Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Free Speech in Amerika

SO this young fella at a Q&A session with American Democrat John Kerry asks a smart-arse question and promptly get hauled off by 4 cops who just happen to be standing behind him at the time. The video's currently playing on YouTube here .

Couple of questions raised: Did the young fella have a line-up of boys in blue behind him because he was a known trouble-maker and they expected some REAL trouble (let's face it, that whole 'secret society' shit was a question designed to embarrass rather than elicit any useful information, but it didn't really require a police escort from the premises, or tazering...)

And what ever happened to the much-vaunted American 'Free Speech'? The guy asked a question no stupider or more irritating than a lot of TV show commentators, and they don't get dragged off and zapped. Probably coz they're in public view. And this guy wasn't meant to be.

And even though he was screaming and crying for help (let alone an explanation as to why he was being arrested), no-one in the audience (let alone on the stage) raised a finger to help him. Any politician worth his salt should have leapt off the stage into Shining Armour onto his White Charger, and rescued the poor, mouthy fellow - what a media coup! But Mr Kerry ignored the plight of a 'Fellow American', and do did the rest of his audience. Maybe that sort of behaviour wouldn't have been such a media coup after all, because the concepts of free speech and helping one's fellow man seem totally alien to these people.

Next time I see an American politician posturing about Free Speech, and his Fellow Americans, I am going to snigger. Partly for them, but mostly for me - I was labouring under the misapprehension that Total Loss of Credibility was a finite state, but I was wrong - they just lost even more.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The young man's name is Andrew Meyer. I suppose, in a crowded auditorium, it could be misheard as Al-Qaeda....

Anonymous said...

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