This week, in my hometown of Montpelier, Vermont, a man passed away who can only be counted as one of the true moral giants of our time. Though perhaps his name is not as famous as some of his companions in struggle, such as Martin Luther King Jr., the unwavering dedication and purpose with which Dave lived his life was the equal of them all.

Though many of the obituaries published in the past week have highlighted his involvement in the "Chicago 7" trial, that was merely the most public moment in a near-seven decades of life lived in the strictest adherence to the loftiest of human ideals, often at great personal cost.

I was lucky enough to know Dave, along with his wife and great partner Elizabeth Peterson, over the last years of his life. Though I have recollections of his presence at meetings and rallies I would have attended as a child with my parents, I met Dave for the first time when I interviewed him for a radical magazine I was editing as a student at the same college he had attended some 65 years previous. It was then my task to ask him to reflect on his own journey "from Yale to Jail," (as his autobiography is called), and upon a life lived as a moral dissenter. And though when I came to know him he was plainly losing some of his mental faculties, the clarity and passion with which he spoke of his dedication to peace, his love for his friends, his devotion to justice, left an impression upon me that I will carry always.

As we approach a national election of monumental importance, and party politics seems more than ever an eternal game of appearances and dissembling, it is easy to long for someone in that arena with the non-negotiable respect for truth and right exhibited by a person like Dave. The ready reply to that wish, of course, is that the game of institutional politics is inevitably one of capitulation; that it is only those who never muddy themselves with the dirt of that world who are afforded the luxury of never having to compromise themselves or their morals. Maybe so. But what must be inarguable today is the crucial importance of figures such as Dave, whose voices exist outside of the rationalizations and real-politick of officialdom, to our political life. For it is to their relentless interjection of a humanist sensibility into our public discourse that we owe the ethical health of our democracy.

At a time when the sitting President has insinuated again and again that dissent is unpatriotic, that "you are with us or with the terrorists," the existence of such voices is more vital than ever. For Dave was a man who dissented because he loved his country, but more importantly than that, because he loved human beings, and he loved humanity.

Dave was an ardent pacifist, but he was a militant in the cause of peace and justice, only one who chose to fight his battles non-violently. The project of his life was to deepen his capacity for empathy for all human beings--from the time he left the life of a privileged student in the 1930s to live as a hobo and seek to understand the realities of the Depression, through being imprisoned countless times for standing on the frontlines of the struggles for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, to traveling to Quebec City at age 85 to speak against the iniquities of corporate globalization. And in the best Ghandian tradition, Dave was always insistent that he loved his many enemies as friends, that even in the most strident of conflicts it was only his task to appeal to the best part of his adversary's humanity, and that that would have to be enough.

In a letter I received from Dave after first interviewing him, he shared some words written by his good friend and frequent protest companion, the historian Howard Zinn. They are words that he was quite fond of repeating in light of our present circumstance: "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in that complex history will determine our lives."

In these dark days, as another deceitful clique in Washington continues to prosecute a war of mind-blowing hubristic arrogance, incalculable human cost, and catastrophic geopolitical consequence, we would all do well to take those words to heart. For Dave most certainly did. I'm sure he was both outraged and hopeful until his last day.

His is a life that taught us much.

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro (joshuajs@lycos.com) lives in San Francisco

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