I love Futurama repeats on the Cartoon Network; that show never got the respect it deserved. But just like the Simpsons, Futurama hits topical issues with wry humor and witty commentary. Last night was an episode called “Fear of a Bot Planet” where the crew travels to a planet completely populated by human-hating robots. Humans Fry and Leela are captured and their robot colleague Bender is ordered by the “elders” to put them to death:
Bender: I can't kill them. Plenty of humans have mistreated robots, but not these two. They're my friends. Humans are no threat to us. They're stupid, putrid cowards.The planet they travel to is called “Saudi R-8”…oops…I mean, “Chapek 9”. Bernard Lewis would approve:
Fry: Damn right!
Bender: The fact is, humans are completely harmless.
Elder 3: We're well aware of that.
Bender: You are?
Elder 3: Of course. But they're useful to us as a scapegoat to distract the public from their _real_ problems.
Elder 2: Like our crippling lugnut shortage.
Elder 4: And a corrupt government of incompetent robot elders.
Elder 5: D'uh, that's for sure.
Elder 3: Quiet, Jimmy.
Bender: Well, I'm glad we got all that out in the open. We'll just let ourselves out ...
Elder 2: Silence! You all know too much.
Elder 3: Elders, execute Function-Control-Shift-Kill.
In the same way, the dictatorships that rule much of the Middle East today will not, indeed cannot, make peace, because they need conflict to justify their tyrannical oppression of their own people, and to deflect their peoples' anger against an external enemy.Uh-huh.
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