Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 4. 21st March 1973

[Letter from Pescar Cepillo]

Sirs,

Don't you have any ideas of your own? It's depressing to read so much dreary, socialist tub-thumping in the pages of "Salient".

Why this constant talk of "bourgeois ruling class oppressors", "capitalist exploiters" and so on? It has all been said a thousand times before, in a thousand different publications, and it's getting bloody boring.

Readers could be excused for thinking that the entire editorial staff habitually shuffle around in cloth caps and musty blue overalls with photos of Ramsey Macdonald and Micky Savage stuffed in the pockets.

Surely at least one person in the "Salient" office has questioned the teachings of Karl Marx by now. Or do you all still believe that a great, burning, blood-soaked revolution is suddenly going to leap out of Naenae, or Gisborne, or Christchurch, or Eketahuna?

The university would be much better if more people thought for themselves instead of slavishly following Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Hitler, Freud and other venerable dead bodies. "Salient" should encourage people to think as individuals.

There are many ways of interpreting current events, so why not toss Trotsky, Mao, Marx and the rest out the window and do your own thinking? Viewing the world through other men's spectacles distorts the vision.

Yours,

Pescar Cepillo