Cleaver Greene's Speech

Nuclear attack, marauding refugees, avian flu, communists in broom closets, White-tailed spiders...so many things we fear.  Scary scary women we fear.  So many things we fear...including, sometimes, the truth.  There is, is there not, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, so much we can learn about ourselves if we have the integrity, the courage, to stand up and not only tell the truth, but to listen to it.  It has a distinctive ring to it the truth. A purifying timbre that will not be silenced, even by the monotonous drone of governments and corporations.   Joshua  Floyd has reminded us that the truth exists and defines itself as a function of who we are. It may be ugly, it may be unwelcome, it may be the very last thing we wish to confront, but the only way that we can confront it, is to know it, to embrace it. The only way we can move onward, is to know that which is manifest about ourselves. - Cleaver Greene, Rake

Rake is a really wonderful show.  Recently watched it on Netflix and felt the need to give it a bit of public love.

Not exactly sure how it happened...but I ended up with a taste for Australia cinema.  Maybe it was The Man From Snowy River?  And then perhaps Crocodile Dundee sealed the deal.  I was just a kid when I watched them.  Then I remember loving Strictly Ballroom.  Genre wise...it really didn't fit with the movies I was watching at the time.  Next was Siam Sunset and now...Rake.

Why did I choose to share this speech?  It's because we don't know what the demand is for public goods.  And there doesn't seem to be much interest in clarifying the demand.  But it's absolutely imperative that we open our eyes.  To steal Greene's words...the demand for public goods may be ugly, it may be unwelcome, it may be the very last thing we wish to confront, but the only way we can confront it, is to know it, to embrace it.  The only way we can move onward, is to know that which is manifest about ourselves.

If we created a market in the public sector, then the way people spent their taxes would reveal the wide variety of things that they fear...and love.

If a woman told us that she loved flowers, and we saw that she forgot to water them, we would not believe in her "love" for flowers.  Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.  Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love. - Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

This right here is my active concern for Rake.  Could I truly say that I loved the show if I didn't bother telling anybody about it?  Of course not.  So here I am spending my time writing about the show and sharing it with whoever finds this blog entry.  This is my input...it's what is manifest about myself...and it's free to flow.

In the absence of our input (active concern)...how could resources possibly be put to their most valuable uses?  How could Rake and Australian cinema possibly grow and thrive if people around the world aren't free to express and communicate their active concern?  How could Platycerium superbum possibly grow and thrive without rain?

Right now we aren't free to choose which public goods we put in our shopping carts.  And that's a problem.  We might not agree with what other people put in their shopping carts...but how can we possibly know where there's the greatest need for improvement if we don't know where people's hearts truly are?