Image is of thousands of Cubans gathering in 2026 to honor José Martí.
After the Soviet Union fell, in the 1990s, Cuba entered a period (known as the Special Period) of extreme economic pressure, losing almost all of its international trade and fuel imports. Caloric intake almost halved, and electricity was mostly unavailable for much of the day. In response, Cuba undertook Option Zero, in which the country prioritized distributing resources to the most vulnerable, and rationed what little was available as fairly as possible. During this time, the threat of total collapse led to experiments and innovations, and, paradoxically to those on the outside, Cuba's population came together under pressure, rather than shattering. The collective understanding that their suffering resulted from abroad rather than from internal inefficiencies and corruption meant that Cuba's government, and thus their sovereignty, survived.
As the American Empire contracts in the wake of multipolarity and can now no longer tolerate sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, we are seeing a return to the time of the Special Period, with the illegal blockade being dramatically worsened - among other measures, the US is preventing all fuel from entering the island, a strategy made more viable with Venezuela's fuel exports now restricted. Imperialist supporters are predicting an imminent collapse, after which American mining corporations would descend on Cuba's massive nickel and cobalt reserves.
While it's absolutely possible that this time Cuba's government could collapse, it's important to note four things: 1) as noted, Cuba has been in a situation like this before and survived; 2) the geopolitical situation is quite different to how it was in the 1990s, with China and other powers increasing in power and influence compared to the USSR's incompetent final leaders leaving the lane wide open to American exploitation; 3) there has been a concerted effort to transition to renewable energy sources recently, with solar panels being imported from China and making up an increasing amount of the energy supply; and 4) Cuba's government is taking this threat very seriously, and beginning rationing efforts immediately.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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You are describing a form of colonialism.
It is. Anything not dictated by the US is sanctioned and unable to be sold. Any policy unfavorable to the US will result in them withholding the oil revenues arbitrarily.
You're just wrong but like I commented elsewhere, the last resident ultra disappeared so feel free to keep making it up and fill that void
Isn't Chevron colonial? It's a US company trying to superexploit Venezuela's resources with the backing of the US military.
I don't know if they're successful colonizers, but they seem to be trying.
nearly every formerly colonized nation has some predatory western company controlling part of their resources through coercion and even more importantly inhibiting their ability to develop domestic production and then bring that to the global market. we would have no analysis of modern capitalism, imperialism, or neo-colonialism if we reduced everything to "colonialism." Everything going on now is an extension of a historic period of colonialism that has changed and transformed a lot. Venezuela is a sovereign post colonial nation which is under siege, not a colony that is colonized. This Venezuela has been sanctioned for a long time, has been selling oil under sanction for a long time, and has been forced to cut in the US for a long time. This is an escalation of an ongoing relationship by the US because they are desperate to unseat any socialists in their sphere of influence. The US put on the maximum pressure, restricting all sales by forcibly seizing all tankers they could, and Venezuela maneuvered a quick way to turn that around into getting some amount of income for their project instead of no amount of income, which is all they can really do without being able to shoot down US aircraft, drones, and missiles and escort every oil tanker to its destination. Much like Cuba, they are in the US's most powerful zone and are pretty much all they can do is try to keep their revolution alive domestically until the empire finally falls. Unlike ultras on the internet who decide a socialist movement has folded from the sidelines because they see they are being hit hard by the imperialists, the people who are actually involved with the movement have not folded and are displaying immense solidarity with their socialist project despite being put in the most difficult situation yet.
No let's double down on the assertion that this is actually fine, and that Venezuela losing its oil rights is no big deal so we are now openly being colonial apologist and denialist lol
Well like I said, I don't know how successful the colonization is.
What I'm waiting to see is what happens to the Bolivarian militia. If Venezuela is being colonized I think we'd expect them to reorganize the explicitly political and anti-imperialist paramilitary under the regular armed forces to depoliticize them.
I imagine we'll see a similar outcome as Bolivia, where the socialist party is split between the social democrat reformists and the more hardline anti-imperialists/socialists. In both cases, the ruling "socialist" party will be selling out under the reformists and a schism will eventually erupt where the socialists can no longer tolerate the open lies, just like in Bolivia.
Unfortunately, the outcome in the end will likely be the same. Rightwing electoral dominance due to the socialist party fracturing from internal betrayal. I would not be surprised to see a rightwing comprador Venezuela within the decade if this path is continued.
The real complication is the militia. Chavez and Maduro armed and politicized the masses, undoing that will be extremely difficult for any right-wing government. That's how civil wars start, and civil war serves the empire just as well as colonization does.
you just keep asserting i'm wrong without actually demonstrating it
I have many times but you pivot to the next extrapolation
Disengage