Re: NATLFED a/k/a National Labor Federation
Posted by:
Mary Struggler
()
Date: December 20, 2009 02:40AM
I have been working very hard to educate people about the truth of NATLFED. There is much disinformation about the group because the Party is a secret organization (albeit a secret that's "out of the bag" and discussed in various forums). Most people confound the Party with NATLFED. Granted, NATLFED comprises the largest open fraction within the Party but by no means is it the only fraction.
I have only been to the WMLA office once and that was back in 1994. I was sent to do an inspection along with another cadre. The place was a complete and total dump. The cadres there couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag. The community practically scoffed at its existence. They were the joke of the community.
Someone else is behind Take Back the Night. It certainly isn't the Party. I won't dismiss the idea that perhaps a former cadre became involved. There were some militant feminists who joined the Party in the early days, especially before the 1984 raid. Many cadres left after the failed date of insurrection, February 15, 1984. The general strike up and down the eastern seaboard did not happen, the dam wasn't blown up, no one seized the court houses in Riverhead, nothing. The only thing that happened was the raid on National Office Central. Even then, that was orchestrated by Gino. He ordered his aide de camp to call the FBI.
Many former cadres believe it was to continue the illusion that we belonged to a dangerous organization, one that the FBI felt it had to come down on. There are many old yet lively discussions about Proscenium. Gino always claimed that the local chickened out; the local cadres always claimed that NOC backed down and stopped the tactic. The same holds true for the team dispatched to the Shasta Dam, Gino always said he gave the order to blow it up but they chickened out, whereas the team said they sat ready to do it until they received orders to the contrary.
It doesn't much matter anymore. Margaret has gotten rid of the guns, favoring passive revolution. The ones found inside the dumbwaiter walls and behind the secret panels in the closets were in such disrepair during the 1996 raid it was laughable. They have become a paper tiger, having lost all the movers and shakers, the real activists, and are left with the blind followers.
There used to be over eight hundred cadres during the 1984 heyday of the Party but now the numbers are less than a couple of hundred. Among the original founders, those who did not abandon the Party ended up dying as a result of the Party. The ranks of former cadres are many; only a few loosely associate through the internet forums. There are a small handful who chime in when a new article hits the web or a new discussion panel opens, the few who check for the new websites and send out a notice to other former cadres. Even my own blog gets a lot of repeat visitors. It doesn't get much discussion even though I opened it up for comments and I'm okay with that.
My days of being a soldier of the international are long gone, a thing of the past. I believed it even until the last day I was there despite the problems, the power struggle after Gino's death and the subsequent cadre desertions. If one did not support Margaret, the person was driving out of the Party. In the end of her program of purges, a few were violently expelled. I have a slightly different perspective than one who walked away because I was beaten and dumped on the street, left in full view of the brownstones. The cops came along with an ambulance and I was taken away. This was to maintain the illusion that I "must have been an agent working for the cops".
I use the name Struggler because the original Party Chair used the name. When she left after having suffered the final beating from Gino, she went to live with relatives. It was not the last the Party heard from her. They paint a picture that she was an alcoholic. She died in a house fire, one that several claimed was started by LARGO members (the Party's military). Gino could not afford to have her organizing a "rival" Party, one that was determined to do the things that his Party promised but did not deliver. I never tried to organize a rival party, but I did suffer when someone firebombed my great aunt's house where I was staying. I barely made it out alive. That was two weeks before the 1996 raid. I don't believe they ever claimed I was behind that raid. Certainly no one ever associated my name with it.
This is why I work so hard to tell the true stories people don't hear about. These are the things you don't hear about in news articles and half the time don't make it to the discussion boards on the web because former cadres are afraid to discuss them. They are still gripped in fear that the Party will some day come after them, maybe an ice pick to the neck or maybe a strange house fire. It's been twelve years and I'm still alive. Maybe they will come for me one day but I will not let that fear rule my life.
Take Back the Night was not founded by the Party. As of 1996 there was no alliance between the groups. Things change, perhaps it is different now. Take Back the Night has a web site, something no NATLFED entity has. They work with the police, something the Party openly "fears" for coming down on it (but did use tactically in 1984). The Party much prefers long and drawn out court battles, suing former members and then decrying the evils of that persons in internal documents and late night lectures. If I am wrong, I will publicly apologize.
Mary Struggler