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The intergalactic musings of Senator Bob Brown

By Babette Francis - posted Monday, 16 April 2012


It is tragic that those mocking red-necks (a different less evolved species to green tree-huggers) who have been making fun of Senator Bob Brown's Third Annual Green Oration. have succeeded in driving him from office. Admittedly it was unusual for someone who has instituted an annual oration to deliver it himself, but what Senator Brown had to say was of such moment that he can be excused for taking over the platform himself.

Sadly we did not realise it would be the last time he would address us but fortunately we all - except for the aforementioned red-necks - paid deep attention, especially when he addressed us all grandiloquently as "fellow Earthians". That greeting set the tone for the stunning message he had to deliver from Outer Space.

You have to understand that all those Earthian telescopes pointed hopefully at stellar space, vainly searching for any signs of life, let alone intelligent life, amidst all the cosmic chatter and radio waves that emanate from our ever-expanding universe, have been pre-empted by our enterprising senator. He has now held intergalactic conversations or at least has reached some form of understanding with extinct civilizations on other planets in the known and unknown reaches of our universe.

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You may well ask how he could hold conversations with extinct life forms, however intelligent he and they might be. Well, it is all a matter of timing -- although extinct for some millions of years, these messages are only now reaching Senator Brown because those civilizations were situated on planets in galaxies millions of light years distant from our planet Earth.

I must admit I find it a relief to know that these alien civilizations are extinct, because I was brought up to fear aliens landing in space ships, abducting helpless Earthians, experimenting on them, impregnating some and generally playing havoc with our occupation, health and safety laws. And why were the Aliens doing this? They felt threatened by the fact we have developed The Bomb, for one thing, and they didn't much like Sigourney Weaver either as she stood between them and World Domination.

To get back to Senator Brown's musings: what were the messages he was channelling from Alpha Centauri or wherever? They all seemed to say the same thing, and being so advanced they knew exactly with whom to communicate among us far distant seven billion Earthians. Their messages were addressed to The Great Senate Leader, Parliament House, Canberra -- and that was obviously a typo for The Green Senate Leader. Some errors in transmission can be expected to occur across billions of miles and centuries of time travel.

The messages said they had despoiled their own planets and ruined their environments to the extent that they were shortly to become extinct, because their planets were becoming uninhabitable. They deplored the fact that they did not have Green-dominated Parliaments in their own worlds so that they could have heeded the policies articulated by Senator Brown and his colleagues. Their tragic messages were a last desperate warning, rather like sailors on a sinking ship sending a frantic SOS as their vessel is engulfed in a stormy sea.

Well, apart from raising the carbon tax to A$1000 per tonne, what are we Earthians to do to avoid a similar fate? I am particularly concerned about the hapless ET - the extraterrestrial who landed on Earth in 1982, according to the Steven Spielberg film. How do we break the news gently to ET that there is no point in calling home? That there is no one there? That they are all extinct? Maybe ET could be adopted by a gay, green couple as part of a diversity adoption program, so there could be a happy ending for him after all.

And somewhere in the dim recesses of Senator Brown's mind there appears to be a faint understanding that mankind is a unique creation, not just part of the animal kingdom as alleged by his erstwhile Green Senate candidate, Professor Peter Singer, who accused those who claimed mankind was special of "speciesism".

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Thus, Senator Brown began his oration by saying: "Never before has the Universe unfolded such a flower as our collective human intelligence, so far as we know." (Heavens above! Is he hinting at an Intelligent Designer?) The senator went on to describe human intelligence as "a one-and-only brilliance....on the brink of extinction".

Maybe there is hope for all of us yet, because that brilliant human intelligence can be harnessed to save us and our beautiful planet -- if only for the sake of other far-off messages that have yet to be received, and the Green orations that have yet to be delivered.

In his farewell speech Senator Brown said that on retiring, he felt he was breaking out of a cocoon. I recall that in the past some sinister Aliens were reported as arriving on Earth in what looked like harmless cocoons. Maybe Senator Brown is not really retiring but is about to be taken in a space ship by some surviving Aliens to faraway galaxies to teach them how to be Green.

I will miss Senator Brown very much - I absolutely loved his inspired suggestion of a One-World Government with one vote per person. As I am Indian by birth, I could have l.2 billion Indians voting for me should I decide to run for office. Between us and the Chinese we should have game sewn up. How green was my ally, Bob Brown....

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About the Author

Babette Francis, (BSc.Hons), mother of eight, is the National & Overseas Co-ordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc. an NGO with special consultative status with the Economic & Social Council of the UN. Mrs. Francis is the Australian representative of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer - www.abortionbreastcancer.com. She lived in India during the Partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan, a historical event that she believes was caused by the unwillingness of the Muslim leaders of that era to live in a secular democracy.

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