this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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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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US military buildup against Iran update, tactical fighters: The 12x F-35As from the Vermont Air National Guard, a unit that specialises in suppressing and destroying air defences, have made it to Jordan (6x from the UK and 6x from Spain). The last 2x EA-18G Growlers that were stuck at Morón Air Base in Spain have also made to Jordan. 12x F-15Es have rotated out, heading home from Jordan back to the USA. All of this happened over the course of a few days.
So for an update on tactical fighter numbers:
Jordan:
Saudi Arabia: -12x F-16CM
USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier:
That's 120 tactical fighters.
If/when the USS Gerald R Ford arrives, it will bring with it 48x F/A-18E/Fs, and 6x EA-18Gs with TJS pods. That would bring the total up to 174.
Useless/unnecessary but related drama, you've been warned
I don't know how much longer I can provide these updates on exact fighter numbers as the guy with the most accurate numbers, a 70 year old retiree who worked as an air traffic controller for most of his adult life, and has helped with building all the infrastructure used to track planes, is leaving the online tracking scene. Because he was rude/grumpy when providing corrections (he was always correct though) the "OSINT" community is celebrating his departure (as expected from a bunch of know it all stuck ups who can't handle corrections on their "OSINT", especially from someone who actually worked a real job in the field they're interested in. I hate the online OSINT community. I'd take 1 grumpy old guy who know what he's taking about over 100 online OSINTers)
It’s horrifying watching this happen in real time, with practically nothing that can be done to stop it
I can’t imagine what’s it’s like to be Iranian and to see your enemy pile up its offensive and defensive arsenal
Death to Amerikkka
How long until the Gerald R Ford arrives? I'm assuming that will constitute the maximum force they can concentrate in terms of SEAD.
Two weeks I'd guess if it goes now.
Invite him to hexbear news as an exclusive guest with honors
Probably better to send him to Naked Capitalism or MoA.
There's no way he's a leftist lol. He'd get Insta purged on here
Oh of course not, he's like 70. I'm saying he should have a nice little internet Potemkin villa carved out for him here where he can continue his work while not being annoyed by those annoying slopint losers.
order of lenin if he renounces amerikkka
two days before one of ours tells him he'll get culled when the time comes for being a reactionary (which, he most likely is, but also, free information! you gotta be tactical about these thangs..)
Honorary guests get passes and shielding from the most aggressive bears. The handlers must however make sure to keep the guest on topic and not veer towards any topics that they have opinions on that are not the norm on hexbear dot net.
It's always the obsessive curmudgeons who have the best info.
And then when they retire or die, a lot of knowledge is lost because they never bothered to teach or train anyone. Boomers.
So if we can bring him over, we could acquire unique and valuable skills?
That others won't be able to get once he passes away?
Twitter is conducive to that sort of posting. It's why we have to bring forums back.
Causing drama to attack someone's mental health was an attack vector used to install malware in the open source repo XZ (for Linux zip handling code).
It's entirely possible this drama is an op to get the old guy to STFU.
Damn if I were a three letter agency person, I'd be putting that one in the playbook for sure.
Nah I don't think so, he's just a very grumpy retiree and definitely comes of that way. Obviously it rubs people the wrong way. But with this kind of thing, I prefer grumpy but grounded in fact, vs welcoming but waffling. Also the old guy got pissed off at the "OSINT" community making money off of posting, especially when they posted incorrect information, and said people should rather donate their money to children's hospitals than giving it to a random twitter account. Which ruffled even more feathers.
W old grumpy plane guy. There's lots of OSINT people on twitter, but 99% of the people with OSINT in there name of bio are indeed insufferable.