Progressives of the Usa, listen up. This is a film talking about one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's important policies. Roosevelt created the economic juggernaut which we have seen so much wealth from over the course of the 1900s. We, the progressives, did that. We were the ones who wanted high stock prices, who wanted to get the nation off of the gold standard, who were savvy about business. The republicans try to be seen as the people who support the free market, and who are best for business interests. In fact, the reason they are able to claim that, is only because we on the left, have forgotten that we were the parents of this wonderful process of wealth creation. It was our plan and our doing.

Do you know why the nation faltered under the Bush policies - why the financial market crashed? Because those in the right wing do not understand business. After all, they were the ones who favoured staying on the gold standard. They were the ones who have been against many other policies throughout the decades which have produced so much good fruit for our nation.

This film is fascinating for me, in other ways. It seems to me that intellectualism tends to thrive in times where people feel they're struggling. The phrasings this narrator uses show a lot of insight, and a lot of caring, and a lot of zeal which you don't see in discourse in the Usa, today. The people in these pictures look happy and as if they have direction and feel that they have a purpose in life, in a way that people in our cities today often don't.

I think that we nurturing thinkers are kind of still geared up for that mode of working. We tend to know what to do for our society when times are rough. There were some wonderful films and other intellectual material which came out of postwar Britian, and now British discourse seems to be degenerating, in the same way ours did across the pond when we became wealthy.

I remember growing up in the 1970s, how everybody who was a nurturing thinker in my life - english teachers, sociologists, progressives etcetera - identified as democrats, and were excited about things like the civil rights movement, they like the poet Ezra Pound, and the writer Susan Sontag. Today, the same thing seems to be true. Caring thinkers are associating themselves with the netroots movement to get Barack Obama elected, with peace rallies, etcetera. And I myself find that I spend a lot of time at sites with rollicking raucous debate like reddit.com - where very smart people are trying to get some traction with their ideas using the passions of struggling, hurting people to facilitate social change.

I was very disgruntled about this practice as a teenager. I would have pointed to two other areas that nurturing thinkers should focus on, instead:

• Children - because children are the future.

• Media organisations - if we are so smart, why can't we use that intelligence to make money, and start to build a media empire?

I think that we nurturing thinkers need to shift gears. For thousands of years, we have lived in a society which was very poor and struggling. And we have taken a certain role in that society. We have been successful.

It seems to me, however, that when a society develops a middle class, the old strategies we have been accustomed to using, in order to spearhead social trends and to inspire people, and to impart wisdom to people don't work anymore. People who are doing well for themselves, with their children, and their job, and their house in the suburbs don't see a need to learn new things, or to make their world a better place by implementing new ideas.

Therefore, I think that focusing on kids is a really good way forward for us. Kids are very appreciative of those who care about them and who wish to impart wisdom to them. Kids are like little beacons of light in a community when they have good teachers and mentors and adults in their lives who have taught them how to be ethical and how to be smart. The incubation time for ideas which are imparted to groups of children might be longer. But the overall effect on society over the decades is much larger as well.