The way Catholics genuflect to the Pope and commies bow to Marx... ha.

His stuff is interesting. I sometimes get the feeling he's saying in three words what could be said in one; but I like what he's saying. Not everything, but some.

Your point on knowledge vs. ignorance:

Knowledge is not solely some memetic input, otherwise there are some booksmart motherfuckers who would be sitting atop some grand ziggurat of academica meritocracy... no. I think knowledge - and true embrace of it - is a garnering of wisdom to match the basic information. Objective analysis - or AS free of dogma as a person can get (no one is completeley immune). There has to be an acknowledgement of alien viewpoints, if not lightweight embrace – the paranoia and xenophobia has to be dispelled for it to work, I think.

I think to bridge this gap, there has to be a humble foundation. The resistance you experienced is similar to what my wife - a former public sector employee in Disaster Relief at Red Cross – encountered. The truth is, in a polito-social mechanism where people are jockeying for position, everyone's afraid of each other, it seems - of being usurped, shown up; etc. You've alluded to starting a separate organization. If you do, I hope you can curb all related egos.

As far as bridging the gap with a given community? That's really a matter of trust and delivery.