Okay, Battlestar Galactica is over. I have to get over that but when something you love ends, the tendency is to turn to extremes. So, welcome to the Violence issue. One editor’s way of getting over what was one of the best television drama in years and yes it was science fiction. Do you want to make something of it?
Fist raising aside. It comes as no surprise that BSG was one of the first programmes to deal with the often violent invasion and occupation of Iraq. Let’s not call it a war because let’s face the facts, we’re the bad guys and all of the world knows it.
It is wonderful that television has at last remembered that they can hold up a mirror to society and say in beautiful images of storytelling, look this is what you have done, don’t you feel like an ass that you perpetuate these cycles of violence?. Don’t believe me?
Let’s take the twentieth century, one continuous act of violence. Even the hippie movement ended up being kicked to death by the Hell’s Angels as the Rolling Stones looked on.
So, how do we break the cycle of violence? Well, first let’s not do it with guns or religion and call it peace keeping. Peace keeping is letting people come to the decision they should shake hands without a jackboot in the base of their spine.
The problem is, we love violence. Everyone runs outside during a hot summer if a really good thunder storm rolls in. Come on, I’m not the only one that does it. I’ve seen you all. It’s the release of tension. If you don’t believe me, go to any city centre on a Friday or Saturday nights and watch the boys who didn’t get the girls beat the living daylights out of anyone they can find. They could have gone home and masturbated, this would have released the tension.
And that’s why world peace can only be solved by going to another physical extreme. Pleasure.
So, my solution to violence is compulsory masturbation. Let’s face it, anyone after good sex will agree to anything. If the USA and the UK had been wanking frantically for the last five hundred years, everyone would be much more happier. There would never have been any desire for colonialism. There would be no arguments about who owns what and no one would invade anything. As now, day time talk shows would be peppered full of facts on how to please your partners or who was caught masturbating in Regent’s Park. So some things wouldn’t change but it’s a small price for world piece.
It would break the cycle in a very sticky way but who’d want fire a gun made by someone who wanks? Of course, world hunger would also be a problem. Ready meals would never have been invented. But at least and at last, we could with hand on heart say all our politicians where wankers. Anti-social members of the community would be put to work, wanking for a better tomorow, and no one would hand out an ASBO without wondering where it had been. I could look out my window and everywhere across this green land people would be smiling. Hate work? Stay at home and wank. You’re supporting a peaceful tomorrow. Hate your friend? Wank. Make peace. Not done your work? Wank. It relaxes the body, frees up the mind, cures headaches and staves of cancer. That’s a fact, it was on television. God bless television, it gave us BSG and guilt free wanking.
Sure, no one would want to imagine their parents wanking or even their friends but imagine the result. We could create rooms at work, designated wanking zones. Come on, they’ve killed smoking and taken away the only upside of smoking, the smoking room. We could have the wanking room, it could be sponsored by Kleenex or wet wipes.
Okay, you may all have just gone, that’s gross. You make think that that’s not on. It’s not savoury but I would take a nation of wankers over any army.
If wanking was compulsory, I’d bet that unwanted childbirths, anti-social kids and pissed off people would be consigned to history. So, join with me, raise your free hand to the storm overhead and wank for a better tomorrow.
Andrew Oldham's Boneyard 