Personally, I can't stand to think about Ronald Reagan and his legacy. The man was a supreme fake and it astounds me that anyone would admire anything beyond his ability to fool millions of people into thinking he was sincere and good. I don't want to read any more diaries or articles about him either.
So, lets think about someone else who was important, at least to some of us.
BOB MARLEY.
It's his birthday too, so lets focus on that instead of the rot.
Bob Marley was born in Nine Mile in St. Anne Parish, Jamaica in 1945, and died on May 11, 1981 of melanoma. He married Rita Anderson in 1966. He had 11 children.
His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life".[44] Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition.[45] He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster).[46]
Marley became famous with his band, the Wailers, which itself was full of musicians who would later become famous in their own right.
In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers". They later changed their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys", then to "The Wailing Wailers", at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to "The Wailers". By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh.[16]
Bob Marley and the Wailers spread Jamaican culture, religion, and music around the world. While the music reflected the political situation in Jamaica, its larger themes were Pan-African and called everyone around the world to rise up against oppression.
A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa.[12] In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon".
Bob Marley was also important politically back home due to his huge international stature as a musician. The content of his music also inspired people politically. Here's a video that shows a clip from a unity concert he organied with a voice over that reflects some of the political maneuvering around Marley. He was a huge figure in Jamaica, and politicans fought for his endorsement. His theme: "we gotta unite."
The world became familiar with Rastafarianism through Bob Marley's reggae music.
Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the development of reggae. Bob Marley became an ardent proponent of Rastafari, taking their music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica and onto the international music scene.
I was in high school when I was inspired by "Get Up, Stand Up." This is was in the back of my mind when I started getting politically active. We really need to keep getting up and standing up, and never give up the fight. Really.
This guy did a LOT more for me and my soul than Ronald Ray Gun!
Enjoy...
If you are familiar with the Playing for Change movement, here's a truly international version of One Love:
This is just a small taste of Bob Marley's life and music, from Wikipedia and YouTube (he wouldn't have liked the number of videos that I had to pass over due to commercials or embeds that had been disabled because of corporate greed, basically). It's an interesting, mulitifaceted story that is worth further reading.
What's your favorite Bob Marley song? Post the video if I haven't...