by Greg Palast
September 18th, 2007
“[Palast] said you won the 2004 election – isn’t that amazing?
There were multiple reports of disenfranchising of Black voters on the day of the election in 2004 in Florida and Ohio. … How could you concede the election on the day?”
(see video below)
Read the excerpt from Armed Madhouse that got Andrew Meyer’s in trouble.
We warned you: ‘Armed Madhouse’ is a dangerous book. Yesterday, Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student was attacked by five cops, zapped with tasers and arrested after demanding that Senator John Kerry answer the question.
Meyers, just released from jail and now facing five years in prison for resisting arrest, held up a copy of the book and began,
Student to John Kerry: “I want to recommend a book to you. It’s called ‘Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast.’ He’s the top investigative journalist in America.”
Kerry: “I have the book. I’ve already read it.”
Student: “… In this book, it says there were 5 million votes and you won the election. … How could you concede the election on the day?”
Meyers, a telecommunications student at the Gainesville campus, asked related questions including a query as to why Kerry refused to vote for impeachment. When he passed his alloted one minute mic time, five cops jumped him, threw him to the ground, shot him with taser shockers.
Kerry, true to character, stood immobile.
Now, I’ve given many talks. And some questioners have taken too long at the mic. But I’ve never done the Stalin thing of cops and electronic beating to limit the discussion. (Yes, it’s true that Randi Rhodes recently threatened me with a taser when I’ve monopolized the mic in her studio.)
The Washington Post reported only that Meyers was holding a “mysterious yellow book.” VERY mysterious.
I would note that enchained student was busted in Alachua County, Florida, where, six years ago, I uncovered massive, systematic and utterly illegal disenfranchisement of Black voters – ordered by Gov. Jeb Bush’s office just before the 2000 election. (”Florida’s Disappeared Voters,” February 2001, The Nation.) Alachua remains under federal scrutiny for its long history of racial bias against Black voters.
I must admit I feel some appreciation for Meyers, especially because, even while he was being shot with untold amps of electricity, until he was handcuffed, he would not let go of his mysterious yellow book, ‘Armed Madhouse.’
Hear the update live tonight on the new “Palast Report” on Air America Radio. The Palast Report will now broadcast every Tuesday night, at 9:30pm, on Richard Greene’s new weeknight show, “Clout.”
And get America’s most SHOCKING book, the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans (Penguin 2007).
Subscribe to Palast’s writings and view his investigative reports for BBC Television’s Newsnight, at www.GregPalast.com.
Read the excerpt from Armed Madhouse that Andrew Meyer’s got arrested for mentioning here.
UF Lacks Freedom of Speech
Footage of University Police Department using excessive force on a student asking a question of Senator Kerry. The student’s name is Andrew Meyers and he was arrested on September 17, 2007 for disturbing a public educational function and resisting arrest. The police did not inform him that he was under arrest and did not mirandize him while detaining him and electro-shocking him with a taser. (more)
From the archives:
Student Tasered For Asking Sen Kerry About Voter Suppression (video)
Dandelion Salad 
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Hi Firedancer, great point about the lacking of ending Martial Law once instated. Sounds like a good question to ask our Congresspeople.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
Thanks for the lyrics, I looked for a video for that song but couldn’t find one. The man indeed is a prophet.
Got a new Cockburn vid for you:
Bruce Cockburn: Night Train (music video)
Thank you. Great quotes, Dovelove. Shows the kind of company all these carping “libs” keep.
And thank you Dandelion. As I indicated, this is not a new concern on my own part either. Back during the Reagan era confrontation with the Sandinistas, a friend of mine–an officer in the US military–privately expressed his concerns over developments in FEMA legistlation at that time. It seems there are provisions already on the books for the declaration of martial law in a time of national emergency. Problem is, there are no criteria or provisions for UNdeclaring once it’s it place??????????
As for Bruce…a prophet/poet close to my heart…great vid. Consider, perhaps, what you might do with this one:
The Trouble With Normal (3:35)
by Bruce Cockburn
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it’s repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs — “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the 3rd world trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local 3rd world’s kept on reservations you don’t see
“It’ll all go back to normal if we put our nation first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don’t meet it’s easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
(Toronto 30/6/81)
Thanks, Dovelove for all those great quotes. 🙂
Firedancer, you got it exactly.
See also:
The Police State Is Right Here, Right Now By Carolyn Baker
The Colbert Report: 10 Easy Steps to Fascism by Manila Ryce (video link)
And speaking of Bruce Cockburn:
Bruce Cockburn: Call It Democracy (music video; lyrics; over 18 only)
“We must remember that a right lost to one is lost to all.” ~ William Reece Smith, Jr.
“Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.” ~ Pericles
“One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. ~ Thomas Brackett Reed
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long. ~ Thomas Sowell
“There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.” ~ James Madison
“We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
“Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn’t stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband — it creeps up insidiously… step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone.” ~ Baron Lane
“You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.” ~ Lyndon Johnson
“If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.” ~ Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment
“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.” ~ Edmund Burke – (British statesman – 1756)
“There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.” ~ Erwin Griswold – (Dean, Harvard Law School – 1960)
This really isn’t so much about Andrew, is it? Back in 2000, I was privileged to be sent as a delegate to the International Congress on Prayer Evangelism, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Perhaps the most striking impression I was left with after my time in that city was the continual presence of armed security forces in virtually every public place. The general population seemed so accustomed to their presence as to hardly take notice. But occasionally, one would catch a furtive glance and notice a quickened step. These guys were impossible to miss, with their automatic weapons in hand, surveying the crowds. On street corners. In the subways. The train stations. “Trained to see movement…” in Bruce Cockburns words. Given the recent history of that nation, it was all too apparent how thin the veneer of democracy really was (and is), and how close a nascent fascism lay to the surface. I remember the sense of relief I felt upon my return to the US, a place that would not tolerate that sort of thing on a widespread scale. Then came 9/11. And the “War on Terror”. And the Patriot Acts. And “Homeland Security”.
And now, I fear, those who continue to value liberty are becoming suspect…or worse. Don’t resist authority? Don’t fight false arrest? My late father-in-law was among those first US soldiers to discover the true fruit of such thinking after the fall of Germany. Do we honestly believe that the “greater good” imposed by a Hitler or a Stalin is so very long ago and far away?
Thanks for the linking here, dovelove. Amazing how people have reacted to this violent aggression against a college student. Scary.
Yeah, that 20-something year old kid looked vicious, punching and scratching the costumed cops, shouting profanity and other vile things (“don’t tase me, BRO” — scary lil bastard!), you could see the hatred in those preppy eyes of his. He was frighteningly inarticulate, and did you see his clothes — slovenly…probably has zero self-esteem… You could tell he was a threat to not only everyone in that room, but to society in general…it’s clear he was gonna harm someone…he should have been eliminated right then and there. No, he wasn’t just asking a simple question, it was evident that he was planning to do something very, very bad…I’m sure of it. Ya’ can’t go around thinking you can ask just any ole question, puleeez! Hanging is too good for him. This vile little one, I’d kick him if I had the opportunity…
🙂
Todd,
For the record, I am not a “lib” and have not for a many years been seated on the left side of the aisle. I am simply one who is increasingly alarmed by the fascist direction things appear to be moving in this country. And by the widespread inability of people to engage in public discourse with civility and logic. The issues I raised were not addressed. E.g., private security forces presuming themselves to be exempt from constitutional restraints. And the response of the crowd, far from justifying the actions of the so-called authorities, serves only to reinforce my fear that we as a people are becoming increasingly calloused and desensitized to encroachments on our liberties.
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Being annoying is now a crime? I’m a mother of two sons, annoying happens but we don’t beat our children, (well, some people do but it’s not right).
<>
Hysterical watching the libs try to characterize this clown’s conduct as “simply trying to ask a question”. Yeah. Right.
Sorry, dopes. The video is there for all the world to see, starting with the jerk cutting in front of and cutting off another student before launching into his tirade/tantrum, refusing to stop, refusing to leave, and then resisting arrest for the better part of 2 minutes.
The applause by the crowd when the cops dragged him out says it all. What a jerk. And playing to the camera the entire time, of course.
The left continues to embarrass themselves but vainly trying to defend this kind of stupidity.
Thank you, Firedancer, very well stated.
See also:
The Meaning Of That Kerry Fracas In Florida By Paul Craig Roberts
Student sponsored forum, right? (Tax supported, public event)
University of Florida campus location (Tax supported, public location)
University of Florida student (clumsy and annoying, perhaps, asking uncomfortable but pertinent questions…but hardly an outside agitator or security risk inciting a riot)
Rent-a-cops (read private security force, ie real cop wannabe’s or ex military…different views on rules of engagement with civilians, domestic or foreign)
Conclusion, this was a public event in a public place and was presented as a forum. Questions were invited, and no reasonable expectation could or should have been held that all questions would be “friendly”. Andrew had every right to ask what he was asking and expect a response. Last I checked, college students as a class were not always noted for their sense of civility and decorum. The impatience of youth on a quest. The issue really is one of excessive force and, I fear, the desire on the part of the forum sponsors to edit Andrew and his uncomfortable questions out of their picture.
As for those who feel it’s justifiable to taze or pepper spray someone for “taking too much time” at a microphone, are we living in the same country? Seriously! Do you really think through the implications of what you’re saying? What about when those same security people, or their clones, come after you with pepper spray or tazers or bullets for expressing your views forcefully and with conviction against opposition. If you empower and justify them now, you will have no room for complaint later.
The punishment doesn’t fit the offense. Tasering is torture and should only be used to control a violent person. Andrew was not violent. And what happened to free speech in our country?
He didn’t “demand” his questions be answered, only that he be allowed to ask them as he was being interrupted only 1 minute into his question.
Yeah, the guy had it coming. Cops told him to shut it, but he kept talking like this is some sort of free speech/democracy/love in or something. So, the cops hit him with some of the ol’ Taze. Should have pepper sprayed the guy while they were at it.
John Kerry is a war veteran and a very important man of power. Kerry is a Senator. He shouldn’t have to listen to a guy who has worn out his welcome. If the cops did anything wrong, it was to let this guy ask more than one question. They should have shut this guy down after 50 words. That’s it fella, you only get one question for the Senator. The cops should also always have a kill switch for the microphone. That way, you just turn off the mic when you have heard enough mouth from the meat puppets.
Like I said, turn off the mic, and next time have some pepper spray in addition to the Tazer.
Regards.
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Kerry’s ambivalence and the crowd’s applause demonstrate how far we have already drifted toward fascism in this country. “A people who surrender their liberty in the name of security will soon have neither” (or something like that)–Benjamin Franklin
I don’t think a Q & A situation usually permits speechifying. By taking more time at the mic than his share, this jerk was denying others of their right to ask questions within a reasonably-alloted time. This jerk also resisted arrest as he was being escorted out of the room while disturbing the peace. This jerk was obviously looking for trouble and he found it. If he could only had mastered the skill of artfully asking a question or two, he could have relinquished the mic and waited for his answer, he could have embarrassed Kerry, and there would have been no problem.
truly in the heritage of the Gestapo
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Definately a disgusting display on the part of the campus rent a cops. The people who applauded should be ashamed.
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