I also think there is a reference to the US civil war.

"A mutinous enemy carved a nascent country"

"Black coats by our sides
Promising salvation"

Perhaps a reference that the Union promised to free the slaves.

Just saying. But I think that this song was meant to be ambiguous.

This is another example of BR's genius ability to write and express ideas in ways no one else can. Through the song, he is describing society and the world, (exaggerating a little) then he cuts in with his thoughts on this world "I feel a strange denial" or "somethings not right, what could it be? But it is obvious as he goes on describing society and cutting in often with those lines. He describes problems in society because people are like arrows, they are very narrow. "Blackcoats by our sides Promising salvation,
Advocating dogma as tickets to hereafter, Mortals in their prime
With their desperate hands in the air.....Correct is Consensus
Everything else, nonsense" This is why he thinks something is wrong, and he is right. It ends with a cry for help because he is the only one who feels this way.(metaphor for a small population of people) And his insitant whispers (he doesn't want to get caught) are unheard. Have You seen the movie "The Island?" I don't know this song reminds me of it, you will understand if you watch it. "Lonely Insistent whispers, Dissipating in the night,
Like a lone forgotten light,
And no one is helping me,
It's a strange denial." Well Done.

Do you feel a strange denial about society, and what people just don't want to acknowledge?
This is one of BR's best examples of a song that demonstrates just how naive people can be, and how people prejudge situations ('Weighted as a murder trial').
I feel this song speaks volumes about a society ('Correct is consensus, everything else nonsense') that is more inclined to believe things that people have always assumed to be correct (read: religious teachings) and forget what anyone else says.
A great song and one I listen to often.