Tag: Alison Banville

‘Cast Your Whole Vote, Not A Strip of Paper Merely’.

The title above is taken from Henry David Thoreau’s seminal 1849 essay , Civil Disobedience. One of the most influential ever written. Read by Gandhi and Martin Luther King who both declared its influence upon them, it’s as relevant today as it ever was. Particularly on this day! Election day 2024. Thoreau beseeches us to make voting a symbol of […]

Rafah: The Depravity of Israel Fully Exposed.

Everything I feel about Israel’s heinous onslaught of Gaza is contained in this video (below article) from Owen Jones’ Youtube channel as he responds to the terrorist state’s latest atrocity, the bombing of a tent camp in Rafah full of women and children. But isn’t that the Zionist entity’s speciality? killing the most vulnerable , the most innocent, the most […]

It’s My 20 Year Vegan Anniversary. My Thoughts:

This month I’m celebrating 20 years being vegan! I was in my first year of university in March 2004 when my then boyfriend and I made the change from vegetarian. I never went back. From that day to this it has continued to give my soul peace. I remember feeling a sense of profound lightness of spirit to know I […]

BSN Tribute to Shane McGowan

Shane McGowan died yesterday. An event which we dreaded would happen much sooner than it did touched the souls of not only those who admired his musical and lyrical genius but of those who recognised that a very special person has been in our midst. What can I say about Shane? The greatest lyricist, a true poet, a punk spirit, […]

Email to BBC Journalist re Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

I wrote to David Gritten (no I’d never heard of him either) the BBC ‘journalist’ who wrote a piece for their website about the horrific attack on the Syrian military academy on October 6th. The attack was carried out by NATO funded Islamists who waited until the recruits had gathered with their families for the graduation ceremony in order to […]

Russell Brand: What’s Really Going On?

It’s fascinating to watch how easy it is for the corporate media’s institutional bias to successfully direct the dumb gaze of the sleepwalkers to its chosen angle so that the parameters of debate are squeezed and narrowed until they include only its own perspective. In this case it’s, ‘is Russell Brand a hypocrite?’

BSNews at the Save Our Ticket Offices Rally

The following article by BSN editor Alison Banville was published in The Morning Star. A few days ago I joined a large crowd gathered outside the Department of Transport in London. There were ornate union banners being held aloft proudly emblazoned with ‘Manchester RMT’, ‘Liverpool, Branch no 5 est. 1913’, ‘Wigan RMT’ and, most movingly for me as a girl […]

The Somme: A Deeper Question

I’ve just been reading, during the commemorations for the Battle of the Somme, Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’ about ‘these who die as cattle’. A comment by a member of the fantastic group, Veterans For Peace UK, on Facebook about the ceremonies says, ‘All the talk of fallen and sacrifice gets me. Those men did not fall they were ripped apart.’ which is exactly right. Senseless mass slaughter……and I couldn’t get Owen’s poem out of my head.

Why I Won’t Date British Men

I’m pro-immigration. Oh yes, ‘they’ can’t be simultaneously claiming benefits and taking our jobs can they? Despite the sewage stream of propaganda spewed out by hate-mongering right-wing rags, immigrants, in the real world, pour money into the economy through their taxes in sums dwarfing what they ‘take’ — that pejorative simply translating as having the right to use the public services they, […]