I feel that it is the right time to pass on to you the knowledge of a book about an extraordinary man who was a youth in Paris in World War II.
In so many ways he is a hero for our time as well and an inspiration for us when we are tired and aghast at what has happened to our country.
We have had wonderful recommended diaries, today, about speaking up and the awareness of the horror of torture.
It is time, then, to read about Jacques Lusseyran and see how we can face life with continued courage. I believe his story reflects the strengths we are showing here at Daily Kos and I would wish Mr. Brooks and others to understand the best that we are here.
Jacques was in the Resistance in Paris at age fifteen even though he was blind. He speaks of strategies we have been using:
1. The importance of community, and the brother and sisterhood of equality; of people sharing insights and truth and encouraging each other to go forth to action.
2. Getting the truth out despite the danger. In Jacques' case, the underground paper eventually became France-Soir.
3. The importance of hidden radios espescially in Buchenwald that gave hope and stopped propaganda.
4. The importance of groups staying together and having each others' backs. In Jacques' time in Buchenwald the Russians did this and he who befriended them in the simplest way was guarded even if it meant death to some, and it often did.
5. Speaking up. Jacques became the speaker in the camp, the one who was trusted and believed.
The autobiography of Jacques' first twenty years with a forward and afterward is a triumph of love and light.
It is titled And There Was Light and it is still available in paperback at BN:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/...
Jacques'credo is two truths in his words:
"The first of these is that joy does not come from outside, for whatever happens to us it is within. The second truth is that light does not come to us from without. Light is in us, even if we have no eyes."
From page 300 :
"That is what you had to do to live in the camp: be engaged, not live for yourself alone. The self-centered life has no place in the world of the deported. You must go beyond it, lay hold on something outside yourself.
Never mind how: by prayer if you know how to pray; through another man's warmth which communicates with yours, or through yours which you pass on to him; or simply by no longer being greedy. Those happy old men were like the hoboes. They asked nothing more for themselves, and that put everything within their reach.
Be engaged, no matter how, but be engaged. It was certainly hard, and most men didn't achieve it.
Of myself I can't say why I was never entirely bereft of joy. But it was a fact and my solid support. Joy I found even in strange byways, in the midst of fear itself. And fear departed from me, as infection leaves an abscess and bursts. By the end of a year in Buchenwald I was convinced that life was not at all as I had been taught to believe it, neither life nor society."
I have been here for more than a year and I have seen the strengths in poeple here that we need to change the country back. Many of you have spoken of reaching one person at a time and the Fifty State strategy, of listening to people. These stories in the comments are blessings to us and give us examples to follow.
I believe we are succeeding and that people are listening to us. When I was working to get a gifted program into the schools, I discovered that the people who sometimes started out mean and asked questions were the ones that joined us when we answered their questions.
Please don't give up. Please share your stories below in comments. Please share your joys and griefs as we are your community. We are here to give you strength to go out again to work and to your families and to your neighbors with answers they will hear.
Thanks to all here for your help to me when I despaired in November. Let us continue on in joy and please do read Jacques' enormously hopeful story.