Democracy For Some

On September 17, 2007, U.S. Senator John Kerry addressed a Constitution Day forum at the University of Florida in Gainesville, which was organized by the ACCENT Speakers Bureau, an agency of the university's student government. Initially allowed to ask questions after the close of the question period, university police then removed Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old fourth-year undergraduate mass communication student, from the forum. During the struggle to arrest Meyer, one of the officers drive stunned him with a Taser...

...According to eyewitness and police reports, the widely circulated video of the confrontation captured on Meyer's camera was not the first interaction between police and Meyer at the event that day. According to reports, Meyer was in line for access to the microphone, when it was announced by former Ambassador Dennis Jett, a University of Florida political science instructor and the forum's moderator, that one more question would be taken from the microphone on the right as seen from the stage. Meyer then grabbed the second microphone, on the left, which had been shut off, and loudly demanded he be allowed to ask a question. Meyer reportedly yelled, "Why don't you answer my questions, I have been waiting and listening to you speak in circles for the last two hours." "These officers are going to arrest me", "You will take my question because I have been listening to your crap for two hours". When an officer intervened, attempted to cut Meyer off, and attempted to escort Meyer out of the hall, Meyer then broke away and continued to shout. Kerry then intervened and requested that Meyer be allowed to ask a question. Meyer was then brought back to the microphone with police officers on either side of him.

Meyer then handed his camera to the woman who was standing in front of him in line (later identified as Clarissa Jessup) and requested that she record him. Kerry then finished answering a previous question, Meyer was then recognized by Kerry to ask a question.

After the incident, Meyer was arrested for inciting a riot and charged with resisting an officer and disturbing the peace and taken to Alachua County Jail. Police recommended charges of resisting arrest with violence, a felony, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor. Meyer spent one night in the Alachua County Jail and was released the following morning.

Meyer's attorney, Robert Griscti, stated he would seek to have the charges dismissed. Meyer later issued a public apology for his "failure to act calmly", stating that he "stepped out of line". He also insisted there was no reason for his arrest and demanded an apology from The Alachua County Police Department.

This video went viral online days after the incident. Most of the media attention and public response was towards the excessive use of force by the police. What they should be concerned with, was why there was any force used at all. The United States is a "democracy," isn't it? Isn't it the right of citizens to ask difficult questions of their appointed leaders? Shouldn't our leaders be accountable for everything they do? Why was this issue ignored? Because democracy in the West is a sham.

Democracy means equality, it means government accountability, it means the rule of the majority. We are currently being ruled by a plutocracy - the wealthy; those with enough money and clout to influence policy decisions, laws, election outcomes, etc, etc. Those of you who might claim to be fine with their level of democratic involvement in our countries are either: i) one of the privileged few on the top of the pyramid, or ii) wage-slaves, ignorant of the fact that you are being denied fundamental rights as a citizen. You have been duped into believing you are free - and indeed you are free, so long as you don't use that freedom to ask any difficult questions of your elected leaders.