Why election system in the US is no longer fit for purpose
IN response to A Fowler about the influence Taylor Swift could have over the upcoming election in the US: the fact is that the whole election system in the States is a shambles where it seems the candidate with the most money behind them has a greater advantage over their rival.
And then you have to accept that the donors will not exert undue pressure. Also, the appointment of judges to the supreme court for life by a sitting president is wrong and dangerous, while the power of the president to pardon convicted prisoners is a medieval concept that has been misused many time by the last incumbent for personal and political reasons, and belongs to the past.
R JOLLY, by email.
Republican victory? No
THE decision of the DUP to return to Stormont has been greeted as a victory for democracy by the Irish and British governments as well as the main political parties within the six counties.
Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill has become First Minister, the first non-unionist to head a devolved administration since Britain partitioned Ireland over 100 years ago. This is being hailed as proof that the six-county statelet is now a stable democracy, its politicians having matured under the benign influence of the British government which acts as an honest broker to curb the mutual animosity of the two hostile tribes.
The reality, of course, is much different. Stormont’s role is to provide a democratic façade to the continued denial of democracy in Ireland. It is an institutionalism of sectarianism, where nationalist is pitted against unionist, in a futile pursuit of gaining dominance over each other within a set of institutions designed and incorporated to deny any control of their respective lives.
Stormont’s function is to disguise the reality of where political power lies. The British ruling class maintains executive power. The returned Executive will continue with the same policies as before, i.e. overseeing the implementation of British government cuts.
The election of the first nonunionist First Minister reflects the changing political realities of the relationship between British imperialism and Ireland, North and South. O’Neill’s election reflects how Sinn Féin has become a co-administrator, along with unionism, of British rule within the six counties.
Britain’s position has not been weakened, it now has republicanism, in the form of Sinn Féin, vying with unionism for the role of chief administrator of London’s rule in the six counties, while workingclass communities compete on an increasingly sectarian basis for their share of the crumbs.
PAUL DORAN, Dublin 22.
Cruel and brutal ‘sport’
IRELAND’S entrenched love affair with horse racing renders horses as whipped gambling mediums.
Many people regard horse racing as a harmless sport in which the animals are willing participants who thoroughly enjoy the thrill of running headfirst towards a possible equine grave. From Government level to our national broadcaster, down to those in the throes of a gambling addiction, horse racing is seen as a harmless and part of what makes us Irish.
Soft-focus PR by the Irish horse racing industry backed up by Government funding (the taxpayer) cannot erase the immense animal suffering and death embedded in this so called ‘sport of kings’.
Alongside its ally, gambling, horse racing panders to the base instincts of human nature.
Both activities leave victims in their wake. Horse racing is not for one kind of heart or deed, it is a child of greed that applies abuse and death to horses in the pursuit of dubious financial profit. That horses are expendable in racing is a truth that refuses to be discarded like a scrunched docket hitting the betting ring floor.