I remain unconvinced that an inability to see great merit in this song is becausse of a lack of empathy or direct experience of injustice.It transpires that amongst those of us who don't rate this song too highly we must number,er,Bob Dylan (who dismissed it as a "ten minute knock-off")McGrath Of Harlow your flag analogy does work but "Here we go,here we go,here we go" worked just as well for the miners during the 84/85 strike.Greg must admit I was in primary education during the late Sixties/early seventies every student teacher we got thought it would be "sweet" to teach us this song,every one of them thought they were the first to have had this idea.It is possible that my own perception of this song may have been coloured by this experience.
bubblyrat,that's a very intriguing interpretation.What makes you think that? :-)