The background is an aerial view of dirt pens in a factory farm. The black dots are cattle. This was taken before photos of factory farms became illegal. Imagine three views: overhead from a distance, up close on the ground, and when you put it into your mouth. That’s the name of that tune.
It’s fitting that industrial agriculture has its own anthem; because its perceptions of this country are so very different from those originally expressed by the Katharine Lee Bates lyrics.
Theirs are not the traditional cattle “on the range” or in pasture; but walking bags of genetically modified meat grown in a soup of hormones, antibiotics, and not-to-be-advertised diets: to maximize the per pound profit.
If today’s consumers could see and taste a frozen TV dinner from the 50s; they would cry.
The aerial view in the background looks like an infestation . . . and maybe it is.
