How do we turn this place into a think tank?

[Shankapotomus]

12. I propose an additional idea

Last edited Fri Nov 30, 2012, 09:37 AM - Edit history (1)

You have a great idea and I agree that DU members should pool their powers into some kind of media activism. I would further like to suggest that we don't start out by alienating others by favoring only those who have deferred to the academic capitalist system (in other words, pay-per-play education) or those who do not conform to the culture's idea of physical attractiveness. This stands for everything most DUers are against. There are many well read and intelligent DUers without degrees, in fact there can be a case made for those who were smart enough to avoid the debt prisons many of the formally educated now find themselves in...As for physical attractiveness, I'm not sure it's as much as a factor when you hear someone intelligent and well-spoken bringing truth to power.

Instead, of alienating certain segments of DU in a nod to materialistic capitalist ideals, why not make it more democratic and have options and opportunities for EVERYONE to participate and everyone to benefit? If certain segments of DU know more, why not cultivate and encourage others lagging behind and lift them up with us? If we're are going to go as far as you are suggesting, why not a mini DU Media University of sorts that cram schools proponents of democratic ideals capable of representing all of us in any interview in all fields, economic, social, political, etc?

Two men came to a hole in the sky.
One asked the other to lift him up...
But so beautiful was it in heaven that
the man who looked in over the edge
forgot everything, forgot his companion
whom he had promised to help up
and simply ran off into all the
splendor of heaven.
(from an Igluik Inuit prose poem)