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.
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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.
Only if Taiwan pursues any unilateral moves. It's up to the CPC to determine whether those moves, whether allowing US military occupation, pursuing nuclear proliferation or outright secession, meets its "red line" for action.
Personally, I've always held the view that Taiwan is a big kabuki theater. Talking to geopolitically minded Chinese comrades about it gives you the impression that "Taiwan reunification" is the biggest case of inter-generational blue balls in modern history. Akin to the highly anticipated and fear-mongered, but ultimately merely rhetorical, liberation of West Berlin in the original Cold War.
Pragmatically speaking, China (or rather, socialist China) benefits from the contrast that Taiwan brings. It's the fabled, fantasized alternate "democratic free" China pursuing electoralism and all the Western hurrah words, manifested dialectically in reality. Yet all of that only evidently amounting to a population where a large portion simply wishes they were Japanese instead. All the while being poorer nowadays than many of the likes of their Shanghai or Shenzhen counterparts. It could be said that it's perhaps preferable for the CPC to maintain Taiwan as a reverse East German-style foil and that the CPC ultimately found a way to make lemonade out of lemons through the present state of the Taiwan status quo.
Geopolitically speaking, Taiwan has been relatively "worthless" historically. It says quite a lot that in spite of being a strait away from one of the oldest polities in human history, the first group to formally incorporate the island was Spain. The only use of the island is as a base against mainland China, which is why the Ming retreated to the island following the establishment of the Qing (later indeed using the island as an attack vector during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories) and the KMT followed in the Ming's footsteps. In a purely geopolitical stance, China doesn't need to necessarily possess the island itself, only merely prevent any hostile actors (the ROC itself, the West, Japan, etc.) from weaponizing the island as a dagger against the mainland.
The way that the Japanese/American-occupied Ryukyus and the Philippines' Batanes islands juts toward Taiwan like pincers means that possessing Taiwan itself without addressing the former would not fundamentally solve the issue of China's access beyond the "First Island Chain." As such, any war for Taiwan without addressing the wider regional status quo of American control would merely be kicking the can down the road from a geopolitical standpoint.
It's kayfabe. Both the PRC and US saber-rattle, but their strategy is anything but military. The PRC wants to economically integrate the ROC into the PRC without formal political integration, in effect turning the ROC into a SEZ. Meanwhile, the US wants and has been turning Taiwan into a poison pill that they hope the PRC will swallow. And what is the poison? "I'm not Chinese, I'm Taiwanese except sometimes I'm also Japanese" brainworms. If Taiwan gets swallowed up, those separatist brainworms will spread far quicker throughout the Mainland. And southern China is weaker on questions of national unity relative to the north, which Taiwan is very much part of both geographically and culturally.
At the end of the day, the PRC and the people of the ROC benefits most from the current status quo while the US wants an "independent" Republic of Taiwan that they can place nukes on but can live with the PRC forcefully reunifying Taiwan with the Mainland because the separatist brainworms and general cultural confusion of the average Taiwanese owing to Chen's desinofication campaign would undermine Chinese society. Plus, innocent people will inevitably die in any military campaign, so that's more fuel to the fire.
Of course, al Aqsa flood has accelerated things and the kidnapping of Maduro means the PRC needs to greatly militarize in order to protect its allies. However, the domestic population will not consent to any Chinese military intervention (outside of an invasion of Japan in order to settle old scores) without the reunification of Taiwan with the Mainland. "Why is the PLA in X country instead of liberating our compatriots in Taiwan?"
A lot of this isn't true. There's no cultural confusion. The CPC purposefully misinterpreted a poll for national propaganda reasons. There are no Taiwanese from a Chinese background that believe they aren't from a Chinese background.
From who, the KMT? They should have done that a LONG time ago!! The CPC would have full legitimacy if they took out the KMT before they could oppress the people living in Taiwan at the time. Way too much time has passed. The people of Taiwan really have zero relation to the CPC. All the CPC arguments for why Taiwan is theirs doesn't hold up. "Taiwanese are Chinese" - I guess they own Vancouver now? Or wherever there are Chinese people.
"The war never ended" ok, might is right but your war was against the KMT, who are from China. That's great, continue the war against them. They're all over 80 years old now. What's the point?
"Taiwanese are closer to the evil Japanese (who committed countless war crimes) than us so they are bad" I guess?
"Taiwan has always been a part of China" no it hasn't. Throughout imperial Chinese history Taiwan was seen as a land of disease and barbarians and of zero use to anyone.
I am all for the returning of the stuff that the KMT stole from China AND the people of Taiwan. No I don't like the DPP and how they go along with US propaganda but the alternative is to go full Yemeni and Taiwanese are way way way too comfortable for that.
Don't the KMT want reunification too? Xi is possibly meeting with the leader of the KMT next month after a successful CPC-KMT think tank a few days ago. We will have to wait and see if developments come out of it