On Hope and Activism - by Studs Terkel

[glitch]

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1111-09.htm

snip from foreward:
Note from Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com: I often publish pieces at Tomdispatch by authors I've worked with in the course of a long career as a book editor, but I seldom write about my relationship to any of them. Studs Terkel is the exception to any rule, though...

Hope Dies Last is a reminder that in good times, you can do nothing and still have hopes, but in bad times, you have to act, take that first small step, in order to hope. Though the new book has wonderful interviews with well-known activists, I've chosen three interviews from it by people you aren't likely to know by name, but which catch, to my mind, something of the legacy and inspirational history he's offering us all. I've preceded them with a cut-down version of his introduction. Have fun. Take heart. Take a hopeful step. This is not a book to be missed. Tom

snip from article:
Hope Dies Last By Studs Terkel

Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up. That's what Jessie de la Cruz meant when she said, "I feel there's gonna be a change, but we're the ones gonna do it, not the government. With us, there's a saying, ‘La esperanza muere última. Hope dies last.' You can't lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything."