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It’s wild that people are so mad about the fudge rounds line. Poor people are often forced into situations where they eat unhealthy foods. Why should food aid programs help fund American obesity rather than tackle it? Is that not the same as declaring tomatoes a vegetable so we can keep serving pizza to to schoolkids?
It doesn't help fund obesity, it helps feed people.
People who live in a food desert and can only access bad food.
You don't ask the "keep people from starvation" fund to also be the "fix systemic class based wage structures" fund
Oddly I'm not bothered by that line so much. I'm more disappointed with the title and the chorus. Richmond, being the capital of Virginia was a border state of the Civil War. Yes technically Washington DC is very much north of Richmond, but I think the song resonates more with a certain crowd due to the former reason vs the latter.
The song could have been better IMO if it targeted LOCAL governments by state, instead of trying to blame Rich Men North of Richmond. As if Rich Men South of Richmond wasn't a thing...
Also the line about “I wish they’d care more about miners than minors” is a right wing, qanon reference to Epstein’s victims. Basically saying that he wishes they’d protect coal country jobs over protecting kids from being sex trafficked.
on NPR
In other songs he’s basically flaking for the qanon nutters.
I heard that line as "hey rich people stop fucking kids" as Epstein & the other networks are constantly connected to right wingers
“Minors on an island” is a qanon reference to Epstein and sex trafficking, as part of the satanic cabal that conspired to… whatever… trump.
In other songs, he’s referencing other things- all of them code phrases used by qanon to talk about their whackadoodle theories without tripping algos to squash the disinformation.
It’s entirely possible that he doesn’t understand that- but it’s also entirely possible I’m a sentient turnip speaking to you from the future.
Further the way the song went viral is… not an accident. Somebody… made it go viral, gaming algos in a way to land it on billboard’s top songs list. Something is not what it seems. It might be that he’s totally just freaking clueless- but I really really doubt it.
This is quite a cynical take.
I assumed he was calling out pedophiles.
Also it seems like he came out against the Republican take on his line about welfare recipients. Which seems like it would go against the idea of him being some qanon deep cover plant.
His audience OTOH is maybe a different story.
I’m not being cynical at all. I’m just not twisting his words: that’s the exact quote of verse two’s start.
He’s not calling out pedos. He’s calling government out for “caring more” about epstein’s child sec trafficking than about coal miners. And let’s be honest- most of the economic woes of coal country are from clinging to an industry that’s been dying for the last 2 decades.
Further, the line “minors on an island” is a qanon reference. He makes other wanton references in other songs. Enough to the extent that it is difficult to not assume he’s qanon. Most people would have just directly called out Epstein, right?
Yes qanonists tried to spin the actual right winger Epstein's & the other group's sex trafficking, child sexual abuse etc to be a progressive conspiracy or something.
Until Ron Watkins became known
But yes it's hard to know which the singer meant
i’m not buying it. Sure he could be a confederate apologist but if you are writing a song about some rich old dudes in DC screwing the rest of us over its some hard rhymes. When I heard the song he pronounced the word “rich men” and “richmond” nearly identically. I was like what does “rich men north of rich men” mean, then later I heard “richmond north of richmond”
Looking at the lyrics he was complaining that we have people in the streets with no food to eat while there are obese people getting fat on welfare. Sounds like he thinks government is incompetent.
I saw a stat years ago that if we took all the money we spent each year on welfare and just gave the people those programs were trying to help straight cash we would have 5x the amount needed to push them all over the poverty line.
*Something, something can't give money to poor people. Something, something, give money to rich people. *
The bullshit argument that is all about hating and punishing poor people. With nice extra boot lick the rich.
Yeah I heard that argument from the “right” and “left” yeah people would gamble all their money away then what.
Its basic income, if you want more go produce something. But we should treat people like adults and stop treating them like children.
Sure but I doubt whoever wrote this aong actually intended for the listener to have a reasonable takeaway.
I don't think Virginia was technically a border state in the civil war? MD. WV, and KY were southern states blanketing Virginia. When the government moved through Baltimore, didn't they have to point federal hill and Fort McHenry cannons at Baltimore to stop the city from rioting against the government army?
WV and MD were both Northern states in the Civil War. Virginia borders them and was the northern border of The Confederacy.
Edit to add: National Geographic article with a map showing the border. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/union-confederacy/
Deciding what food people get to eat with their food assistance money is disturbingly authoritarian.
Deciding what food people get to buy would be a bad solution to that problem anyways
Working to have healthy options be more affordable and available seems like it'd help and it doesn't seem disturbingly authoritarian
Can you imagine living in a world where American farm subsidies went to make fresh fruit and produce affordable to all income levels, but the fuel lobby had to pay top dollar if they want to distill corn into ethanol so they can dope our gasoline?
Food assistance is already regulated. No hot food, no pet food, no vitamins, no beer or wine, etc
So now add 'no sugar' to that? Look, I don't like that there's an obesity epidemic, but that's basically telling poor people they can't enjoy food they like. I don't think that is the right way to help people.
I'm not saying we should or that it is.
I was just pointing out that food assistance is already regulated based on there being some things people may enjoy or want that the government has determined they can not use that assistance to purchase.
Largely, it would seem, based on the fact that those things bad for them (alcohol), that it's not an efficient use of funds (hot food; any food intended to be eaten on premises), or it's not actually caloric in any way (vitamins).
Are people mad or is media saying people are mad and then people are agreeing with media.
I often find now that media creates a bunch of controversy on behalf of artists or comedian's were no shits were given. But like a "man on the street" bit, when confronted by a view like "the song calls people fat" then people who never gave two shits might say this things like " that's kind of shitty" so it becomes a self fulfilling thing all to drum up sales of some new edgy thing. Songs good though. Been on my playlist on repeat
I actually don't see a lot of it in the media. I do see a lot of it in terminally online and too-plugged-in places like Twitter, here, Reddit, Mastodon, and political YT.
I have no idea if the media is saying people are mad, the only place I’ve seen angry comments is here on Lemmy. Fair point though, if it’s happening elsewhere it could be media controversy.
I'm bothered by it because he's just repeating Raegan. At least try to convince me you're a populist, come on.
I think it's just as much that it's good stamps buying the junk food. The point is he's mad poor people are making a poor choice. I don't really see any sympathy for the fudge round eater.
“Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds, taxes ought not to pay for our bags of fudge rounds.”
The implication is that if to pay for your own food, be as fat as you can, but if you are poor you better act how other people think you should act.
The point seems to be less that poor people are making a poor choice, and more that his money is being used to facilitate that poor choice.
People often have the idea that “it’s my money being taxed, why shouldn’t I have a say?” And I can at least sympathize with that.
Then why isn't he complaining about the U.S. military-industrial complex rather than what a tiny percentage of the tax dollar is spent on?
It seems to me that paying for killing brown people is a lot worse than paying for fudge rounds for fat Americans.
I can't.
It is mystifying. The WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) assistance program has nutrition requirements like only healthier foods and certain brands/ingredients allowed. Yet while it's OK to dictate to pregnant women and new mothers what they are permitted to eat on an assistance program, some people feel it is not all right for the other welfare programs. Always feels like we just csnnot have nutrition requirements for food programs if men use them.
The thing is, I think with just a tiny shift in perspective, that part of the song becomes about food desserts, and how social programs are often designed to keep people in the system, not help them get out of it.