From: pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce)
Subject: New Alliance Party, "a deceptive cult"?
Originator: pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu
Reply-To: pierce@cs.ucla.edu
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 07:45:39 GMT

------------------  FORWARDED POSTING  ---------------------------
				   
	  Former NAP Organizer Calls Group A Deceptive Cult
				   
			    by Chip Berlet
				   
			       8/14/92

A former leading organizer for the New Alliance Party now charges  
the group "perfected the art of psycho-political cultism and  
deception under the auspices of Lyndon LaRouche" and uses these  
manipulative techniques to engage in the "obstruction of minority  
empowerment." 

Marina Ortiz, once singled out for praise in the New Alliance  
Party (NAP) newspaper by NAP strategist Fred Newman, served as a  
publicist for NAP presidential candidate Lenora Fulani before  
leaving the organization several years ago. Ortiz now says that  
NAP does not live up to its claims of promoting democracy, and  
championing the rights of women, persons of color, and gay men  
and lesbians. 

While NAP calls itself "progressive," Ortiz points to a "two- 
decade history of cooptation and infiltration efforts, legal  
suits, and sectarian smear campaigns and petition challenges  
against progressives and insurgents such as Edward Wallace in  
1983, Jesse Jackson in 1984, David Dinkins in 1989, Jitu Weusi  
and Timothy Evans in 1990, and Ron Daniels and Jerry Brown in  
1992."  

Ortiz also is troubled that "Gerald Horne, chair of the Black  
Studies Department at the University of California and a Peace  
and Freedom Party Senate Candidate [and] independent presidential  
candidate Ron Daniels" failed NAP's "litmus test" for being real  
progressives after they and others on the left questioned NAP's  
embrace of Ross Perot's brief presidential bid. Ortiz felt NAP's  
promotion of Perot was opportunistic and highly troubling, and  
indicated a willingness by NAP to abandon gay men and lesbians as  
allies in order to suggest a Perot/Fulani ticket. Ortiz says that  
rather than honestly dealing with its critics, NAP frequently  
resorts to nasty attacks, and has "viciously vilified" other  
former NAP leaders who have resigned such as former NAP  
presidential candidate Dennis Serrette and former NAP Georgia  
state chair Alvin Munson.  

Ortiz charges that while she was in the New Alliance Party she  
was inducted into the secret International Workers Party where  
she learned that she was expected to follow the orders of party  
chairman Fred Newman, as were other members of IWP including NAP  
presidential candidate Fulani. Ortiz says that as an IWP member  
she was told to attend therapy sessions run by persons trained in  
the "Social Therapy" technique invented by Newman. 

The net result of these overlapping affiliations and commitments,  
according to Ortiz, was the creation of an organizational control  
mechanism that derailed criticism and enforced obedience. Ortiz  
finally decided that NAP's pronouncements championing democracy  
were a sham given the way the internal NAP hierarchy actually  
functioned. After resigning, Ortiz spent many months putting her  
energies into rebuilding her family which had been torn apart  
during her time within NAP. She eventually decided to write a  
book about her experiences in what she now calls a cult run by  
Newman. 

But Ortiz decided to break her self-imposed silence when in 1992  
NAP sued two African-American women in Maryland who were  
"challenging the party's internal hierarchy." That incident  
involves an NAP lawsuit against a Baltimore African-American  
environmentalist and community organizer named Morning Sunday and  
another former NAP activist, Annie Chambers. Ms. Sunday became  
active in NAP in 1988 and originally chaired NAP's 1992 Maryland  
campaign organization for Lenora Fulani's presidential race. 

Sunday became disillusioned after NAP ignored her requests that  
NAP support local campaigns, increase local participation and  
responsibility, and provide a mechanism for input into decisions.  
Instead NAP repeatedly demanded more money be raised in  
fundraising for NAP headquarters. "The bottom line was always  
signatures and money for national," Sunday told Ortiz in an  
interview Ortiz conducted for her book on NAP. Ortiz quickly  
became a supporter of Sunday and Chambers for their attempts to  
make NAP conform in actual practice to NAP's claim of championing  
democracy. 

Sunday told Ortiz she believed NAP's local Maryland operations  
were in fact part of a "dictatorial hierarchy" controlled by  
NAP's New York office staff, characterized by Sunday as "mostly  
white elitists." After a series of frustrating and alienating  
experiences, which Sunday recalls included a local art-gallery  
fundraiser where all $3,000 was whisked away to NAP in New York,  
and an episode where NAP sent her a volunteer who trashed her  
house and stole her husband's car, Sunday contacted the two  
former NAP Maryland State chairs, Doug Ross and Annie Chambers.  
Both shared similar sentiments regarding NAP's lack of democracy. 

In March 1992 Chambers contacted New York NAP headquarters and  
suggested a meeting between the Maryland NAP committee and Fulani  
to iron out a dispute arising from NAP's contention that Sunday  
was refusing to file Fulani's nominating petitions, even though  
the petitions were not due for over five months. Instead of  
seeking to resolve the matter internally, NAP threatend a civil  
lawsuit, and then had an NAP staffer file criminal charges  
against Sunday and Chambers.  

In an April 21, "Baltimore Sun" article on the dispute, Sunday  
revealed she had been threated by NAP in several ways, and said  
the same treatment had been accorded others "who have bucked the  
national leadership" of NAP. Sunday said NAP had a "distinct  
class system" and was "no different than the Democrats and  
Republicans." NAP would send "marching orders" with no input from  
local activists, according to Sunday, and "when we tried to  
question their authority, all hell broke loose. They went into  
severe attack phase." 

A judge found Sunday and Chambers guilty of theft on June 9. Even  
though Sunday turned over the petitions to NAP through a neutral  
mediator from the community, both Sunday and Chambers were  
punished with suspended jail sentences, placed on probation, and  
ordered to perform community service. Ortiz was moved by Sunday's  
argument prior to sentencing. Sunday told the judge her actions  
had been dictated by her conscience, that she had been seeking to  
prevent the maltreatment of Baltimore's Black community by a  
flim-flam campaign, that NAP was motivated strictly by greed,  
that NAP engaged in the political process for the sole purpose of  
raising money. Ortiz said when she heard those statements she  
recognized them as true, and she decided as a matter of  
conscience to speak out before waiting to complete her book. 

At first, Ortiz granted several interviews and provided a written  
statement to this author to be included in an update of my 1987  
study of NAP, "Clouds Blur the Rainbow," published by Political  
Research Associates. That revised study is due out in September,  
and includes new interviews with a number of former NAP members.  

Ortiz agreed to be interviewed on the condition that any  
discussion of her charges include the fact that she believes  
there are many sincere people who have been pulled into NAP, and  
that her criticisms not be used to hurt serious efforts to fight  
for social change and equal rights. 

But Ortiz became convinced that she had an obligation to air her  
charges as quickly as possible, in a way that would encourage  
public debate in the Latino and African-American communities  
where NAP candidates are currently running for public office.  
Ortiz wrote an article about the experiences of Sunday and  
Chambers, but for a variety of reasons she could find no  
publisher. So on August 8 Ortiz appeared on a Latino program on  
New York's progressive radio station WBAI to make her charges  
public. Ortiz hopes her charges will spark a spirited debate over  
NAP's internal reality, but she hopes to fade back behind the  
scenes as quickly as possible to continue research on her book  
and find a publisher. That last task should be easier than usual  
for a young author...Marina Ortiz has quite a story to tell.  


                              -30- 

Extracted from the forthcoming new edition of "Clouds Blur the  
Rainbow" available from PRA, 678 Mass. Ave., #205, Cambridge, MA  
02139. Copyright 1992 Chip Berlet. Permission to reprint granted  
if used in its entirety. (For the record, this is a freelance  
article and not a work product of PRA.) 

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