http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-commies-next-door/Content?oid=1958161
A new wave of social justice swipes a page from Karl Marx's playbook
by Kyle Swenson
July 28, 2010
Caleb Maupin would like you to know he's not a super-villain, despite
what you may have seen on TV. A communist? Sure. But he's not out to
indoctrinate your children. Not yet.
The 22-year-old is chatty and affable, a skinny pale kid with a
burning bush of unruly red hair. When it comes to talking politics,
he's obviously done his homework: facts, dates, obscure legislation,
the fates of forgotten labor leaders, snippets of protest songs in
conversation he drops all forms of arcana from the annals of the
American left. In part, he's learned the game as a careful student of
history, but he also sees himself as an inheritor of the radical tradition.
Maupin is the leader of a small group of like-minded communists
called Cleveland FIST, the local arm of a national youth
organization. Maupin's sidekick is Adam Gluntz, a stocky blond
philosophy student from Baldwin-Wallace College. Together, they're a
straight-faced Laurel and Hardy of liberal radicalism: two white guys
from suburban and rural backgrounds who have inserted themselves at
the forefront of the local far-left.
While most young Marxists may be content to rap about Mao in the dorm
room between bong rips, these guys take a more sober and proactive
approach to kick-starting their revolution. They attend nearly every
public demonstration held in the area, from immigration rallies to
protests against police brutality. This is not necessarily an easy
world to inhabit: Far from big-budget political establishment, the
radical left is a mix of old-school union types and inner-city
activists, groups that can be distrustful of anyone new, mainstream,
and in many cases white. But Maupin and Gluntz have quickly
become fixtures in this crowd. By the end of the month, they plan to
leave their Berea stomping grounds and move into a house in
Collinwood. It gets them closer to Cleveland's working class and to
the scene of their first mainstream attention.
In mid-May, the pair got wind of a student walkout at Collinwood High
School and showed up with a video camera in time to see two young
girls arrested by Cleveland police. After their clip of the rough
arrest went public, the TV news and community leaders suggested
Maupin was some kind of agent provocateur out of a '50s comic book,
orchestrating the protest and using the kids as pawns in his Marxist agenda.
"They acted like I was some communist Snidely Whiplash twirling my
mustache," Maupin says. "We're trained in this country from the time
that we're little to believe that communism is a devilish, evil
ideology that communists are all just big and scary not to engage
the actual political beliefs."
Maupin and Gluntz admit their group is small fewer than ten active
members but the two aren't afraid to dive headfirst into the class
and race issues still brewing in Cleveland. At times it seems they
might be the only ones paying attention.
Maupin grew up in red, white, and blue-blooded Orrville, the oldest
son in one of the only liberal families on the block. Politics was a
common topic of conversation in the household, and a young Maupin got
an early taste of the picket line when his mother and other Stark
County librarians went on strike. As he got older, he spent most of
his free time reading, eventually cracking open The Communist
Manifesto in the fifth grade. Hooked on the message, Maupin read his
way through other communist staples and began contacting local
socialist groups about how he could get involved. By 19, he was a
member of the Workers World Party, one of the largest communist
groups in America.
In 2006, Maupin took up political science at Baldwin-Wallace. But
once classes began, he became disappointed with the beer-bong
dilettantism and unengaged attitude of most of the student body.
"I came to college because I wanted to learn political theory,
international politics, all of it. Other students weren't there to
learn; they were there to get their grade and get a job . . . and
they're going to be lucky if they have a job at this point," he says.
Shortly thereafter, Maupin met Gluntz, a B-W music student from
Hudson. The two shared an interest in politics, despite Gluntz's
conservative leanings at the time. They spent long nights talking
politics at a nearby Denny's, and eventually Maupin drafted his
friend into the communist ranks. Now boasting a Trotsky to his Lenin,
Maupin founded the local chapter of FIST and dropped out of school to
focus full time on activism.
Their timing may have been right on. Marxism today more than two
decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall is enjoying a bit of a
new vogue on the American scene. The philosophy has become the
favorite boogieman of the right-wing media, and as anyone who's spent
time at a Tea Party or two can tell you, the denizens of that
particular corner of the spectrum are convinced that Obama has
swapped every Bible in the White House for a copy of Das Kapital.
Despite the negative attention, socialist groups believe their
message is ripe for the times. Tagging the Great Recession as the
endgame of the capitalist project, they claim they've seen fresh
interest in socialism and Marxist theory, especially among young
people who've come of age amid bank bailouts, a manic stock market,
and record unemployment.
Frances Dostal is one of the ideology's old-timers with confidence in
a communist future, thanks largely to a new youth movement. Now in
her eighties, she's spent the lion's share of the century working the
frontlines of social causes from civil rights to the anti-war
movement. Dostal says she's seen a growing number of younger
socialists become involved in hard-hit Rust Belt cities like Detroit;
she believes Maupin and Gluntz could be the spark of a wider local
resurgence. "[Maupin's] energy is just incredible," she says. "I have
hopes they'll continue to bring in interest."
Maupin and Gluntz say their presence in Cleveland's inner city and
working classes has drummed up curiosity in their philosophy. There
are obstacles, they admit. For one, they say many in the working
class don't see that liberal political organizations and unions have
lost touch with the people they purportedly serve. Such groups, they
believe, only lubricate the interests of the mainstream political and
business machine.
"ACORN's goal is to get Democrats elected and raise money for the
party," Gluntz says. "They may benefit people in the process, but
ultimately their interest is for themselves. Their job is to capture
people's anger they have about economic and political issues, and
channel it into the party." He believes unions have fallen into a
similar situation, with the ruling caste in bed with the bosses,
rather than openly fighting for workers' rights.
"That's what being a communist is about: organizing our class the
working class to organize along their own interests," he says.
That disconnect between liberal groups and the people they claim to
serve may have been spotlighted with the Collinwood incident. On May
13, Collinwood students staged a walkout a bit of social
disobedience tied to recent budget cuts. Maupin and Gluntz say they
were contacted before the event on Facebook by a student organizer.
The pair attended in a show of support, but say they had nothing to
do with the planning.
But while there, the two captured video of Cleveland police arresting
two teenage girls, Destini and DeAsia Bronaugh, ages 19 and 17. The
video shows four officers slamming the girls against a cruiser and
dropping them face-down on the pavement. (The girls both face charges
stemming from the incident.) Maupin and Gluntz took their footage to
area TV stations; the next day, a protest was held outside the school
calling for the Bronaugh sisters' release. TV crews showed up.
The WKYC report that ran later that day clearly suggests Maupin was
the mastermind behind the events. Anchor Ramona Robinson says the
protest included "some adults, whose motives for being there have
been questioned." At one point in reporter Dick Russ' clip, Maupin is
introduced with a slow-motion shot, as if he were an action-movie
evildoer marching toward a showdown. The segment also includes clips
of a clearly agitated Maupin denying any role in the walkout;
nevertheless, Russ later mentions suspicions that the Marxists had
"duped and manipulated the Collinwood kids."
Community leaders echoed the accusation. In the segment, NAACP
Executive Director Stanley Miller states that he thought "there are
some other people out here with different intentions that are trying
to take advantage and direct the thinking of these kids. And that's a problem."
Maupin believes he was fingered because the media and community
leaders would rather blame a Red for the incident than talk about
police brutality. Tina Bronaugh, the mother of the two girls, agrees.
"[The police] beat up my girls, they threw them in jail, and now
they're putting them through these charges," she says. "I can't see
how this goes on and nobody says anything. [Maupin] saw something
that was unjust, and he stood up," she says. "I don't see a lot of
other people doing that here."
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