The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood Discuss the Gileadean concept of Freedom to, freedom from

The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood Discuss the Gileadean concept of Freedom to, freedom from The dystopian novel, 'The Handmaid's Tale' implies the fact that there are two types of freedom, freedom to and freedom from. It is the paradox between 1980's America and Gilead that is examined continually throughout the novel and it's the ideas of 'freedom to' being a society of broad-minded morals and 'freedom from' the more controlled, restrictive society with an imposition upon individual freedom that are most prominent. In Atwood's thought-provoking novel, two societies with conflicting ideologies and concepts of liberty are juxtaposed through a series of flashbacks in an attempt to examine how people would cope when society suddenly deprived its people of freedom and denied them of information.The first society of modern America with its liberal customs, is compared and contrasted to the second society of Gilead, a totalitarian Christian authority which has taken control over America in the 1980's to save it from its declining birth rate and high levels of moral corruption.The Handmaid's Tale (film)The protagonist of the novel, Offred, documents the history of the two contrasting societies as she recounts with both sentimentality and clarity, the images and memories of her past life as an American women and those of her present life living under the Gileadean regime as a Handmaid.What is most apparent throughout the novel, is that of Margaret Atwood's criticisms of the permissive approach of America and its people, towards the rising levels of corruption, degradation and immorality in modern society. It is this society that the reader can observe as 'freedom to', where a public is free to do as they please, whether it be correct or not, implying that society has reached a peak where it is bordering on spiralling out of control. The society that has implemented the fundamentalist approach of 'freedom from' is the Republic of Gilead...

How Senators Use the Filibuster to Stop Legislation

How Senators Use the Filibuster to Stop Legislation The term filibuster is used to describe a tactic used by members of the U.S. Senate to stall or delay votes on legislation. Lawmakers have used every trick imaginable to filibuster on the floor of the Senate: reading names from the phone book, reciting Shakespeare, cataloging all the  recipes for fried oysters. The use of the filibuster has skewed the way legislation is brought to the floor of the Senate. There are 100 members of the upper chamber in Congress, and most votes are won by a simple majority. But in the Senate, 60 has become the most important number. Thats because  it takes 60 votes in the Senate to block a filibuster and bring an end to unlimited debate or delay tactics. Senate rules allow any member or group of senators to speak as long as necessary on an issue. The only way to end the debate is to invoke cloture, or win a vote of 60 members. Without the 60 votes needed, the filibuster can go on forever. Historic Filibusters Senators have effectively used filibusters or more often, the threat of a filibuster to change legislation or block a bill from being voted on the Senate floor. Sen. Strom Thurmond gave the longest filibuster in 1957 when he spoke for more than 24 hours against the Civil Rights Act. Sen. Huey Long would recite Shakespeare and read recipes to pass the time while filibustering in the 1930s. But the most famous filibuster was conducted by Jimmy Stewart in the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Why Filibuster? Senators have used filibusters to push for changes in legislation or to prevent a bill from passing with less than 60 votes. It is often a way for the minority party to yield power and block legislation, even though the majority party chooses what bills will get a vote. Often, senators make their intent to filibuster known to other senators to prevent a bill from being scheduled for a vote. Thats why you rarely see long filibusters on the Senate floors. Bills that will not be approved are rarely scheduled for a vote. During George W. Bushs administration, Democratic senators effectively filibustered against several judicial nominations. In 2005, a group of seven Democrats and seven Republicans - dubbed the Gang of 14 - got together to reduce filibusters for judicial nominees. The Democrats agreed not to filibuster against several nominees, while Republicans ended efforts to rule filibusters unconstitutional. Against the Filibuster Some critics, including many members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have seen their bills pass in their chamber only to die in the Senate, have called for an end to filibusters, or to at least lower the cloture threshold to 55 votes. They allege the rule has been used too often in recent years to block important legislation. Those critics point to data that show the use of the filibuster has become too common in modern politics. No session of Congress, in fact, had attempted to break a filibuster more than 10 times until 1970. Since then the number of cloture attempts has exceeded 100 during some sessions, according to the data. In 2013,  the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate voted to change the rules on how the chamber acts on presidential nominations.  The change makes it easier to set up confirmation votes for  presidential nominees for executive branch and judicial nominees with the exception of those for the U.S. Supreme Court by requiring only a simple majority, or 51 votes, in the Senate.