Bain Capital’s final audit

Someday Mitt Romney and the rest of the leadership of Bain Capital will stand at the judgment bar of the great Jehovah, where the books will be opened for a final audit. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the interview will include an exchange something like this:

AUDITOR: You know, I worked for several years at one of the plants you shut down. I was left unemployed with a family to feed, while you made . . . let’s see, where’s that figure . . . ?

ROMNEY: Um, excuse me, I’m sorry . . . sir . . . I don’t understand. You’re saying you were an employee of one of our companies? There must be some mistake . . .

AUDITOR: Truly I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these–

You know the rest.

Disclaimer: My audit will be grueling, too, for different reasons.

The One Percent

I have a nagging fear I may be running behind the rest of the pack on this one, but I just saw the documentary “The One Percent.” Trailer here. Not a very well-made film; but the director, a younger member of the “Johnson & Johnson” family, provides fascinating, and infuriating, glimpses into how the very wealthy in the U.S. talk about their wealth. Includes interviews with Ralph Nader, Steve Forbes, Bill Gates Sr., and Milton Friedman (who, if D&C 104:18 is accurate, has since retired to a place considerably warmer than Florida).

Prayer on Muammar Gaddafi’s death

Would folks mind if I addressed myself to God in this post? I don’t presume to be a voice for anyone else but myself. But I want to talk to God about statements that I made publicly; and since those statements were made to the general “cyberpublic,” I’d like to “cc” that same public on this message, for the sake of accountability.

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Heavenly Father and Mother–

I’m grateful that Gaddafi is no longer in power. I pray that this can be the beginning of a better life for Libyans. I pray for peace, and justice, and democracy in Libya. I pray for an end to the violence.

I’m not grateful that he’s dead. I’m sorry that he’s dead. I mean that in the sense that I take accountability for being complicit in his death. I spoke out in support of the war in Libya. And that makes me–I was about to say “in some small way,” but I take that back; minimizing my guilt is Your judgment to make, not mine. Let’s try this again: I spoke out in support of the war in Libya. And that means I share responsibility for the vigilante actions of the soldiers who killed him instead of bringing him to legal justice.

Gaddafi’s death should not have happened. I don’t know, really, what You would have regarded as the ideal way to end his regime. I know You hate tyrrany, so I assume You hated the violence of Gaddafi’s reign. I know You also hate war, though I operate on the assumption that You recognize it’s necessary at times. But I also know You would not have wanted things to end like this.

As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I feel guilty about Gaddafi’s death because that’s the one that’s been publicized. But if I share responsibility for Gaddafi’s death, because of my support for the counteroffensive against his regime, then I also share responsibility for I-don’t-know-how-many deaths carried out by the rebel forces and their NATO allies, or for whatever other atrocities the rebels have committed on the way to power. I also share responsibility for whatever injustices the new regime commits from this point forward.

I started off this message feeling repentant, but now I’m actually feeling rather angry at You for putting us in situations where we have to make these impossible choices, while You sit up there and judge us and cry over our failures.

I don’t want to end on that note. I pray that somehow what has happened can lead to good for Libyans. I pray for all those who are suffering, whatever “side” they’re on.

In Christ’s name, amen.

The blood of this generation

Another al Qaeda leader has been killed; this is the second such killing I’ve been aware of since the assassination of Osama bin Laden (whose death makes three). I’m hesitant to criticize from the safety of my desk chair those who have led the attacks that have resulted in these deaths, but I do feel compelled to ask: Is our government–or the other governments orchestrating these attacks–committed to at least trying to bring these people to legal justice? Or is cowboy justice–just shoot the bad guys and have done with them–the default policy here?

I don’t feel any inclination to celebrate these deaths. And that’s not because I have rigorously pacificistic sensibilities on the subject of killing bad guys. I served my mission in the Dominican Republic, which was ruled by a brutal dictator, Trujillo, from 1930 to 1961, when he was finally assassinated by Dominicans aided, it appears, by the CIA (although the U.S. had earlier supported Trujillo’s regime as a bulwark against Communism in the Caribbean). I feel no ambivalence regarding the assassination of Trujillo. My feeling is: He was a monster who got what he deserved, and it’s too bad someone didn’t riddle him with bullets sooner.

I’m not proud that I feel that way. My point is: I’m not quite sure what to make of the fact that while I heartily approve the assassination of Trujillo, who didn’t touch my life in any meaningful way, I feel much more ambivalent, leaning toward disapproval, about the assassination of people who did, in fact, represent a potential threat to my safety or that of people to whom I am strongly connected. I don’t feel any twinge of regret that Trujillo was killed instead of being brought before an international tribunal to be tried for crimes against humanity; I do feel that regret about Osama bin Laden. Is there really a meaningful difference? Or does approval for the one killing help legitimate the other?

For Memorial Day

A greeting card from the MESJ website. The drawing is by Picasso, I believe.

Courage Campaign’s “Testimony Video Contest”

The Courage Campaign, a progressive organization in California that’s been prominent in the anti-Prop 8 movement, has launched a “testimony video contest” in partnership with Dustin Lance Black, a former Mormon who is one of a handful of gay rights activists to whom the LDS Church has recently made symbolic friendly overtures. They’re asking people to submit homemade videos of themselves telling their personal stories, which Black will then review to find the “new face” of the marriage equality movement.

That particular public relations aim pretty much rigs the contest in favor of affluent professionals who are conventionally masculine and feminine (no gender transgressiveness or ambiguity, please!), since despite the horror it generates on the right, the LGBT movement has become quite conservative in its understanding of what counts as “respectability.” But that’s not the main point I wanted to make here.

What intrigued me about this initiative is the way that Black overtly invokes the LDS practice of bearing testimony. In a video promoting the initiative, he describes how growing up Mormon, he was encouraged to bear his testimony in front of the congregation, which, he explains, means “getting up in front of everybody you know and saying what it is you know to be true.”

One of the aspects of Mormonism that has always made me proud of the faith is this practice–this very democratic notion (at least in theory) that everyone is entitled to stand at the pulpit and declare the truth as they have come to understand it. When I first started speaking at rallies back in the run-up to the Iraq war, I was conscious that I was doing the same thing I had done back in my days as a missionary: publicly proclaiming the truth as I knew it. Whatever radical critique there is to be made of the LGBT movement today, it tickles me to see this Mormon ideal being placed in the service of progressive politics.