White Knights?

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight:

Bruce Wayne: That man in Burma, did you ever catch him?
Alfred Pennyworth: Oh yes.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Alfred Pennyworth: We burned the forest.

One of the big questions in the movie is: Do the ends justify the means? Perhaps you've heard of that question before. Honestly, I'm not sure many of us are sure of what ends we are even surely heading for.

When you think of Enron, when you think of the Rwanda genocide, (you should think of coltan), when you think of oil, its easy to see that sometimes we make deals with the devil so we can have what we want.

Hey, I know it's easy for me to say. I complain about $4/gallon as much as anybody. But maybe it isn't an either/or situation. Maybe there are ways that we can continue to grow in wealth without it being at the expense of others. Maybe there are ways that we can have our industrialized society without it being at the expense of the earth. Maybe we can still have good and fast transportation without fighting over a finite commodity. It's possible, and it's happening in some corners. Maybe we could do something great without having to be famous.

There are no ends that are worth sacrificing the value of people and our environment. But maybe we don't have to. So often we justify our own darkness to use it against the other darkness. We need more "white knights" out there that can help us with the ends without sacrificing our humanity with the means.