quote:
Troubling Patter
But disturbing questions continued to arise, Rev. Patterson recalled. "Some pastors in New Brunswick wanted to know what one of the groups called Eastern Service Workers did with their funds. That confirmed our suspicions," he said.
By 1982, not only did the National Labor Federation print "Invest Yourself," but one quarter of the listings were affiliates and Ms. Ramirez had become the board's chairwoman. He said Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopalian groups withdrew their listings from Invest Yourself. Finally, Rev. Patterson and his colleagues asked Ms. Ramirez to leave the board in the fall of 1982. A church newspaper called Christian Century ran a piece on the maneuvers called How the Revolutionaries Conned the Bureaucrats.
As a result of her removal, Ms. Ramirez sued Rev. Patterson, other Commission members, and the National Council of Churches for $20 million, claiming her civil rights had been violated. Rev. Patterson said the suit was dismissed in Manhattan Federal Court. The National Labor Federation has since filed an appeal, but Rev. Patterson is confident the suit is history.
"They infiltrated our organization and took over our publication," he remarked. "We weren't aware of their shadowy way until a lot of damage had been done," he said.
The National Labor Federation still prints Invest Yourself, apparently unbeknownst to some nonprofit groups it lists.
"In the latest issue I saw the Sierra Club had run a large ad," said Ms. Coates. "I was shocked."
When she was the national director of the Cult Awareness Network, Ms. Coates said she would receive calls from parents distressed because their children were in a sect "with a deadline for world revolution." The deadlines were flexible, she said. "The last one I knew about was March 15, 1984, the Ides of March." She assumed Mr. Perente selected the date because of "Julius Caesar," his favorite Shakespeare play.
This quote is from an old article, link here:
http://www.ex-iwp.org/docs/Cults/East%20Hamtpon%20Star%20on%20Natlfed.htm. But the practice is still happening in 2006. After churches became more guarded, this cult slacked off but went into "parachurch" and "interfaith" ministries, and its training of church volunteers inside its own centers back in the 1980's produced "clones" of its' methods in the 1990's up to today. Churches today may have forgotten about it and become vulnerable again. NatLFeds' trainers ("cadre")have taught followers to build their own cults by inserting aberrant points of theology like slivers in a mostly-acceptable context, and then these followers turn the tables on critics by shifting to stalking and personal relationship interference instead of just accepting that not everybody agrees. The followers may not even think they learned from NatLFed, because they may have learned through a "front" group. They may think that inserting Jesus means they are not using an atheist church-busting technique, but that is like painting a cross on a grenade. It is still a grenade.
This cult is heavily involved in laundering money and masking its fake politics, which shift from "radical left" to "radical right" according to the camouflage that seems most convenient. It really is about controlling the assetts and life of any church or other group it infiltrates, and this cult uses criminal methods of intimidation very freely.
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