"anti-Ashcroft Socialist rant" -

Not exactly. On the face of it it's a triumphalist pro-Capitalist rant. However level one irony detectors reveal that "on the face of it" isn't the whole truth, and the assumption kicks in that it's simplistic anti-capitalist rant.

However there's another layer to it, because it's done in the form of a pastiche of a style of hyped-up Sovietist bombast of a past era.

So it directs the listeners' attention to a past authoritarian regime, which masqueraded as world liberators, while at the same time it systematically betrayed all the idealism on which it was founded; and it invites us to recognise that there are essential similarities between the claims made on behalf of that regime, and those made by and on behalf of the one which is riding so high at the moment.

More subtle than it might appear to be at first glance. Naturally.

(Agreed that "Meadowlands" is a great tune. I put the link in to give a hint of the genre, because I imagine there are generations around now who haven't a clue about that kind of thing.)