The prophets of the Old Testament fulfilled a very important function in ancient Israel: they reminded the Jewish people and their kings of their duties to both God and one another. In our secular world, we still need someone to remind us of our duties to the world, humanity in general, and one another in particular. We need people to remind us that we are our brother's keepers, and the Earth's stewards. We need more gadflies.

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Of Prophets and Loss

By Richard Girard

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.

Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

--Proverbs 31:8-9, KJV

There are days that I feel a great kinship to the prophets of the Old Testament. The whole "The voice of Him That cries in the wilderness..." idea resonates within me, because I feel like I am shouting at a human world that has decided to destroy itself regardless of the warnings it receives from a variety of sources, and the chances which it is given to correct its ways.

Our world--and I use this in the sense of the world that humanity shares with one another--has become a world where it is only important that the needs of the individual be served, or the small group which exists solely to serve and advance the needs of a small group of individuals, and never those of humanity as a whole. Even government, whose very reason for being in the United States of America is to serve and protect the people of the nation as a whole, has been co-opted by the giant corporations to serve them and their needs, ahead of the needs of the American people as a whole. This has led to the near destruction of the American middle-class and the devastation of our industrial power and infrastructure-- physical, economic, and social--required to maintain that middle-class.

Eleven years ago, I wrote an article for OnLineJournal.com titled "Madness," in which I laid out what I believed was one of the most important underlying causes of our problems. Five years later, I republished this article in OpEdNews, when it disappeared from the archives of OnLineJournal. The first paragraph states the following:

"I have come to an inescapable conclusion: the United States of America has gone around the bend. Not take a Valium agitated, or take a Prozac depressed, but load the syringe with Thorazine, call the attendants, and get the strait-jacket insane. Some of this insanity can be laid at the feet of dogmatic, fundamentalist Christians, but they are not solely responsible for our nation's descent into madness, and we collectively bear at least an equivalent degree of blame."

Things haven't changed, as far as I can tell. We still have people who follow the idea of the Calvinist doctrine of "the Elect," whether they are religious or not, and use it as an excuse for the most abhorrent forms of hatred and bigotry imaginable.

Later in the article, I wrote three paragraphs which summed up my feelings as to what was at the heart of this "madness:"

"I feel that we are headed for a time of economic hardship such as this nation has not seen since the Great Depression. I hope, whether this economic catastrophe occurs or not, we will then rediscover the truth of the Greek philosopher Epicurus' observation that 'Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.'

It is also vital, whether this disaster occurs or not, that we as a society examine not only our personal values and beliefs, but those of our society and our nation. This inquiry should include the existence of God, the nature of Love, the value of Truth, and the utility of Ideas: nothing should be exempted.

To doggedly adhere to any system of belief or knowledge without regular, critical examination of its underlying assumptions--to winnow out those things which are demonstrably wrong--is the essence of madness. It leads to a repetition of errors, while expecting a different outcome. Dogmatic failure to examine underlying assumptions would have prevented Jesus from teaching His Message, Galileo from discovering Jupiter's largest moons, Pasteur from discovering germ theory, and Jefferson from writing the Declaration of Independence."

I spoke of the inherent evil of polluting our world, and destroying our environment, long before Pope Francis I did. I quoted Abraham Lincoln in that article, and his concerns about the future of overwhelming corporate power: "I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated into a few hands and the republic is destroyed." (Letter to William F. Elkins, 11/21/64)

I also quoted Alexis de Tocqueville, two quotes from his magnum opus, Democracy in America, and one from a letter in 1831. I am going to quote them here in a different order from the article, to give what I believe is the idea that de Tocqueville was attempting to convey about his observations on America and wealth (Quotes from the letter will be followed by (L), Democracy in America by (DA), items in brackets are for clarity):

"In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned. (DA) As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in? (L) [So, w]hat is...most important for democracy is not that great fortunes should not exist, but that great fortunes should not remain in the same hands. In that way there are rich men, but they do not form a class. (DA)"

I personally do not understand America's reverence for material wealth, and I find this reverence especially surprising among American Christians of every stripe. Jesus had only contempt for material wealth, and little respect for those who possessed it. In fact, I can find only one passage in the New Testament where Jesus speaks well of a rich man; Luke 19:8-9 (KJV): "And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, for so much as he also is a son of Abraham."

I do not believe in some absolute leveling of our material possessions; hard work should be rewarded, but not fraud or coercion. I do believe in a minimum level of support so that Americans work to live; they do not live to work. The latter is the philosophy of slavery, not a free society. It is the reason we need not just a minimum wage, but a living wage. It is the reason we need Medicare for everyone, and Medicaid for our poorest citizens. We also need free public education up to the graduate level of college, or at least a reduction in state college tuition to a point where it is actually affordable for the poor and middle-class. Our current student loan system is nothing more than a racket to force college graduates to stay in their jobs without complaint, so they can continue to afford to repay their loans. No one needs to come out of college $40,000 or more in debt. We must level the playing field so that we can once again start from a point of no great advantage due to being born wealthy, so that it is our abilities, not our material possessions, which determine our futures.

America's misbegotten form of materialism has led to a society best described by British author John Berger: "The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied"but written off as trash. The Twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." ("The Soul and the Operator," in Expressen, Stockholm; March 19, 1990; reprinted in Keeping a Rendezvous, 1992.)

The prophets in the Old Testament were there to remind the Jewish people, especially their kings, when they were straying from the path of righteousness. I am here to remind you when you are straying from the course of justice and charity with regard to how you treat the rest of humankind. I unfortunately have no ability to call down the power of "I AM THAT I AM," when you are unjust or lack charity. I have only the power of my knowledge and my words.

I hope that is enough.

Authors Bio:

Richard Girard is a polymath and autodidact whose greatest desire in life is to be his generations' Thomas Paine. He is an FDR Democrat, which probably puts him with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the current political spectrum. His answer to all of those who decry Democratic Socialism is that it is a system invented by one of our Founding Fathers--Thomas Paine--and was the inspiration for two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, who the Democrats of today would do well if they would follow in their footsteps. Or to quote Harry Truman, "Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they do is croak, 'socialism.'