Alarming Position

After last week's inspiring forum on Salient, I found myself (temporarily) in the alarming position of agreement with honourable Tripe (quel horreur!) I heaved a great sigh of relief, therefore, to sec the front page of the latest issue — it has made me realise that basically I am more pissed off than ever with the propaganda dished out each week as an apology for a student newspaper. For I do not believe that even the editors' undying concern to educate the bourgeoisie (or is it proletariat?) on campus justifies the publication of such blatant and irrational worship of all that begins with China as "Norm's Damp Squib and China's Atomic Blast".

It seems just a little unreasonable to my unsophisticated brain to condemn France outright lor her part in nuclear testing and, in the same breath, to pat China on the back for her efforts to kepp up with the "big kids" in the arms race. Sorry, I keep forgetting — it's all a matter of principles. China's promised that she won't become "a superpower subjecting others to aggression, subversion, control, interference or bullying" (Heil Hitler!), and that she's developing nuclear weapons "solely for the purposes of defence and for breaking the nuclear monopoly and ultimately eliminating weapons and nuclear war." So we can all go calmly back to our frigates in the Pacific, knowing that everything is well under control in the fatherland.