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.
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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.
https://archive.ph/8bBn7
wait, why are the Germans having their own vehicles built in Australia?! now, Australia is also adopting the Boxer for their own military, but it's originally a German design and apparently they're manufacturing it for export back to the country they imported it from?
like I don't think Australia's particularly renowned for lower labor costs or anything
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This isn't some technology demonstrator either, The boxer has been in service since 2009 lmao. How on earth you somehow fail to manufacture these things locally when 3 of the 5 factories disclosed to be building Boxers are in Germany is beyond me.
Same variant that the UK ordered to replace the AS90 "by the end of the decade" btw.
The CRV is actually this variant, with a 30mm autocannon, not the RCH 155 which is actually proper artillery and is the one replacing the AS90
The "fire support vehicle" moniker is kind of confusing for a vehicle like this, although technically its proper German name is "heavy weapons carrier", but that still kind of implies that it's meant for fire support, what are you carrying the weapons for otherwise? And, like, 30mm HE doesn't have a particularly large payload (which is why we are increasingly seeing IFVs with 35mm & 40mm autocannons, and the Americans are actually looking into a 50mm one for the XM30 program to replace the Bradley), I'm not sure how much support you're really accomplishing with that. You'd expect it to be something like this:
But no, it's basically just an IFV. The Australian variant is a "Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle", where the armament mostly makes sense (although the utility of armored recon in the age of drones seems kind of dubious, and this is a massive vehicle). And for the Wiesel that it's replacing in German service, this kind of armament made sense since it was a teeny-tiny air-transportable tankette, there's only so big of a gun you can fit on one of those.
But adopting this massive thing weighing like 38 tonnes (the weight of a T-64 tank btw!) while only being armed with an autocannon and not even transporting troops is, just... what are you even doing? The BMP-3 packs a 100mm cannon ideal for precisely infantry support and has comparable protection (slightly weaker on the sides I think) while being a little under 19 tonnes, and can actually carry troops! (albeit with some ergonomic awkwardness, admittedly)
oops yep I misread. Fire support vehicle is such a dipshit term for something that cannot actually fulfill that role because it fires rounds so fuckin tiny that it'll need to rely on direct fire to hit anything, only to be sent to space by a bajillion AT weapons.
this ifv was "refined in Afghanistan" btw.
Germans can't stop overengineering their armored vehicles. It's modular for no fucking reason. Ridiculous to make such a large pseudo-IFV with no room for an infantry squad.
the modularity would be useful considering the lack of industry to support serial lines for each variant, but even that has turned into a total fuck up.
Could it possibly be because of energy costs in Europe? Seems wild that production on the other side of the world with similar-ish labor costs would make shipping them all the way back to Germany worth it but who knows.
I'm wondering if it's also about having factories in places difficult for Russia to bomb.