A note on democracy in occupied Ireland... I was in such a rush last night, I didn't have time for the details. If you remember the one man one vote cries of the nineteen sixties, even into the eighties, if memory servers, in Derry the powers that be devided the town into three voting districts, two loyalist and one republican. In Derry there was a majority of republicans, so they gave each district equal wieght, so that the 2/3rds Republican majority was out voted by the 1/3 Loyast minority by giving them 2/3rds of the voting power through districting the vote. DEMOCRACY!? Not to mention, when the majority community, the Catholic community (over the age of 18) is driven out by internment without trial or charge, and by unemployment as a result of government sanctioned prejudice, to the degree that the majority is widdled down to a minority, I don't concider that democracy. To put it more susinctly, there would have been a Nationalist majority in the six counties in the seventies, had there not been forced immagration through state sponsored terrorism.
This is the reaon one must put statistics in context to avoid the old saying, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Numbers (like votes) are meaningless out side of their context.
Peace (Bread work and freedom to carry on in Brendy's vien - with a salute to Billy Bragg)
Larry