WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Who tried to kill Bob Marley? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.120 Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by Ferris playing 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.520 a game of high stakes Canasta. Instead is supported by 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.480 the generous contributions of people like you. Are listeners on Patreon. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.360 Visit patreon dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:29.880 Thinking Sideways, I don't understand it, stories of things we 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:35.800 simply don't know the answer too. Hey there, everybody, and 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.640 welcome again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Steve, 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:44.080 of course, joined by Devin and Joe. Did you too 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.240 not know your name suddenly? No? We do this every 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.560 time you know it's the fake name. It throws me on. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.559 I know as all. We've got another mystery for you, 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.080 and this week we're going to talk about who tried 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.320 to assassinate Bob Marley. Yeah that you didn't know that 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.760 was a mystery, did you. Yeah. I was really kind 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.160 of surprised when I found out about it. It's pretty cool. Yeah. 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.319 Is this part of your like transformation into a Rastafarian 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.800 with your little bracelet and yell hair tie. Yeah? And 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:18.399 I'm growing my dreads you Yeah, at least I'm not 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.600 wearing that the hat with the fake dreads on it. Yeah. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.959 Oh that's the worst. Okay, well, our story is, uh, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.640 the short of it is that in nineteen seventies six 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.280 three gunmen drove onto Bob Marley's property in Jamaica and 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:39.000 open fire with automatic weapons and shot Bob. They shot 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:43.000 his wife. I believe one other person at least was shot, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.200 but nobody was killed. Yeah, it's amazing. Three guys with 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.840 with guns and everything and they didn't hit very much. No, well, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.120 it really does appear to kind of have been a 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.280 stick a gun around the corner and fire situation. There 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.360 wasn't a whole lot of aiming going on from what 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.920 I could tell. But the thing is is that we 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.720 know it happened, but we don't know who did it 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.600 or why, who ordered it, why did they do it, 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.560 who committed the act? We don't know any of that. Yeah, 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.840 it's a total unsolved mystery totally, which is convenient actually 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.760 what we talk about. We did talk about that stuff, 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.959 but you know why. Yeah, I did a little check 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.800 and it turns out that murder is the national past 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.200 dive in Jamaica, and so that well, yeah, at that 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.240 time it was a pretty rough and tumble place and 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.040 we're going to get into some of that though. We 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.000 have had our internal discussions about this and find it 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.800 a little difficult to believe. There are some folks who 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.440 don't really know who Bob is. Probably tell those people 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.480 who Bob Marley was. Okay, Bob Marley was. He was 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.720 a Jamaican singer. He was, he was, you know, he's 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.560 he would call him a singer, songwriter, guitarists, band leader, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.520 social activist. I mean he did. He kind of fell 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.959 into every one of those categories. And uh he started 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.840 in nineteen sixty three performing with the band the Whalers. 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.880 There's quite a few famous and talented people that were 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.560 in the band that started out. So you may have 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:18.600 heard of Bunny Whaler or Peter Tosh. Not not Tosha 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:23.000 Tosha point now no, no, definitely not that guy. Definitely 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.960 another Just to make it very clear, very clear. But 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:31.240 they were all very, very talented musicians and they wanted 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:37.880 to to reform and they started making records. Reggae wasn't 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.200 a musical style at the time. It developed over time. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.440 So the first couple of records that they put out, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.320 they were more singles and or B sides is what 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.400 it would have been. But it was they slowly developed 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.760 and figured out who they were. But if you haven't 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.560 listened to reggae before, pauses right now. But I mean really, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.960 go ahead and pause. No, you have to wait until 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.760 you tell you what to do. Pause us. You need 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.360 to go listen to some reggae. Bob Marley and the 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.880 Whaler's Jimmy Cliff is not a good one. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.720 they'll do good things for your stress level, really reducing. Yeah, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.039 only the music, none of the other things that go within. 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:23.400 Definitely not. Okay, So you can pause it now. Okay, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:30.479 so now we're back. Thanks for pausing. Y'all are calm now? Goods. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.680 That's that's part of that's part of the whole rig. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:35.800 that's the lore, and it is part of it. It's 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.320 part of it. It's part of it. Borland argon, it's legal. Yeah. Sure. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:41.839 So the other thing I was going to mention is 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.360 that some people might have heard of this particular story 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.880 that we're gonna talk about today, and that's because there's 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.880 a book that's really popular right now. It's called A 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.400 Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. What a 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.560 booker man or that that's fictional, correct? It is totally fictional, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.640 with a lot of there's there's truth sprinkled throughout the 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.240 whole thing. But to the point that I'm making is 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.520 that it is a fictional accounting. So I want people 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.800 to understand that. So if you've read it, be aware 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:13.880 of that, because some of the stuff we're gonna talk 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.920 about may not jibe with what you think you've learned. 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.520 Because it was a book told from the perspective of 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.680 like seventy five different characters. Well, that gets complicated. Yeah, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.279 it's a big freaking book. It's taking me a long 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.360 time to read. But anyway, back to Bob. So, he 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:35.839 was born in uh Nesta Robert Marley in a village 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.960 known as nine Mile, which is in the St. Anne Parish. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.359 His parents were kind of a it was kind of 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:47.640 an odd situation. His father was white, his mother was black. 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:56.040 His mother was eighteen, his father was sixty. Yeah, and um, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:01.680 his father's name was his mother's name was Sidela. His 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:07.440 father was Norvil, and evidently Norvill had several children. This way, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.880 he would meet a younger woman and then he would 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.480 move on. The moving on part is important to understand 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.640 because he really wasn't involved in Bob Marley's life at all, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:21.599 and I think he was around a couple of times 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.200 and that was it, but he passed away when Bob 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.719 was ten. When Bob was twelve, he and his mother 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.160 moved to Kingston. They went to an area of Kingston 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.320 known as Trench Town. That sounds nice. Yeah, it was 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:42.279 a let's just be honest, it was a slum. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.680 I'm pretty positive it is. But it's there that Bob 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:51.240 Marley would meet Bunny Whaler and Peter Tosh and eventually 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.080 they would go on to form the Whalers. When they 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.920 were recording together and doing reggae, I think they put 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:02.640 out about a dozen records Ballpark between nineteen seventy I 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.360 think it was seventy or seventy three is when their 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.160 first one came out, And that was up until Bob's 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.400 death in so they put out a lot of records 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.080 in that time. But he they made it. Like I said, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.040 they made a whole bunch of others. Prior to that, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.640 they were just a completely different musical style because they 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.000 were trying to figure out what their style was. Yeah, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.680 totally exactly. You might You might really know Barb Marley 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.440 best for his cover that famous Eric Clapton song about 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:31.920 the shaff yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's a pretty famous one. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:36.800 It's really famous. What was it, Soldier on the radio? 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.320 Just yeah, another good one. See, there's a whole bunch 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.280 of them everybody. Once you start doing is you start 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.560 realizing how many of them you know, and there's a 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.320 ton of them. Yeah. So we we've talked about Bob, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.240 we should probably talk about what was going on in 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.920 Jamaica at the time because it was kind of a 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.840 bad situation. Thanks for going to Hell on a handbasketuse Yeah, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.640 it really were. So the history of jim Aca is 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.440 pretty much four hundred plus years of oppression because the 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:10.040 Spanish came in none other than Christopher Columbus quote unquote 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.120 discovered Jamaica and the Spaniards were there for about hundred 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:19.200 years and then they lost using air quotes here, lost 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.360 the island to the British and it became a British 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.720 isle for another ballpark three hundred years. Right. So, really, 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.080 what we're saying is that it's the kind of typical 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.160 history of a lot of countries in that like Europeans 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.760 came in and kind of screwed things up. Yep, yep. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:42.400 Slavery was a total thing. Plantations yep, and it wasn't 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:48.360 until you know, the the British ended slavery in eighty three, 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.560 so they were thirty years ahead of us on that front. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.400 But then Jamaica wouldn't actually get its freedom from Britain 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:01.000 or no longer be under British rule until nineteen that's 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.600 when it became it got its full independence. And actually 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:09.040 they're not independent, Uh they're what are they still are 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.400 considered British Commonwealth? Is that what thanks on there? And 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.839 they're uh legally at least there there uh their laws 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.440 at the highest level there that's Supreme Court and in 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.720 a sense is actually the Privy Council back in England. Yeah. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.560 So if you're say, sentenced to death for a crime 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:30.480 in Jamaica, and it goes through whatever appeals happened in Jamaica, 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.520 and then the last review is done by the Privy 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.920 Council back in London, which may or may not set 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.360 aside your death sentence. I didn't know that. Yeah crazy, Yeah, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.720 that's crazy. So anyway, like I said, it was two 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.240 when the country got its independence, and it became very 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.719 apparent quite quickly that there was a huge inequality problem. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.760 Not surprisingly, no, no, and and it was. It's it's 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.800 still there in terms of there's a lot of issues, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.439 and it's inequality amongst the people, distrust of their leaders. 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:08.160 There's you know, bribery going on, there's all kinds of collusion, 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.040 lots of things like that. So it's a it's a 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.360 problem because if you don't have a solid government, then 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.280 nobody's gonna trust it, and then everybody wants their piece 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.680 of the pie. Yeah, it's it's actually kind of a 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.360 typical thing, like like kind of like ward politics here 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.479 in America way back in the day, where you know, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.160 the one party had as supporters who you know, who 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.440 are all you know, for the most part, armed and violent, 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.160 and the other party had their supporters and there's a 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.840 lot of patron age, and so every every election is 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.000 a huge deal because so much, so much is writing 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.600 on it because property rights are not particularly respected in 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.360 countries like this. You know, that means you could lose 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.760 everything with the wrong guy wins the election. So a 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.800 lot of people, you know, that's why there's so much 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.080 tension in countries like this over elections. Well, and the 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:58.120 elections were always a huge source of tension once they 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.720 had started having them, once they started having their own 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.240 and the problem was, of course, is that outside interests 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:10.360 immediately started trying to exert their force. I will say 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.640 when take advantage, Yeah, take advantage of the situation, makes 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.000 some money off of it, take advantage of their industry 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.800 and their labor um, and at the same time try 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.600 and influence their politics so that it's what they want. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.000 And I when I say they am very specifically saying 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:32.400 the US and communist Russia, because those were the two 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.079 forces that were really pushing on it at that time 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.040 to a certain extent. Also, yeah, well I was gonna say, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.880 that's exactly it as Cuba is what like ninety miles away, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.480 So to the to the Americans, this is a terrible 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:50.199 thing to suddenly have another communist nation ninety miles away 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.800 that's still super close to us, and you know, so 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.040 of course everybody's just kind of having a full blown 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.319 panic attack over it. And so that's why everybody goes 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.800 in there, and a lot of hinky things that are 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.160 still in effect today because of the things that countries 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.680 did are there. So I mean there's well, there's the 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:18.400 CIA did a lot of supposedly of course, they went 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.960 in and they siphoned drugs into the country, they dumped 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.440 guns into the country and created these gangs to try 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.959 and be their foot soldiers on the ground. And then 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.080 of course once they were done with them, they left, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:38.000 But the gangs don't just you know, miraculously disappear, so 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.680 then they create a criminal organization that has stayed there. 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.800 Now you hear it said that the CIA did all this. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.760 Whether that's true or not, I don't know, to be honest. Actually, yeah, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.600 they're actually there isn't really any evidence that it is true. 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.040 And I know that one of the characters we're gonna 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.520 be talking about as the prime minister in when the 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.240 shooting happened, it was Michael Manly minister. He said that 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.960 the CIA had nothing to do with the destabilization of 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:10.120 the country. That's what he said. And apparently that accusation 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.199 originated with Cuba. They made they actually first leveled in 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.040 that the CIA was there. They said that the CIA 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.880 and the JAILP, which is one of the parties which 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.000 we're about to go into, the political party, they said 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.200 that they were working in league together to destabilize the 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.520 country and to and to take the government away from 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.559 the p n P, which is the other party. And 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.240 not yet that that was the accusation that Cuba made 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:38.200 in and it's still with us today. But I read 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.560 an article by a Jamaican journalist whose name was Ken Chaplin, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.480 and he recounts this whole history of the Cubans raising 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.440 that issue and uh and he said at the time 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.880 and even today he really not. So no reason to 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.280 believe it because there's no evidence in number two, the Cubans, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.480 you know, okay, and drugs and money find their way 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.600 to lands, yeah, quite easily. It doesn't have to be 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.839 the work of the ciall especially islands that are as 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.320 close to South America or you know, you are so 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.600 well placed in between South America and North America for 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.920 instance right way stations, and plus actually Jamaica was a 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.680 great way station put a cocaine trade into Britain. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.040 because coke. You can get more for your pound for 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.080 pound for your coke in Britain than you can in 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:33.480 other European countries or or America talking about pound or 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:42.760 the note, so kilogram for pound, yes, yea. So there's 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.960 there's something to keep in mind when we're talking about this. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:48.960 This is why some of our listeners have been calling 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.160 for Joe to start his own second podcast to just 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:57.840 explain the world. Somebody been doing that. Yeah, okay, well 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.760 let's come down that you've you've whetted everybody's appetite. Let's 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.200 talk about the political parties that we've got. So the 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.400 first one is going to be the People's National Party, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.800 which is the p MP, and then there's the Jamaican 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.640 Labor Party which is the j LP. So the j 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:19.080 l P was in power, they won the first election 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.800 after the Brits left. They controlled the political system. They 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:30.440 were in power for ten years and they yeah it is, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:36.120 but then they lost control in ninety two when the 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.680 p MP took the seat. So now you've you've got 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.400 a party that's been in trench for ten years. So 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.880 they definitely want to get their their power back. And 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.360 there's a there's a lot of things that happened, and 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.120 again this isn't a nation where things are sometimes kind 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.760 of fast and loose. There was some of those political 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.360 games that you hear about, you know, from gun pointed 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.520 at you version of who you're going to vote for, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:08.800 to straight up ballot fraud stuffing boxes. I mean, this 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.800 stuff happened and it was really it was a crappy 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:16.320 situation that we usually get voting a gunpoint. You're in America, 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.320 but still plenty of fraud that goes here there is. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.800 So Bob Marley plays into this part in an odd 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.960 sort of way because he became more and more popular, 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.120 and more and more people paid attention to what Bob 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.080 Marley said than what the politicians said, so he was 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.680 a pretty important figure that way. He had also he 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:44.840 and his wife in nineteen seventy two had backed Michael 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:50.960 Manley of the PMP when they won. Believed because Bob 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.680 Marley said the PMP and Michael Manley are the ones 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.280 to do it, everybody voted for them. Now we move 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.760 up to the next election, which is nineteen seventy six, 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.119 except by this point Bob Marley is not such a 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.640 big fan of Manly and wasn't willing to endorse him 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.800 or his party kind of tried to stay neutral. He 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.880 really did his Uh so, Bob Marley, I didn't get 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.000 to go to it, but you can go to his 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.360 estate and I think it's on fifty six Hope Road 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.560 as the address, and he evidently made it kind of 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.680 a neutral ground and everybody could come. And so he 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.080 was in this weird in between because people came and 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.919 talked to him from both sides, and so he didn't 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.480 really want to uh to foul that up by endorsing 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.439 one side for the other. Plus for whatever reasons, you know, 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.560 whether he you know, its personal beliefs or what, he 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.080 didn't want to get on board with anybody. It probably 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.199 should point out to I did a little research and 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.360 you probably have to. But in the time between when 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.440 the Brits left and this election, the hour base for 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.040 most of the politicians was basically urban gangs, sneak gangs, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.920 and they were called garrisons, and they controlled actually controlled 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:11.119 areas of Kingston and the city was divided up, Yeah, exactly. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.920 And that the politicians were dependent upon the garrisons or 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.360 the gangs. Then that the bosses, who were called don's 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.600 to basically raise votes for them and in return, of course, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.359 they got lots of favors and lots of looking the 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.560 other way and that kind of thing, which is why 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.440 the situation becomes so volatile and so dangerous because these 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.400 guys were armed to the teeth, all of them. Yeah, absolutely, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.400 And that's one of the reasons that murder has become 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.120 the national pastime in Jamaica. It is because of this. Well, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.680 did did either of you guys ever watch any of 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.320 the footage from that time and see the fighting? It was? 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.040 It's a it's amazing in a I can't believe this 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.600 is real way, because there's a guy literally running behind 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.000 a car and shooting a handgun and just running the 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.280 other direction and firing behind him. It's just like, are 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:02.359 you kidding me? Well straight, it's in the middle of 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.440 a city. It's amazing to me. But that's that's what 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.760 was going on. Yeah, I think I just peaked the 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:15.560 murder rate. Annual murder rate was like sixty eight hundred thousand. Yeah, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.760 it was huge. I found it an interesting fact to 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.040 it the countries in the world with the highest murder rate, 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.800 fifteen of those countries are Caribbean countries. Really, yeah, we're 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.120 talking like not just islands, of course, we're talking about 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.600 also things like in the Guatemala and Honduras and all that. 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.080 But yeah, yeah, well, I do you know. One of 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.240 the things that I was reading about was the fact 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.639 that crime one of the problems for the Jamaicans is 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.520 they can't solve crimes because they don't have enough space 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.640 in the morgue. In other words, they're so busy processing 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.480 bodies that they don't have time to do a thorough examination, 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.760 to collect evidence to then turn over to the cops 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.679 to then hunt somebody down. So when you're in that situation, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.760 you know, you can blow somebody away and the chances 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.640 of getting caught are pretty small at that boy. Yeah. Plus, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.960 actually most of their more actually don't have refrigeration, so 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:15.800 by the time they get around to doing an autopsy, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.240 if they do, it's pretty well deteriorated. Yeah. Plus, apparently 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.760 a lot of pathologists are actually afraid to do autopsies 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.680 for obvious reasons. Yeah. Yeah, no, I can I can 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.399 see that. If you want to go kill somebody, I 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.040 guess that's the place to go. We've steered way off 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.480 a topic here. It's kind of on topic. It's kind 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.560 of on topic. Um okay, so let me let me 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.439 do this. We're gonna kind of finish up with some 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.919 of this in terms of the political stuff. So I 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.760 talked about that there was that whole supposed thing of 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:48.280 the c i A being in the country. Well, Michael 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.679 o'manley was running against the guy named Edward Sega or 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:59.560 I've also I heard it pronounced sega. Yeah. But the 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.640 thing is is that the Jamaicans loved word play, and 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.720 so they changed his name because it's spelled s e 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.320 A g A two c I A g a. So 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.359 it was still Siga, but they were changing the way 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.040 it was spelled because they believed that he was in 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:23.080 bed with and well, you know, the may have mucked 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.080 around in their election a little bit, because it's not 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.879 he didn't. Yeah, so I said that that they didn't 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.719 destabilize the country. I don't think they imported drugs, you know, 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:34.879 but the fact that they might have mucked around a 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.200 little bit and strong some cash here and there. Because 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.080 obviously the Prime Minister Manly was cozy enough to Cuba. 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:43.240 Well that's exactly it is that he had gone to 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.320 Cuba to you know, to to kind of learn about 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.359 his neighbors, and I think in a way of his 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:57.080 neighbor's highly successful prom Yeah, basically like you know, importing poverty, 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.280 agreeing poverty, losing things and breaking things. So yeah, so yeah, no, 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:03.760 they he he went over there and that didn't go 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.040 so well. According to the Americans. They didn't like that. Um, 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.040 so that's something to keep in mind now, we're gonna 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.359 go ahead, and I haven't given the exact date. Okay, 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:17.560 the date that we're gonna be looking at is we're 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:19.520 gonna be dealing with the first week of December of 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:24.280 nineteen seventy six. On the fifth of December, Bob Marley 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.240 was scheduled to do a free concert for the Jamaicans 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.119 for anybody who wanted to come. It was going to 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.760 be called Smile Jamaica. And I was watching a really 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.840 interesting documentary and I guess the way that he came 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.919 up with the idea is that he had done a 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.479 show with Stevie Wonder and Steve and Jamaica, and Stevie 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.639 Wonder had gone ahead and taken I don't know, like 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.600 a huge percentage maybe half of his profits from that, 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.880 and had donated it locally. And then definitely Bob Marley went, 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:55.480 you know, that's a good idea, and we need to 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.480 get back to the people. So this all sounds great, 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.639 And of course then all the politicians come to him 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:06.480 and say, hey, let's go brand this, Let's make this 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.280 a j LP, let's make this a PMP thing, and 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.200 he's saying, no, I don't want to do that, except 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:17.639 he got a little outmaneuvered because he had to he 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:20.920 had to get official okay to do it from the government. 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:27.200 So it was then um it was branded as being 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:30.840 Bob Marley and the Whalers, and it was in conjunction 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:36.040 with the Jamaican government's Cultural Office, which then means which 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:40.160 party's in power. That means that it's a p MP event. 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:44.840 So he got kind of out maneuvered there. The other 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:49.160 thing that really got him is that the elections were 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:54.520 not yet officially scheduled, and Michael manily went ahead and 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:59.080 moved the election to about a week after the concert. 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:01.440 I thought it moved it to the day of the concert. 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:05.879 No U, I you I know which article you were 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:08.679 reading to get that impression, because I had the same impression. 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:11.399 And then when I started reading some other stuff and 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.840 started doing some different research, it appears that it wasn't 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:18.679 actually on the same day, which you know. But the 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:20.960 point is it got moved. He got put in there, 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:26.520 and everybody who wasn't a member of the Whalers went, oh, 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:30.960 I see who's supporting this? Okay? I got it? Yeah, 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:33.399