A heads up to my Pacific Northwest friends who are politically active-
There’s this organization called the National Labor Federation, also known in Portland as “Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers", and it sounds like a pretty wholesome fight-for-the-rights-of-the-working-poor type of organization but it has a history of being super sketchy and exploitative of its volunteers, which it calls “cadre" because apparently they’re trying to be as creepy as possible. They’re not necessarily evil, but they seem to be very inefficient and deliberately opaque as an organization, and they manipulate/pressure volunteers into devoting more and more of their time to an organization that is essentially all the gross parts of Communism with few of the benefits.
Young college students with lots of energy and far left political views are their prime recruiting targets, so if they hand you a flyer or something, read their Wikipedia article before you decide if you want to work for them.
This message brought to you by an ex-volunteer friend of mine who worries about y’all.
As the ex-volunteer friend in question, I’ll add a bit more:
NATLFED has a variety of “entities” along the East and West Coasts, as well as a few in the Midwest (you can find a complete listing here). All present themselves as advocating on behalf of “unrecognized workers” i.e. workers who are forbidden from collective bargaining under current US labor laws. They do this in part by means of mutual benefit associations that provide donated food, clothing, medical services, and legal advice. All seems well and good.
Dig a bit deeper and they’re actually a Marxist-Leninist group, hoping to replace the government when the revolution comes. According to my research, they used to advocate armed uprising against the government, but now just hope to be in place when the inevitable armed uprising comes.
Now, if you’re far-left enough, none of this is too inherently worrying, so let’s get to the parts that are a bit…weird. Starting with the weak stuff and working our way up.
If it walks like a cult and quacks like a cult…
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 