Hard Rain Journal 9-19-07: Your Name is Andrew Meyer
By Richard Power
If you give a damn, your name is Andrew Meyer, and you are under arrest.
I do not care who Meyer is, or what he thinks. I know what I saw with my own eyes.
Here's the bottom line:
During
the question and answer period of public event on a major university
campus in the USA, a student asked three questions of John Kerry, a
powerful member of the U.S. Senate:
1. Why didn't you challenge the results of the 2004 election?
2. Why haven't impeachment hearings begun?
3. Are you a member of Skull and Bones.
Meyer was articulate. He did not use profanity or abusive language.
He only took a couple of minutes to frame his questions. He was challenging, but not confrontational.
Before he could get an answer, he was approached by campus police. His microphone was cut off.
He was dragged to the entrance of the auditorium, where he was forced to the ground, physically restrained and then tazed.
Why did the campus police approach him? Why did they cut off his microphone? Why was he forcibly removed from the auditorium?
They didn't like his questions. What other explanation is there?
Meyer was arrested for a thought crime.
He was not tazed for resisting arrest, he was tazed for refusing to be silenced.
The video is disturbing in several ways.
The aggressive over-reaction of the campus police is disturbing.
It
is also disturbing to see most of the audience sit passively, staring
straight ahead while this brutal incident unfolds in their presence,
despite the young man's screaming,
But the most disturbing
element is the way in which Kerry drones on, while a young man he had
been conversing with is dragged away, screaming.
Disturbing yes, surprising no.
John
Kerry did not defend the African American voters who stood in the cold
dark rain to elect him President of the United States in 2004.
He did not even defend himself when he was swift-boated earlier on in 2004.
The sad truth is that John Kerry just wants the sad truth to go away.
But it won't.
Hundreds of thousands of people have already seen this video on-line.
That's speaking sad truth to sick power.
If you give a damn, your name is Andrew Meyer, and you are under arrest.
And John Kerry?
John Kerry has swift-boated himself (again).
Don't get me wrong. I fought for Kerry in 2004, I defended Kerry, I sent him money, and, of course, I voted for him.
The swift-boat ads run against him were lies.
But
this sad truth is there on the Internet for all to see, just as his
abandonment of the US electorate in 2004 is an historical fact that
stands for all to see.
Here's the video, watch it for yourself, and then give Sen. Kerry a call, as Mal contends of the Daily Kos suggests:
The Kerry Response:
- “The Senator acted appropriately … “
- Mr. Meyer “wanted this to happen … “
Just wait for it to happen in the UK, perhaps at the Labour Party Conference.













