While most of what has been said above is accurate, I think there's another theme here: the deification of corporate America. Stipe is pointing out that one of the elements of fascism (besides suppressing dissent as McCarthy did) is rule by corporations.
-"Bank of America"=the savings & loan scandals during this time (the Enrons of the 80's)--most of the perpetrators weren't prosecuted due to their political connections.
-"walking on coals"=refers to a corporate training fad where employees would walk on hot coals in order to build team unity or some such bullcrap.
-"landed gentry"=the aristocracy created by the presence of inherited wealth. The Founding Fathers were unanimously against this concept, but the supply-side concepts of the Reagan administration were pushed in order to create such a system.
-"by jingo"=jingoism is hyper-nationalism. The word was coined in the buildup to WWI.
-"enemy sighted, enemy met"=euphemistic military jargon. Likely has to do with the Iran/Iraq war going on at the time and the US involvement for financial purposes (oil).
-"I always thought of you as quick"=probably a direct jab at Reagan who famously testified at the Iran-Contra hearings that he didn't remember the decisions he'd made.
@dontkillwhitey I don't remember when in 1987 this album came out, but it's true that the Iran-Contra affair started going public in late '86 (though the hearings were still going on years later). So it's not unreasonable that it might be referenced in this song, although I doubt anyone ever thought of Reagan as "quick." There wasn't a lot of surprise when it officially came out in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, with some people who had spoken to the former President personally was still in office describing symptoms strongly suggestive of moderate Alzheimer's...
@dontkillwhitey I don't remember when in 1987 this album came out, but it's true that the Iran-Contra affair started going public in late '86 (though the hearings were still going on years later). So it's not unreasonable that it might be referenced in this song, although I doubt anyone ever thought of Reagan as "quick." There wasn't a lot of surprise when it officially came out in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, with some people who had spoken to the former President personally was still in office describing symptoms strongly suggestive of moderate Alzheimer's dementia; his "I don't remember" claims during the Iran-Contra affair were also pointed out as examples of possible symptoms. (I suspect this part was largely political, since his supporters who claimed he hadn't shown any sign of the disease when he was still in office were unwilling to admit that he had been lying under oath, but these included his doctors, they also didn't want to admit that they had missed the possibility of a disease that was liable to affect severely Reagan's ability to govern, putting them in an awkward position. It seems feasible that they may have, at least, ignored symptoms in order to avoid having to test him and potentially diagnose dementia, probably due to AD. (At the time diagnostic methods didn't go much beyond neuropsych tests and often the diagnosis could only be confirmed for certain postmortem.) The situation was also complicated by the fact that there had been rumours about Reagan's condition before he publicly announced that he had — "recently," he asserted — been diagnosed with AD.)
There are certainly references on this album, considered to be R.E.M.'s first strongly politically-oriented one, to the US government's many, err, misguided actions in Latin America during the 1980s: "Welcome to the Occupation" pops to mind ("fire on the hemisphere below").
While most of what has been said above is accurate, I think there's another theme here: the deification of corporate America. Stipe is pointing out that one of the elements of fascism (besides suppressing dissent as McCarthy did) is rule by corporations. -"Bank of America"=the savings & loan scandals during this time (the Enrons of the 80's)--most of the perpetrators weren't prosecuted due to their political connections. -"walking on coals"=refers to a corporate training fad where employees would walk on hot coals in order to build team unity or some such bullcrap. -"landed gentry"=the aristocracy created by the presence of inherited wealth. The Founding Fathers were unanimously against this concept, but the supply-side concepts of the Reagan administration were pushed in order to create such a system. -"by jingo"=jingoism is hyper-nationalism. The word was coined in the buildup to WWI. -"enemy sighted, enemy met"=euphemistic military jargon. Likely has to do with the Iran/Iraq war going on at the time and the US involvement for financial purposes (oil). -"I always thought of you as quick"=probably a direct jab at Reagan who famously testified at the Iran-Contra hearings that he didn't remember the decisions he'd made.
@dontkillwhitey I don't remember when in 1987 this album came out, but it's true that the Iran-Contra affair started going public in late '86 (though the hearings were still going on years later). So it's not unreasonable that it might be referenced in this song, although I doubt anyone ever thought of Reagan as "quick." There wasn't a lot of surprise when it officially came out in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, with some people who had spoken to the former President personally was still in office describing symptoms strongly suggestive of moderate Alzheimer's...
@dontkillwhitey I don't remember when in 1987 this album came out, but it's true that the Iran-Contra affair started going public in late '86 (though the hearings were still going on years later). So it's not unreasonable that it might be referenced in this song, although I doubt anyone ever thought of Reagan as "quick." There wasn't a lot of surprise when it officially came out in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, with some people who had spoken to the former President personally was still in office describing symptoms strongly suggestive of moderate Alzheimer's dementia; his "I don't remember" claims during the Iran-Contra affair were also pointed out as examples of possible symptoms. (I suspect this part was largely political, since his supporters who claimed he hadn't shown any sign of the disease when he was still in office were unwilling to admit that he had been lying under oath, but these included his doctors, they also didn't want to admit that they had missed the possibility of a disease that was liable to affect severely Reagan's ability to govern, putting them in an awkward position. It seems feasible that they may have, at least, ignored symptoms in order to avoid having to test him and potentially diagnose dementia, probably due to AD. (At the time diagnostic methods didn't go much beyond neuropsych tests and often the diagnosis could only be confirmed for certain postmortem.) The situation was also complicated by the fact that there had been rumours about Reagan's condition before he publicly announced that he had — "recently," he asserted — been diagnosed with AD.)
There are certainly references on this album, considered to be R.E.M.'s first strongly politically-oriented one, to the US government's many, err, misguided actions in Latin America during the 1980s: "Welcome to the Occupation" pops to mind ("fire on the hemisphere below").