I read a couple of verses of this song on FW Viola Wilkins' facebook wall, and had to chase it up. Iris Dement was just a name to me. I thought she was in a punk band and her surname was a shortened version of demented.
There is a video on youtube of Ms. Dement singing the song, but it's not a good one, and the crowd does a lot of yawping and gaping, which annoys - "whooping like out-of-work cowboys", as an old mate used to put it.

LIVING IN THE WASTELAND OF THE FREE

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
And their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
But they don't look like Jesus to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
But that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
But they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
And If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
To some third-world country 'cross the sea
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
And we call ourselves the advanced civilization
That sounds like crap to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
Who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
But if you ask them, they can tell you
The name of every crotch on MTV
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
But he's standing up for what he believes in
And that seems pretty damned American to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
Justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free