h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can't help reflecting that something similar to this was carried out with overwhelming success in Northern Ireland in 1974: a "general strike" was carried out by a consortium of Protestant political parties, Prot churches, trade unions, paramilitaries and their front organisations, which brought the whole of N.I. to a grinding shuddering halt: a major component of this was the blockading of the oil storage points, petrol distribution network, et c, that within days stopped anything from moving. The whole intention was to prevent a power-sharing agreement with Catholics coming into force, and it succeeded to the point that it's only now, 33 years later, that something similar is staggering off the ground.

For a British government that talked tough against Catholics and Nationalists, it's interesting to reflect on how it caved into Unionist and Prot demands, a point not lost on nor forgotten by Nationalist politicians...

as the mainstay of support for the oil protests in 2000 were the same sort of people who would have condemned power-sharing as "giving into the IRA" (ie, right-wing newspapers like the Daily Mail and general "poujadiste" interests) you wonder how much of the blueprint from 1974 was remembered in 2000...