Salient

No-one is going to apologise for the first issue of Salient. If you were hung up over the layout or the content then there are twenty-four like it coming, although you can see from this one that even we have learned from our mistakes. How does the cover grab you?

National Antiwar Conference March 13-14

Some of you are probably unfamiliar enough with the bowel movements of the left wing in this country to look at the forthcoming antiwar conference with some awe, even though it has the appearance of all of the previous ones, which have only served to make the Vietnam war the deadest issue around. It was once wisely observed that here in N.Z. only two things will ever stop at revolution - bullets, or boredom: if you are one of the antiwar wankers who grooves on a little intellectual self-abuse, then you can help make this one of the many things (Salient included) which will turn 1971 into another year when we lost the rev. without a single shot being fired.

Not that any of this should stop you going: but if you really want to stop the war, how about hitting the unions for a bit of antiwar militancy, getting some action going. God knows, there's been seven years of talk.

The Pym

The Wellington radical scene has never been much; but few of the people who read Winton Cassels' Dominion article on the PYM - "A State of Mind" (Friday March 5th) - would have recognised it for what it was - an obituary. Because while he raved on about the non-organisation which was so informal that it had no elected officers, manifesto, or aims, a meeting of the PYM the night before had elected a president, secretary, treasurer, adopted a manifesto, and introduced an annual sub of $1. The "counter-culture" had finally joined the glorious ranks of the Jaycees.

The manifesto is addressed to "all young people who are opposed to authoritarian policies (president?) and are prepared to rebel against authority" (manifesto?). The policy is just as fucked-up - full rights to all who take a full and active role in society, workers control, all the usual lefty platitudes, a people's militia.

Someone else has added their corpse to the spectrum of radical politics. But the passing deserves some note: the PYM for a long time was a completely non-theoretical body interested in action only. The reason for the action was left to individual members, most of whome were just anti-establishment. Now all this is gone—nothing caters for someone who doesn't want to get strangled in the doctrinal bitching that gives the NZ left most of its vehemence, but none of its credence. The PYM is just another party with its own line to push. The PYM is now dead - and with it has gone the last pretence at gathering people who were not infected with ideology. In short, the sane left has passed away. Yet the Anarchist Conspiracy lives.