Note: I posted this on my own blog yesterday. Some of the summary is familiar to most if not all dKos visitors. I still feel the analysis/commentary is provocative and usefu -- particularly for some of the less active of us.
Senator John Kerry can't shake the bad karma. Things just seem to blow up around him wherever he goes. On Monday, college student Andrew Meyer was seized by a group of campus police and forcibly pulled away from an open mic during a Q&A session with the senator onstage. When he resisted, shouting "What did I do?," they surrounded him, pulled him down to the ground, handcuffed him, and tasered him -- all in front of the assembled crowd -- many of whom had cheered his removal.
Cheered.
For those who haven't yet seen one of the videos circulating around the Internet:
Andrew Meyer was belligerent. And he was loud. And he was making a spectacle of himself. But that's the point. He was angry -- very, very angry. Aren't you angry, yet? Who cares about whether you're energized, committed, or whatever.
Just answer this question: "How angry are you?"
Brandishing Greg Palast's book Armed Madhouse, Meyers asked Kerry a number of back to back questions. Specifically, why Senator Kerry did not forcibly pursue allegations of election fraud in 2004 that left us with this disastrous second half of America's descent into madness. He also was demanding the Senator support a presidential impeachment process before our buildup around and forays into Iran trigger and international catastrophe.
"Clinton was impeached for what? a blowjob? Why don't we impeach Bush?"
Why was he asking these questions and furthermore why was he yelling? Maybe it's because no one else is providing answers. Not corporate media. Not narcissistic pundits. Not paid for politicians.
Not only isn't anyone providing answers, they are not even allowing the possibility that such questions might be raised in a public setting at all. Even alleged allies in Congress, elected in overwhelming numbers in 2006, soft pedal their own power into a brick wall. With idiots like them, why wouldn't you be angry?
When was the last time you can recall any political leader, news anchor, or expert advisor answering critical questions facing our country's well being on a national stage with a substantive response? When was the last time you thought the news actually covered stories vital to our lives and livelihood? When was the last time you heard honest words and apologies for mistakes?
Are we fundamentally doing anything about repairing a badly electoral process that is easily rigged to throw votes, if not elections to a minority party as it has on two occasions in the last 10 years? Is anyone pursuing the Bush administration's documented manipulation of the American population to support a $500 billion war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualities and thousands of American deaths of injuries -- all in your name? Is anyone covering the jaw-dropping extent to which Americans are being tracked and spied on here at home? Did anyone provide you notice that your rights to avoid being thrown in prison at the whim of authority vanished when Congress, Republicans and Democrats, passed a bill tossing centuries old habeas corpus rights out of the window?. Do you even know that as of February 2008, you may need to seek permission to travel by air anywhere in the US and anytime you leave for international destinations?
Each of these stories, drip like a leaking faucet in a cold porcelain sink, warning us that something is wrong and getting worse with the plumbing. And these stories aren't distant abstractions. They are matters of freedom or tyranny. Of life or death.
But there is no reaction from the American public. No nationwide strikes. No mass rallies. No coordinated actions. Nothing. Just silence and comments from people in power that those who do speak out are little more than loons.
If you are not angry, why the hell not? What would it take you to get angry? And, if you are, what are you doing about it?
Senator Kerry was angry about what Americans face together when he misspoke at a campaign rally in October last year, stating:
I'm glad to be here with you. I really am. Thank you for the privilege of coming here. We're here to talk about education, but I want to say something before that - you know, education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.
» SOURCE
His comment, particularly the last sentence, was transformed into mud slinging hatestorm as enraged Republicans and their followers lashed out in synchronized fury that anyone would call soldiers serving in Iraq "stupid". News media show after news media show shrieked about that affair -- just days before a major election. And their bias was lost on few who actually paid attention. Whether laudable or not, Kerry's aspirations for a 2008 campaign were destroyed in that fiasco. And even Democrats watching, still bitter about the 2004 elections, cheered his destruction.
Cheered..
While insults were traded back and forth between Kerry and the White House and the hysteria reached even new crescendos, Kerry angrily spoke out:
I'm sick and tired of a bunch of despicable Republicans who will not debate real policy, who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes, standing up and trying to make other people the butt of those mistakes.
I'm sick and tired of a whole bunch of Republican attacks, most of which come from people who never wore the uniform and never had the courage to stand up and go to war themselves.
Enough is enough. We're not going to stand for this. This policy is broken. And this president and his administration didn't do their homework. They didn't study what would happen in Iraq. They didn't study and listen to the people who were the experts and would have told them.
And they know that's what I was talking about yesterday. I'm not going to be lectured by a White House or by the likes of Rush Limbaugh who's taking a day off from mimicking and attacking Michael J. Fox, who's now going to try to attack me and lie about me and distort me.
No way. It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who've never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did.
» SOURCE
Senator Kerry was angry. Aren't you angry, yet? Should he have been dragged away, handcuffed, and tasered for expressing his anger? He, like Meyers, was viciously criticized for inappropriate behavior. Was his behavior inappropriate, or was it just rooted in anger that maybe many of us feel?
And what now will happen to Andrew Meyer?
Blogswarming is virally propelling YouTube videos of his arrest across the Internet. Despite positive comments, any quick perusal of YouTube comments beneath the various videos that depict the incident provide a painfully large number of calls for his imprisonment, torture, and execution. And this, in turn, tells you exactly what happens when uneducated and easily manipulated people do when they've been subject to years of propaganda and disinformation tactics.
They shoot the messenger.