Unfortunately, the proletariat majority are so far gone that I am not sure redemption is possible.
Get Up, Stand - great comments, I appreciate your articulation of things, which happen to reflect, largely, my exact feelings on both Marley's words as well as my personal view of the status quo in our "Western" culture. So, there it is, in both of these lines, he's addressing arguments against a revolution of the proletariat. One should welcome persecution, because that means The End - and Christian redemption - is nigh. Thus, any attempt to better one's position is to go against God's will. This is because Revelation predicts things must get much worse before they get better - ie. There are those that would remain defeated when their leaders are murdered - or might even praise it in a strange way. The book he is referring to is The Bible, specifically Revelation. I believe that Bob is referring to Christian eschatology in the second part. In other words, in order to achieve political emancipation, the proletariat must first achieve mental emancipation. The proletariat is much stronger than the bourgeoisie, but, because of this false consciousness, the proletariat fails to realize its revolutionary potential. Well, according to (some interpretations of) Marx, the working class, or proletariat, suffers from "false consciousness." This false consciousness causes them to see capitalist expropriation as an inevitable outgrowth of material conditions, and even to identify with their oppressors in one way or another. That is, he's challenging people to think critically about their surroundings and stop taking as "natural" or "inevitable" events or situations that are products of human agency. Here Bob is engaged in what's called reification critique. "emancipate yourselves from mental slavery." General CommentI think there have been some good comments on here, but I would like to center on two lines of the song I believe to be improperly treated and, in fact, related in an interesting way.
'Cause none of them-ah can-ah stop-ah the time Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
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