it is all the more clear why that entire circus with their vast inter-connected reach and wealth jumped at this. Not only does the video of the song sell and portray their totally unrealistic yet hugely romanticized version of “the real America” - again, laughing my ass off just writing this - feel free to listen to Gil Scot Heron what he rightly said about all that - but more importantly, once you get past the first few lines of fuck the man and their government, the real intent of this garbage comes out.
“I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day,” Anthony begins. “Overtime hours for [baloney] pay.” So far, he’s nailed the problems of the working class man and woman in America. So who’s to blame, in the singer’s worldview? The government — these are his rich men north of Richmond. The swamp. He never makes it up I-95 as far as Wall Street, home of the super rich who actually fixed Anthony’s starvation wages. He’s not really thinking about who keeps worker pay so low, but instead he fixates on who’s getting the tax dollars on those puny wages. There were welfare queens in 1979; in 2023, welfare schlubs.
“Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds,” he sings, “Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds.” - the biggest fucking dogwhistle as far as I am concerned but there’s also an allusion to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal — fair enough, although the biggest whoops will surely come from the QAnon crowd. There’s a powerful line about so-called deaths of despair — “Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground” — but there’s no condemnation of the oxycontin-soaked Sacklers or Big Pharma. Nope, just the Fudge Rounds Lady. Like most white, working-class brawlers here in the West, Anthony has been conditioned and trained to only punch down. That in itself is where any and all appreciation from our end for this nonsense had to end - but popularity in the heart of the capitalist hell hole that is the west is a valuable currency and apparently to valuable to ignore among some of the US based communists groups I am aware of.
It doesn’t take much to understand what this song and its hugely amplified success is all about - it sells a version of the past that never existed to disenfranchised people by people that took everything away from us and now point a finger at the weakest in our world to divert anger away from their theft and greed. A playbook that is as old as greed itself and perfected by the US and Euro Fascist from the 1920s onwards. In any case, the song itself is fucking garbage and so is its message, and I like country, just the kind that sings about union strikes and setting the boss’ house on fire.
We never punch down. We don’t support this nonsense and have to call those out that do, especially if they proclaim allegiance with our cause. I firmly believe in warning shots and second chances, fuck knows I have needed them in my time, but be aware of this, it is what you do that determines everything - and supporting this garbage in the hope of “pushing” this shit “left” makes you sound like those pr campaigns that wanted to push the OG fascist Biden left.
As always, be informed, act accordingly, don’t be entertained.
Yours,
V.
Thanks for this post. Truly one of the most deeply moving and terrifying pieces of propaganda to come out of the right in a very long time. Fighting fascism has never felt more important, and you gotta name the enemy to fight them.
I’ve read some articles about this song from more standard left leaning “progressive” news sites that called this song out for what it is better than those Communists you shared above. That shit is baffling to me. You’d think all the red flags would’ve gone up as soon as you got to that fudge rounds line, but apparently not, and as you said, for clicks and all that. So disappointing.