How Bernie Lost the Black Vote Long Before Super Tuesday

[MisterP]

173. outing myself as an Angeleño, but the closest analogy seems to be the Bus Riders Union

it presents itself as an analogue to the "straphanger's campaign" advocating for humane transit conditions--"we are not sardines," pointing out broken and hazardous bus interiors, against route cuts, etc.

it's the brainchild of Eric Mann, one of the "saurian left" like Bob "the Revolution! is! nigh!" Avakian that doesn't talk to anybody else, ever: of course he's got it into his head that 1. buses are THE transport mode of the poor, 1a. the city fathers deliberately make buses as crummy as possible to humiliate the colored underclass (hence the fliers likening the riders' plight to the horrors of Jenin), and 2. any other sort of transport, especially LRT/subways is a rich man's toy, built on the backs of the Black and Brown laborers of the city to whisk them around from caviar party to masked human hunt; they even protest double-jointed buses as racially-biased transit (since it supposedly means a little less money from the little Snickers-bar buses): of course it's just a front for the bus drivers' union--when they struck the BRU basically said that the scum's used to walking

whenever anyone criticizes him he even says "the only people criticizing me are white commuters! I'm a radical!" he of course has a padded chair in the Wiltern building, pulls in $300,000 a year from his BH/Westwood donors, and gets everyone to just do his volunteering for free by telling them "here's an INJUSTICE!" (also, spotting BRU kidlets in their yellow dayglo jerseys on the Metro subways is always a fun pastime in the city, besides dodging those cultists that were responsible for the Sewol); some judge in Washington gave them a consent decree where it had full veto over any Metro action, and all lawsuits against Metro would be paid in full by Metro

now West LA is notorious--a punchline, in fact--for its utter hysterical hatred to let any Metro expansion near it: Cheviot Hills's denizens outright go to the City Council and say "Rosa can take the bus, I don't want gangbangers near me"; Beverly Hills HS *embezzled $10 million in school district funding* to fight the Purple Line (including making a video of high schoolers getting detonated by a methane leak: the line goes under their tennis court, BTW); inaccessibility ("seclusion&quot is even a coded cachet for Westsiders wanting to avoid those of us who have to work for a living; it's poured millions into gumming up the Orange, Expo, and Purple by any means possible

so the BRU's protesters (not knowing anything beyond what Mann tells them), show up and scream and shout and drown out any other speakers when it's their turn ("WE! WILL! NOT! BE! SILENCED!&quot ; especially amusing was when half of East LA turned out in favor of the Gold Line, sorta putting a damper on the "we represent all LA's oppressed minorities!" cheerleading

the Expo Line was also delayed and dragged for years and years by Damien Goodmon, some Cajun monomaniac from Leimert Park that said that light rail was a way to kill off Black kids(!): so again another wave of rent-a-rad "activism" occurred that just happened to get its millions from west of La Cienega; in fact his campaign to hold up the Crenshaw Line never got off the ground because Inglewood desperately wants light rail