Second Coming?

They had just finished watching the OJ Simpson-like, frenzied media coverage of Trump returning to Florida, post indictment hearings in New York.

'You know Democracy is teetering on the edge when magalomaniacs, many who claim to be religiously inspired, turn out en masse to protest the prosecution of their Porn Again insurrection inspiring presidential hopeful,’ said Johno in full rant mode.

'Surely he can’t become President again,’ said Janno despairingly.

'As ex-Prime Minister Keating once famously quipped, A soufflé doesn’t rise twice,’ said Johno hopefully, but actually fearing the worst. ‘Unfortunately, the current economic situation is not helping Biden’s reelection chances.’

Alphy had often observed that one of the key areas where the Saps demonstrated how primitive they were, was in their management of financial and monetary affairs. They were now experiencing yet another resurgence in inflation, and the only tool they had to deal with it was increasing interest rates via their Reserve Banks. This was such a coarse tool that the danger was always that they would over-correct in one direction or the other. Too little an increase would result in inflation becoming even worse, or alternatively increasing them too much and causing a recession.

This was combined with the Sap consumers and investors economic behaviour, which generally oscillated wildly between fear and greed. (They were currently in moderate fear mode following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US).

The end result was an ongoing succession of cyclical boom and bust economies, with very relatively few periods of stability.

On AC, eons ago, they had implemented Artificial Intelligence (AI) to successfully manage their economic infrastructure. Alphy had observed the Saps had unfortunately implemented their own form of AI – Artificially Intelligent.

On his last report to AC, Alphy even made a joke about it. ‘What do you call Saps who profess to have great knowledge and skills in monetary and economic theoy, and consistently make predictions about the future and consistently get it wrong?’ ‘Charlatans,’ responded the Centaurian. ‘No – Economists’ replied Alphy.

’Well, the decimation of the Liberal Party vote continues,’ said Janno, interrupting Alphy’s train of thought. ‘Isn’t it amazing? For the first time in a hundred years in Australia, the opposition has lost a seat in a Federal by-election to the incumbent government. In Australia’s second most populous city, Melbourne, the Liberal Party now only have 2 of 22 seats.

'They have lost the SPEC’s’ said Johno. ‘The Socially Progressive Economically Conservative voters; the moderates have defected from the Libs, and voted for the Teals. In a socially progressive state such as Victoria, the Libs, under the influence of the Conservative and Religious factions, are wasting energy arguing fringe issues such as the rights of Transgenders.’

'Incidentally Alphy,’ he asked with a mischievous smile, ‘what do you identify as?’

‘I’m gender-fluid’ said Alphy, surprising himself with the frank admission. This indeed was correct. Back on AC, for Centaurians, gender fluidity throughout your life was the norm for everyone, depending on their mood and predilection at the time.

'Oh very witty and politically correct,’ said Johno, ‘I must remember to use that with our Carlton cognoscenti.’

‘Speaking of which, what do you think of the Voice, Johno?’ enquired Janno.

‘I loathe so-called Reality TV, so I don’t care who is winning or losing, they are all manipulated and contrived to exploit conflict and controversy,’ he replied.

‘I think she means the proposed Referendum change to incorporate a Voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders into the Constitution,’ said Alphy, somewhat enjoying the opportunity to correct Johno.

‘Well, the Libs are currently employing the same strategy,’ replied Johno, ‘which they successfully used to defeat a change to a Republic. Under the guise of critiquing the model, not the concept, thereby covertly looking to defeat the Yes case, by instigating internal division and disagreement.

'So, Alphy, what do you think of the Voice?’

'In a matter of just a few thousand years, the current dominant cultures have brought the planet to a situation where it faces a number of existential threats, including: irreversible climate change and nuclear annihilation. So, I would have thought that a culture that survived 65,000 years, might be a Voice that Australians thought worth listening to and learning from, in a formal sense, given there is no obligation to act but just listen.’

It made Alphy reflect on how long it might be before the Guardians on AC finally gave up on the Saps and terminated their ‘learning’ mission to Earth, and recalled him.

'Unfortunately, I think the campaign of division and disagreement is starting to have an adverse impact,’ said Janno.

'Yes – it’s Aboriginal laryngitis,’ said Johno, ‘they’re gradually losing their Voice.’

©️2023 Cartoon: Richard Mitchell Writing: Robert Stygall