Point taken. But not so fast.

Is "I'm not going to play Sun City" closer to "Save Darfur" or to "Free Palestine"?

I don't think the US ruling class had an interest in maintaining apartheid in the mid to late 1980s.

So to me this seems like "Save Darfur".

<i>I don’t think the US ruling class had an interest in maintaining apartheid in the mid to late 1980s.

</i>

And of course that needs clarification. The US ruling class was support Unita and the Cubans were fighting on the side of the Angolan government. But I don't think this was an issue the US ruling class was going to live or die for.

So on a scale of 1 to 10 (with "Save Darfur" being a 1 and "Free Palestine" being a 10) this is maybe a 4 or a 5.

But wow, what a great protest video.

1985 may have been a time of war-fever, but it was also a time marked by massive mobilizations against the apartheid regime in SA itself, and around the world. The movement in the US became so powerful even bourgeois political figures like Ted Kennedy had to get in line for symbolic civil disobedience arrest at the SA embassy in DC.

The big national demos held in DC in the eighties all had a strong, young, militant anti-apartheid component.

Those of us involved at the time in Central America and Cuba solidarity work were thrilled by the Sun City album.

In the eighties I was an active rank-and-filer in two unions, ILGWU and ACTWU, and there were anti-apartheid caucuses in most internationals and many locals around the country. The business agents and skates dared not veto the work.

The anti-apartheid movement was a singing, dancing, joyous movement that found allies at every turn.

Comradely,

Jay Rothermel

The movement against Apartheid was a genuine Anti-Imperialist Struggle.

Nelson Mandella and the ANC were called Terrorists by the U.S. government, and funded by the Socialist Camp.

"Save Darfur" is a Zionist/Big Oil campaign to overthrow an Islamist government allied with the People's Republic of China and Zimbabwe.

By Maoist logic, the same carried out in Iran, Nelson Mandella and the Apartheid government were "two out-modeds." Nelson Mandella and the ANC were "Agents of Soviet Social Imperialism."

I don't think any Maoist groups fell into such logic, but it fits the current analysis of Iran.

On Another Note, I wish the U.S. left had as much political understanding at the people in this video:

http://calebmaupin.blogspot.com/2009/06/video-mass-rally-against-us-imperialism.html

These folks know that Kim Jong Il and Barack Obama are not "Two Out-Modeds." They realize that one represents enslavement to Imperialism, and one stands in its way.

<i>1985 may have been a time of war-fever, but it was also a time marked by massive mobilizations against the apartheid regime in SA itself, and around the world. The movement in the US became so powerful even bourgeois political figures like Ted Kennedy had to get in line for symbolic civil disobedience arrest at the SA embassy in DC.

</i>

How has the recording industry changed since 1985?

There were huge anti-war protests in early 2003, and yet when Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said she was "ashamed" of George Bush and the right wing media targeted her, you didn't hear much protest about it from, I don't know, Bono.

I know you don't have the same kind of mega stars now that you had in the 1980s and the recording industry is concentrating on recruiting younger, more pliable, more interchangable
acts.

But what allowed the Dixie Chicks to be isolated and picked off right in the middle of huge anti-war mobilizations.

<i>These folks know that Kim Jong Il and Barack Obama are not “Two Out-Modeds.” They realize that one represents enslavement to Imperialism, and one stands in its way.

</i>

Doesn't the North Korean government REQUIRE people to go to those rallies?

How can you compare that to a rally in Iran which is brutally suppressed by the government yet still goes on anyway?

Or even to an anti-war rally in the United States which is subject to petty harassment by the government (via police pens, permits, arrests of organizers, etc.)?

Wait, so that video was supposed to represent political consciousness in the form of anti-imperialism? You're kidding right?

It looks no different than a boy scouts meeting or a pledge of alligence during a high school pep rally.

But seriously, if a communists only option is to pick what's current considered communism or socialism (China/N.Korea) I'm no communist. When did hereditary god-kings and state-capitalism turn into anything close to socialist? Silly.

allegiance*