Public Letter to all Members & Friends
Public Letter to All CPI Members & Friends
Founder and Director Caleb Maupin addresses all members and associates of the Center for Political Innovation with this formal communique. Available here is a professionally edited video, with full text below. WATCH!
Events are happening around the world at a very fast pace, and the political situation in the country is shifting quickly. Our upcoming national convention in Chicago on August 15th will have a fundamentally different character than any previous gathering of our organization. Why? Because the way events are progressing indicates that we will have a vital and important role to play in events this fall surrounding the midterm elections. In order to move into action effectively this fall, we must use the August gathering to solidify and refine our abilities.
Trump has completely betrayed every anti-war and anti-establishment sentiment he pandered to during his 2024 campaign. His murderous and unnecessary war with Iran has resulted in oil prices surging to $100 per barrel and a crisis of inflation that makes the inflation he decried under Biden look tiny in comparison. The National Defense Authorization Act has widely controversial provisions that will merge key sections of the U.S. military with the Israeli military. The hope for peace in Ukraine has stalled, and conflict rages on, with U.S.-backed Kiev forces murdering Russian civilians with daily drone strikes.
Political Reshuffling
All of this has resulted in a reshuffling of the political spectrum. Many of Trump’s most vocal supporters during the 2024 elections are now his harshest critics. Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Candace Owens have broken with the White House and become far more outspoken in their anti-war advocacy, opposition to Israel, and sympathetic view of the anti-imperialist countries.
Meanwhile, the Democratic camp, hoping to bank on anti-war sentiments as the midterms get closer, has softened its McCarthyist stances and begun to open the door to cooperation with anti-imperialists. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) now hold the office of Mayor of New York City and have won key nominations for the midterm vote. I was warmly welcomed onto a podcast with prominent academic and DSA leader Dr. Cornel West. DSA-aligned YouTube channels Status Coup and Really American podcast have featured CPI, not in passing, but have allowed us to blatantly advertise our 4-point plan and our ideology on their platforms.
Amid all of this, Marco Rubio’s State Department published a McCarthyist document on July 20th that listed a number of Democrat-aligned activist groups as supposed agents of Cuba. While CPI was not named in the document, the image we have relentlessly highlighted on our social media in recent months, used on the cover of our book Out of the Movement to the Masses!, and used as the poster for our national gathering on August 15th was featured on page 45 of the document with no explanation or caption.
An Important Diplomatic Role
We view this as confirmation that we are being watched closely by the State Department. Marco Rubio just held a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Our organization is the most outspoken voice calling for the creation of a "peace bridge" or "peace tunnel" connecting Alaska to Russia over the Bering Sea, and this appears to be a fundamental issue in negotiations with Russia aimed at ending the Ukraine war. Two of our members have publicly spoken directly with Russian President Putin in 2024 at the World Youth Festival in Sochi. I personally greeted Kirill Dmitriev when he came to New York City and gave remarks to the media about the Bering Sea Tunnel.
Furthermore, I was recently personally invited to a reception with Joe Kent, the U.S. Counterterrorism Director who resigned in protest of the Iran war. Tucker Carlson recently recited the words, "Who are the Houthis? What are they fighting for?" in a broadcast, and then sat down with CPI friends Tara Reade and Olga Bataman for a full-length interview, just weeks after I was personally interviewed on their set in Moscow.
Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal has chosen to acknowledge the economic successes of North Korea in a headline article, and Trump has indicated he wants to have another meeting with Kim Jong Un. This is vitally important, as we at the Center for Political Innovation are the most outspoken friends and admirers of the Korean Workers' Party in America, convening weekly Juche study groups and distributing thousands of booklets across America highlighting the Kimilsungia flower.
In this context, our role as an organization cannot be underestimated, and the importance of our upcoming gathering cannot be downplayed. Many eyes will be watching our upcoming gathering in August very closely, and the way our organization is presented and the way our ideas are expressed must be done with the highest level of professionalism.
Our organization represents the bridge connecting America with the rising new economy in the East. We point to a way out of globalism/imperialism and the needed anti-monopoly coalition and mass movement fighting for working families to bring it into being. With our consistent activism and educational work, we can do what no other organization can do. Our moment is getting closer, and tasks that only we can take on and accomplish effectively will soon be universally deemed necessary.
Opposing Political Repression
In regard to Marco Rubio’s document and the subpoena of Breakthrough News! by the U.S. Congress, in the aftermath of Trump’s delusional speech about supposed Chinese influence on American elections, a few points of clarity must be made.
First, we offer nothing but unconditional support to any organization accused of being "foreign agents" or otherwise persecuted for their anti-war and peace activism. We oppose the subpoena of Breakthrough News! We oppose the State Department using its platform to publish what is essentially a 21st-century blacklist of activist groups.
We will support those listed and targeted by the American government with donations, demonstrations, public awareness, and loud opposition to their persecution. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is fundamentally unconstitutional, as its vague definition of "lobbying" makes it nothing more than an open threat to persecute any voice on international issues that the powers that be wish to silence. The law will never be enforced against Israel or other countries aligned with the United States but will most certainly be used to prosecute or intimidate anti-war voices. It needs to be completely overturned.
The Biden administration used FARA and the State Department to target the Uhuru Movement, Scott Ritter, and others with international ties who were deemed to be enemies of the Democratic Party. Now, Marco Rubio appears to be using the same tactics to target activists who are deemed to be enemies of the Republican Party. Just as Democrats perpetrated the Russiagate hoax, disproven time and time again, now the Republicans are using the same kind of hysterical phobias about China to engage in similar repression.
A Spiritual Difference with Leftism
We must be clear that there is a fundamental, spiritual difference between us as the "communists" of America, and despite our best efforts, we believe it is unlikely that many of them will stop seeing us as enemies and "fascists." While we may sympathize with many of the same countries as the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) or Breakthrough News!, we do so for very different reasons.
We do not hate America; we love America. We are opposed to globalism/imperialism, an economic system that is impoverishing the American heartland and waging murderous wars around the world for the profits of internationalist monopolies. We have a 4-point plan to restructure the U.S. economy to be growth-oriented by breaking the power of oil monopolies and high finance and utilizing the creativity and labor power of the American people to unleash a wave of growth and innovation.
The PSL, the Communist Party, and the various other groups offer no such positive vision. They instead seek to tap into resentment, envy, rage, and sexual frustrations in order to create unrest. Their anger is not at the economic system making people all over the world, including Americans, poorer. Their anger is at the American flag, the Bible, and the bulk of the U.S. population on a cultural level. Instead of presenting a vision for lifting Americans up and joining with the rising new economy on a win-win basis, they assemble various offended and resentful identity groups and stoke their rage. Their vision is to "burn it down" as revenge for historic injustice. They do not dream of a peace bridge connecting us to Russia over the Bering Sea or a mass mobilization to rebuild America's infrastructure, but rather of various acts of vengeance and "accountability" they can impose on people within the country deemed to be privileged.
While the bulk of America's communists completely disavow and denounce Joseph Stalin, who turned Russia into an industrial powerhouse and defeated the Nazis, many of them are admirers of Leon Trotsky and his theory of permanent revolution, hoping to spread endless chaos across the planet. This is a heritage they share with the Neoconservatives, many of whom guided and laid the foundation for Marco Rubio's actions.
Relationships with Optimistic Forces
When CPI first emerged in 2020–2021, it was met with universal hatred and hostility from communists. Though the Communist Party is usually silent about other groups, they published a long screed on their website calling us white supremacists. Social media hate campaigns, defamations, threats of violence, and even a picket line outside our workshop in Minneapolis were put together.
However, amid the left's campaign of deranged hatred, we established some very important friendships and alliances. We spoke up in support of the Uhuru Movement when the FBI raided them in 2022 and welcomed them as heroes at our gathering that August. I was personally blackmailed, but we proceeded with the event. We arranged a United Nations press conference focused on the Uhuru case and spoke about it with Russian President Putin.
As we got to know the Uhuru organizers, we discovered that our bond was deeper than simply opposition to U.S. foreign policy and government repression. The Uhuru Movement is fundamentally an optimistic movement about empowering Black people with community projects. Chairman Omali and his followers constantly say, "We are winning!" They create farmers' markets, classes for pregnant mothers, and prison re-entry programs. Despite whatever differences we may have with their African Internationalist ideology, it is a fundamentally constructive one.
Likewise, we have established a friendship with the Unification Church, an anti-communist religious organization that became a primary advocate of peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula during the 1990s. The Unification Church's late founder, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, invested millions of dollars into building hotels and a state-run car company in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He was also a strong advocate for creating a bridge over the Bering Sea, connecting the United States with Alaska.
As Dr. Hak Ja Han, Rev. Moon's widow, the Mother of Peace, faces prosecution in South Korea, we have organized demonstrations supporting her and worked to oppose the persecution of the church in Japan as well.
In 2023 we reached out to Nodutdol, the main leftist organization that advocates better relations with North Korea. We offered to participate in their rally, only to be met with a hostile, unfriendly response. Meanwhile, we were welcomed warmly and enabled to successfully participate in the New York City Peace March just months later with Unificationists.
These relationships are not always easy, and there are issues on which the Uhuru Movement, the Unification Church, and CPI will never see eye to eye. But these relationships are possible, I believe, because there is a fundamental spiritual bond between us. We all believe in growth, optimism, and want to connect America with the rising new world in the East.
Meanwhile, "the left" largely responds to us with anger. This anger is not logical or even based on any political position we hold. We believe the hatred from the left flows from the fact that they have embraced a negative, resentful worldview and strive for revenge and destruction, not reconciliation and reconstruction in America or the world.
We simply want different things. We have different underlying motivations. The left has embraced hate. We have embraced hope.
We are happy to work with anyone who advocates for peace and improving the conditions of working families throughout America and the world. But the two successful relationships we have had indicate that cooperation is much more likely when this spiritual bond exists. Forces that embrace the dark energy so common among leftists are unlikely ever to be friendly to us.
The midterm elections are likely to be full of surprises and provocations. The Democrats accuse Trump of being a fascist dictator, and the Republicans accuse the Democrats of being Marxist revolutionaries. Neither side has a solid vision for improving the country, and both sides are banking on presenting a nightmare caricature of their opponents in order to win votes. The economic fallout of the war and the potential to tie up Trump with impeachment proceedings make the stakes very high.
CPI does not support either side. The Democrats could have stopped Trump's war, and during his State of the Union, while they remained seated for many remarks, they all rose to their feet to applaud when he threatened war against the Islamic Republic.
Even if one side were fundamentally better, as a political education organization we do not campaign for or endorse any candidates. We view the midterms not as a struggle to render one of the major parties victorious, but as an opportunity.
We want to use the midterm circus to spread anti-imperialism. We want to disrupt town hall events with candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. We want to cover major cities with anti-imperialist posters. We want to offer guidance to those who will turn to the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, or the new political regroupments being discussed by figures like Thomas Massie and Tucker Carlson.
In liberal democratic Western society, the leaders generally seek to keep the population disengaged. However, elections are the moment in which the bulk of the population is pushed to get involved and listen to political ideas. We will use the elections to spread anti-imperialism. You will see CPI members on the news and across social media. You will see our posters all over major cities. You will be handed our books at political rallies.
We have a major operation planned for the fall. The convention in August is aimed at solidifying our organization to make it happen. The 7-day training program and the convention on August 15th will be about giving orientation, refining skills, and setting the stage for our important work this fall.
We call on all members, former members, friends, and allies to attend the convention. Please register and join us on August 15th.
Those who cannot attend, please donate! We need as many people as possible to send $100, $50, or even $20 to support our work. In times like these, travel and housing costs are much higher than usual, and putting this convention together has been much more stressful than in previous years due to logistical and financial concerns.
We have a unique vision and operation to pull off this fall. We need you to help us carry it out, either as a participant, an observer, or a background supporter.
We must oppose war, political repression, and the continued economic demolition of the country. We must counter it with our optimistic vision of a government of action that fights for working families and connects us to the rising new world in the East.
We believe August 15th will be decisive in making the fall operations successful. Please join us, support us, and be part of making history.
I will end by quoting a passage from the great Christian Socialist writer Wallace Wattles:
"There are two mental attitudes a man may take. One makes him like a football. It has resilience and reacts strongly when force is applied to it, but it originates nothing; it never acts of itself. There is no power within it. Men of this type are controlled by circumstances and environment; their destinies are decided by things external to themselves.... The other attitude makes man like a flowing spring. Power comes out from the center of him. He has within him a well of water springing up into everlasting life; he radiates force; he is felt by his environment. The Principle of Power in him is in constant action. He is self-active. 'He hath life in himself.'"
As an organization, we seek to awaken people from a state of maintaining a mere biological existence ("living biologically") and empower them to take action, to find their voice, and their role in the struggle. We view this as a highly noble mission and purpose, and we will not back down from this stated aim.
Best,
Caleb T. Maupin
Founder and Director of the Center for Political Innovation
