To paraphrase Alfred Pennyworth…some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just don’t care whether or not the world burns.

They don’t necessarily want the world to burn, but they have their eyes on a prize and they will walk over everyone and everything to get their hands on it.

“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer

They will walk over the ashes of the dead world to get what they want, maybe only later realizing what they have done.

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” -J. Robert Oppenheimer

These are the worst. If it were money they were after they could be bought, reasoned or negotiated with. But they have their eyes on a prize and won’t be deterred. And for some of them, even after seeing the damage done, they’ll just get busy making excuses, forgiving themselves for the role they played in setting yet another fire to an already burning world. The physicist and the technically sweet problem. The techbro working on AI. The billionaire owner of a deep sea tourism company objecting to needlessly prioritizing passenger safety over commercial innovation.

The actor and the role of a lifetime.

It isn’t fame. It isn’t the money. It’s the role, the character, the part. If Leni Riefenstahl came back to life and announced work on a new movie about world war II, there are actors who would walk over everyone and everything for the once in a lifetime chance to work with the legendary director, and play the part of one of the famous generals of that war. Because that role is the one they were born to play. And Riefenstahl is a brilliant director. And just never you mind her regrettable political ideas, just never you mind Triumph Of The Will.

The actual fascists among actors wouldn’t even rate during the auditions. It would be the A list actors who get the roles. The ones with real talent and star power. As historian Henry Adams said about Robert E. Lee, It’s always the good men who do the most harm.

They would say to their critics that Riefenstahl’s movie is simply a story about the war, not promoting fascism. They would say Riefenstahl is tragically misunderstood.

And maybe later, when the money she makes from this new movie goes toward promoting fascism around the world, and synagogues start burning, and democracies began falling to the extreme right, when the hated others start dying, they might see what part they played in promoting Riefenstahl’s fascism by excusing it, by looking the other way, by complaining about “woke”.

Maybe some would express regret after it was too late for regret to matter. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. But most of them will just start excusing themselves.

I’m looking at you, all of you, in the cast and crew of the new Harry Potter HBO series.

When more laws against transgendered people are passed thanks to Rowling’s billions, and even more of your transgender neighbors in this life are thrown out of their families, their homes, their jobs, isolated from their communities, afraid to be out in public, dying at the hands of thugs, or by their own hand, what will you tell their families and friends? What excuses will you make the rest of us listen to?

[Edited a tad…]