Weekly Discussion

Alejandro Aguirre

March 23, 2014

SOC 122 – M/W 3:30 PM

Kubal

 

Weekly Discussion

 

      In Democracy Now’s Georgia Activists Confront GOP Rejection of Medicaid as Moral Mondays Spread Across South, the issue of the state’s (and country’s) struggle to keep Medicaid from the perspective of Georgia’s activists. The fight is against a statute that would ban Medicaid in certain states. It was expressed that keeping Medicaid in the picture was already a challenge without the proposition of this statute. However, the U.S. government cannot afford such an enactment because it would cover 100% of it, which would amount to 14 billion dollars over five years. There is much encouragement from the speaker to uninsured individuals to apply for the Affordable Care Act. It is worth noting that the guest in this story is one of nearly 40 activists who got arrested for civil disobedience protesting against banning this statute in the state of Georgia.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/20/georgia_activists_confront_gop_rejection_of

 

      The experience of three American hikers who were arrested in Iran for two years in solitary confinement was discussed in Democracy Now’s story, A Sliver of Light: Freed U.S. Hikers on Captivity in Iran & Activism Against Solitary Confinement. The hikers were arrested in 2009 by an Iranian soldier and were first put in a small, empty jail for two days and were transported in a van, while blindfolded, to a central prison. It was also reported that they weren’t told the reason for their arrest until near the end of their captivity. They were questioned why they were there, what their lives consisted of, and about their country’s security. They claimed to have only been taking a leisurely hike in the area. They also held that they were not treated as badly as other inmates since they were [white] Americans and used that to their advantage by going on a hunger strike (protesting harsh, but non-hostile treatment) so as to nationally portray the Iranian government as hostile, thus causing controversy. It was quite surprising to hear that 80,000 other people were also in solitary confinement – some who did not even commit serious crimes. Lastly, the cost for the release of each prisoner was .5 million dollars.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/18/a_sliver_of_light_freed_us