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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. [Volume 39, Issue 8. April 1976]

The Dom and Mao:

page 24

The Dom and Mao:

Salient ace reporter has spent the last two weeks investigating rumours of "creeping communism" in Wgtn's No. 1 newspaper the 'Dominion'. Here he presents his report.

While the storms of intraparty strife have raged through China in the last month, a cultural revolution of a very different sort raged through the offices of the Dominion.

The Dom's editor, widely regarded as a conservative, has become a Maoist.

In what is already being described in Western Intelligence sources as the 'great lurch leftwards', Kelleher announced his change of heart in a typically low-keyed Maoist fashion.

The announcement was tucked away on page 6 of the Dominion on April 13 - right next to the horoscopes - and took the form of a news Story, ostensibly from the New Zealand Press Association, on a number of archeological finds in the People's Republic of China.

In the article, the Dominion asserts its belief in class struggle as the prime moving factor in social change, and its belief that the class struggle is manifested in all forms of art. literature, culture and the commercial world.

While most New Zealand newspapers treat such announcements fro the New China News Agency as expressions of opinion, and interpolate the raw Maoist text with 'according to 's' and 'Chinese officials claimed', to show their disbelief of the material, the Dominion has joined ranks of the student and underground press in treating such overtly political commentaries on life in China as objective fact.

Rightest Forces Attack

Now that he is a Maoist, it's obvious the Dominion's editor is going to have to tread warily.

Already there are hints that Western agents and the big international finance groups are moving against him with plans to destroy the paper's circulation.

The first attack by the rightist forces is expected to leave the Dominion without it's syndicated horoscopes and comic strips, thus halving the paper's circulation.

The second assault, which will leave the Dominion with no readers at all, involves the re-routing of the Porirua-Wellington trains around; rather than through the hills they meet on their way to town.

Once the tunnels are gone, commuters will be offered a choice between looking out the window and reading the Dominion - and it's expected most of them will opt for the scenery.

The Dominion though - and we understand it may be renamed 'The People's standard' - has a number of weeks to change the basis of its sales away from the boredom of commuters and the infantile and superstitious nature of the petit-bourgeoisie, and into the area of mass, united front struggle.

Salient understands that the right-wing and racist 'The Phantom' strip will be replaced by a new strip about an African Tribesman who fights right-deviationist forces in Shanghai, and 'Peanuts' with a cartoon about the class nature of American Kindergartens.

Bristow Proletarianised

The white-collar 'Bristow' will remain 'to expose the alientation of proletarianised intellectual labour', while the 'Wizard of Id' will be altered to expose the true role of the rising peasant classes in the struggle with their feudal overlords.

The daily horoscope column will be scrapped as a supersticious piece of nonsense, and replaced with the world's first class horoscope that will go something like this:

Ruling Class:

Expect trouble from reactionary elements you have relied on until today Beware of foreign investors bearing gifts. Watch out for Muldoon.

Middle Class:

Expect a further move downwards towards your eventual proletarianisation unless your income and realisable assets have been moving upwards for the past seven years. In that case expect the move to continue, with the certainty that you will join the big capitalists and be put up against the wall when the revolution comes. Watch out for Muldoon.

Petit Bourgeoisie:

A bad day, like all the others. Sell your shop. Watch out for Muldoon.

Proletariat:

A worse day yesterday. Don't forget to criticise revisionists in your Union leadership, and remember you are all workers, whatever the current state of play with demarcation with other Unions. Watch out for Muldoon.

Lumpen Proletariat:

Try to develop an historical role, but if you can't manage it, Meths is on sale at most hardwares, and cavalcade Sherry's been marked down in some bottle stores. Watch out for Muldoon.

This day in History' will recall only the victories of the progressive classes, or analyse their defeats. Special attention will be paid to such bad things as the day the Jap's could have shot Muldoon but missed, and good things like Vic Wilcox's birthday.

Will it last? Only time will tell if the Dominion will continue its great lurch leftwards. The odds against it are enormous, but history stands firmly beside the Dominion and its struggle against all that is reactionary.

Dare to Struggle, and dare to win....... Comrade Kelleher!