Celebration and Conversation with Channing Martinez

to engage his first published article in Counterpunch Magazine

Thursday July 15th 2021

How the Los Angeles Metro sabotaged its own less fair “Fareless Transportation Plan” and Reverted to its structural Transit Racism An Organizer’s Analysis and Plan for Action

Please read the article before our discussion

Let’s work on a plan for Free Public Transportation for All and an end to MTA’s Attacks on Black Passengers—We have a plan.

The MTA is made up of Democratic Party elected officials who see the agency as an $8 billion slush fund for overpriced and underused rail projects to build their petty fiefdoms while destroying the Bus System that serves 500,000 daily riders.

Channing’s article will

• Expose in all honesty the duplicity and mean-spirited nature of the Democratic Party liberal establishment.

• Tell you of the many victories of the Bus Riders Union in fighting MTA Transit Racism while suffering many setbacks along the way—as the only group in LA working on transit that is Independent and to the Left of the Democratic Party that has  a real base on the ground of impacted bus and train riders. He will also tell you some history of the BRU’s 30-year fight fighting the Transit Racism of the MTA and our many victories—and frequent defeats.

• Tell you about our plan to win—Going on the buses and trains as much as we can, with your help, to warn bus and train riders of the sabotage of the BRU plan for “free public transportation for all” and our efforts to stop MTA attacks on Black passengers.

• Initiating mass public campaigns to challenge the liberal Democratic Party gentrifiers and profiteers. Who will dare to stand up to them and which groups in LA are in bed with them.  We will be initiating, with your help, public education and transformation campaigns to impact the policies and actions of Mayor Garcetti, Hilda Solis, Janice Hahn, Holly Mitchell, Sheila Kuehl, Mike Bonin, and all other MTA board members. (See chart below).

• Expose the MTA’s contempt for the “public” in “public comment” and explore some new tactics to challenge the thought dictatorship of the MTA board.

Discuss how we can challenge the duplicity and deceptions of the staff of elected MTA board members who are the gatekeepers of the lies and try to protect the MTA board members from real movement engagement.

The Bus Riders Union Program for Urban Reconstruction and Transit Justice

• Fareless Transportation Pilot for all with no public attestation of poverty and no means testing

• Free Public transportation must begin in August

• End the $680 million MTA Multi Agency Policing Contract in December 2021 with no option for renewal

• Prioritize funding from within the current Metro budget, delay and cut boondoggle rail projects, stop the MTA’s pathetic effort to seek “philanthropic” or outside funding for fareless transportation when it already has $4 billion a year in our sales taxes

Stop MTA Attacks on and Racial Profiling of Black Passengers who get 50% or more of all MTA tickets and arrests for doing nothing but being Black on public transportation