CleverOleg

The Trump administration is weighing new tactics to drive regime change in Cuba, including imposing a total blockade on oil imports to the Caribbean country, three people familiar with the plan said Thursday.

That escalation has been sought by some critics of the Cuban government in the administration and backed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to two of the three people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. No decision has been made on whether to approve that move, but it could be among the suite of possible actions presented to President Donald Trump to force the end of Cuba’s communist government, these people added.

“Energy is the chokehold to kill the regime,” said one person familiar with the plan who was granted anonymity to describe the private discussions. Deposing the country’s communist government – in power since the Cuban revolution in 1959 – is “100 percent a 2026 event” in the administration’s eyes, this person added.

The effort would be justified under the 1994 LIBERTAD Act, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, this person added. That law codifies the U.S. embargo on Cuban trade and financial transactions.

Like many of you, I’ve had to spend a lot of time with family over the last few days. For me, it’s been day and night with my dad’s side of the family. The class background of this side of my family range from cousins who make well into six figures and a couple who have large homesteading operations to an uncle whose net worth is somewhere north of $40 million. Every single one of these cousins is set to inherit millions (and I want to clarify, this is NOT my own situation as while my dad had tremendous privileges, he didn’t leverage those into making any real money. I’m not inheriting anything and will likely be supporting my parents when they are old).

In past years, when we’ve gotten together politics is often avoided. That hasn’t been the case this year. I was taken aback by just how often communism, socialism, Mamdani (we don’t live anywhere near NYC), and “unfair taxes” came up. These people are not “liberals” in the sense that most people outside of here mean it, they are all full-blown conservative reactionaries. For reasons around protecting my physical safety, this is not a group of people with whom I share my politics; I’m pretty adept at avoiding these discussions and usually just gray rock folks when I’m stuck in them. I typically just listen and observe.

I’ll be honest, it was pretty demoralizing up until last night (and I’ll get to why things changed last night shortly). To regularly hear people who don’t have the slightest clue what they are talking about, and to speak with such confidence about things I know are not just wrong, but go against everything I believe in all with the constant hum of Fox News on in the background… it was wearing me down. Just to give you a few examples:

A cousin who is in her 40s and has never worked but owns 2 houses and three cars was talking about the time she lived in Russia for a couple months a few years ago. She had nothing but bad things to say about the people there, and everything was the fault of communism. Just completely talking out of her ass. People are rude because life was so bad under communism. People don’t know how to think for themselves because they weren’t allowed to do so in the USSR. No one will ever share food because they all starved before capitalism came in. On this last point, another cousin asked if there was a huge famine right at the end of the USSR. That was a bridge too far for me, I had to chime in to say that she was thinking about the 1990s, after the USSR fell,and how destroying the socialist structures that were in place in order to bring in capitalism is what really did the damage. On this point, family didn’t really respond and moved the conversation in a different direction, but I get the feeling my point was treated wit h skepticism despite the fact that these family members know that history is my thing. The American overconfidence in topics they know nothing about is real.

The topic of estate planning and taxes came up, too; I think because some of my uncles have been talking to their kids about their plans for when they die. One of my younger cousins – who is not rich herself but set to inherit enough to have her set for life – had to ask her dad “OK, but what do you think will happen to your estate if there’s a socialist revolution in this country? Will they just take everything? I really think that could happen here, I think that’s close”. While normally that would give me a lot of hope, since the petite bourgeois appear to be scared, I know what this cousin actually meant was “what happens if AOC is elected president and the Democrats win the house and 60 seats in the senate in 2028”.

Lots of other examples. Talking about how “socialism never works” so of course Mamdani is going to ruin NYC. Utter contempt for the idea that anyone who claims to be a “democratic socialist” could win any election in the US. Completely dismissing the idea that the economy is anything other than going great right now, and the people who are complaining that they can’t afford a house are all just lazy poors.

Then last night, that richest uncle paid for us all to have a private room at the most expensive restaurant in town. The display of excess in the restaurant was topped only by hearing conversations about the kinds of things my family was spending money on. All of these things I’ve mentioned had an effect on me. It made me feel isolated, sure. But worse, it just made me feel like the future we want to build is just so far away.

It all felt suffocating, so I told my wife I needed some time, and asked if she could watch the kids. I stepped out onto this empty patio. Taking a few minutes away from these people by myself really helped me see things clearly. I know a lot of what I’m going to say is honestly not particularly insightful. But it felt that way at the time to me, and I wanted to share in case it could help someone else here:

These people are the enemy. They are disproportionately represented in my family but it’s likely you know someone like them. They’re the ones who would have fought in the White Army. They would have supported Franco or Mussolini or Chang Kai-Shek to the hilt. They speak with confidence about things they know nothing about because seeing the world as they do justifies their entire existence and everything they have.

Let the demsocs worry about winning them over; being a revolutionary communists means we don’t need them - in fact, we will stand opposed to them from the other side until the revolution is won.

We can argue over where “the line” is. Maybe it’s the top 10% of wealth holders. Maybe it’s anyone who doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck. Or maybe for a more “Settlers” line, it’s most of the white working class plus the bourgeois. Wherever you want to draw that line, you are on one side and there’s a whole group of people on the other side. You’re not going to convince folks on the other side of the line that socialism is the correct path, of course. But you shouldn’t even worry about their thoughts and opinions; either directly through them or through their media. Maybe it’s actually a good thing they have warped views of reality, it might allow our work to go unnoticed for longer. They are blinded by their own self-interest. They surround themselves with media and opinions that reinforce that self-interest because it soothes them. And because we live in a society of such deep capitalist hegemony, all their uninformed, distorted opinions on socialism get treated like gospel. But it’s all a facade. Don’t let it get you down. Spend your time and mental energy among the workers, understand their concerns about their lives and show how socialism is the only answer. Do that while these bougie and middle class assholes comfort themselves with lies about socialism, and they won’t even see it coming.

Meaning, are we as a species at a point of technological development where if we have a global revolution tomorrow, and make it our top priority as a species, we could provide every human with:

‘ -sufficient nutritious food to eat and water to drink

‘ -comfortable housing with a reasonable about of space for everyone

‘ -electricity and sewers

‘ -productive employment

‘ -quality heathcare

‘ -education

‘ -a modest amount of the “stuff” we all like: books, TV shows, live music, coffee, etc etc

And being able to do this in a way that is environmentally sustainable and at least arrests further erosion of the climate and natural environment.

When I look out at our productive capabilities as they stand now, my gut says this is possible but I really don’t know.

I can’t stand this person btw, and I don’t think they are a good person.

This family member is a nurse practitioner who I know pulls in at least $150k a year. They are sure that there all sort of people who are working in jobs that don’t require a degree or all that much training that are making total bank. This isn’t based on data of course, just from spending hours a day on Facebook. They will go on and on about they saw someone saying they know a server who makes $50 an hour when you include tips, that sort of thing.

I have never heard (or seen - I’ve worked at a number of different employers and my line of work lets me see payroll) of anyone who isn’t a doctor, software engineer, or high level executive who makes that kind of dough. I’ve tried explaining this it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Knowing this person, this serves two ideological functions. The first is that this person is also totally convinced the economy is great and that the only people who are suffering are “lazy”. Apparently there are just an abundance of high paying jobs that anyone can just have, so this fuels their sense of superiority. Probably no surprise to you all, but this was raging about SNAP benefit nonstop the other week. If there are good jobs out there for everyone, then of course no one needs any help and capitalism is just working great.

But also, despite how much this person makes, they actually think they are way underpaid. I have tried explaining to them that what they make puts them in like the top 5%-10%, but hear them talk and they are absolutely convinced that people stocking shelves at Costco are making close to what they make.

Social media in general and Facebook specifically is such a cancer on society. Folks can use it to just live in their own reality and absolutely nothing will convince them otherwise.

My buddy built a PC for me in 2014. I've gotten a lot of use out of it, but for the last few years I've just been using it solely as a media server. Which it works fine for. But we are running out of space in our house and that thing is huge and loud, so I want to replace it with a Lenovo mini PC to work as my media server and use my external 5 TB hard drive for storage (I have a couple TBs just in pictures and stuff).

However, I realized I don't really know how to dispose of this old PC. I really don't want to generate a bunch of e-waste. I'd be happy to give it away but I can't imagine there's a way to get rid of an 11 year old homebuilt PC (good specs at the time, but still). I would be willing to pay a service to dispose of it in environmentally-responsible way, but I also feel like that you really need to know who you're giving it to since whenever I see e-waste sites pop up around town it always seems shady.

Suggestions?

The NYC mayor's race is the most watched political race in the US right now, by a large margin too (I guess the second most is Prop 50 in CA? Either way that one is way behind). After Tuesday, Zohran's win will probably be the big story that normies IRL will be talking about here. "Socialism" will be a topic on top of everyone's minds.

And I think everyone here - even if you have major issues with Zohran specifically or electoralism in general - should be ready to speak to it among the people in your life.

Opportunities like this don't come around very often. Right now Americans are getting a ton of misinformation about what socialism is due to a demsoc running and very likely winning the job of mayor of the biggest city in the US. On top of that, this misinformation is transparently bad ("Zohran wants to sieze all the grocery stores in New York!") that if you simply point to what's actually being proposed, you will look pretty knowledgeable by comparison. This is all very low hanging fruit.

But you have to be prepared. Like literally, you should practice how you will respond to people who want to talk to you about Mamdani and socialism. The other day, AcidSmiley made a comment that I've been thinking about ever since: she said she had to deradicalize herself a bit from this site because she was having trouble interacting with normal people and not sounding like she was unhinged. I absolutely do this too. Whenever a topic tangential to socialism or imperialism comes up with people IRL, I end up overshooting. I scare people away even if they have a sense that I'm right. What I say sounds totally reasonable to us here, but to people who aren't engaged with stuff it doesn't matter how correct you are; if you can't meet them where you are they will tune you out.

So for me, today and tonight I'm gonna skim through Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism". It's not straight Marxist analysis but it's written for the people I'll be talking to. I'm also going to try and brush up on my knowledge of Zohran's specific policies (like freezes on rent for rent controlled apartments, that seems to be one everyone brings up and I don't feel I know enough about it).

For those of you who are strongly against Zohran or electoralism.... do whatever you want ofc, but I'm just saying if a normie asks you about Zohran and you say "he's just a social fascist" and scoff, then that will be a missed opportunity. People will have no idea what you are talking about and frankly probably won't be interested in hearing more.

Of all the many awful Trump policies since 2017, this policy of limiting the number of refugees to around 7,000 next year and essentially only allowing in white South Africans, in some ways this one really stands out to me. Even if it’s not the most racist policy, it’s the most obviously racist policy he’s done yet. There can be no explanation for it other than blatant racism. There is an extreme humanitarian crisis going on in Sudan right now - to where anyone who believes in even a strict definition of what makes a “refugee” would agree that anyone coming from Sudan should be given refuge. And yet, they’re blocked and white South Africans are not?

What bugs me too is how NO ONE in the media and the supposed “opposition” is pushing back on this or highlighting how racist it is. Media is just reporting it and I have yet to see anyone go deeper, challenge it, or call it out for what it is. Totally shameful.

My wife mentioned that her aunt wanted to buy our kids some history books. Come to find out, it was the fucking Tuttle Twins take on US history. I shot that down pretty quick, but realized my kids have zero US history books on their shelf. Because it's honestly really hard to find history books that don't, for example, glaze the founding fathers, downplay genocide and slavery, or portray the USSR as the "bad guys" in the cold war.

So I'm trying to find what I can, and it's a bit challenging. Most actual leftist history books for kids are more for that older kid / pre-teen age group, and my kids are still little. Does anyone know of some good US history books for kids? While I'd love an actual Marxist, historical materialist perspective, afaik no one's written that for little kids yet. I would settle for a more "liberal / progressive" take on US history so long as it's largely factual and avoids the reactionary crap most US history books for kids fall into.

I did find this Honest History Magazine that seems interesting, if anyone's familiar with it. They have a book on economics that from the little information provided, includes a correct definition of capitalism and talks about a time before capitalism, so right there it seems more correct that most.

If you are part of an org in the US (PSL, DSA, FRSO et al), I think this is just the sort of thing you should be helping to organize for in your community.

Are any of you part of orgs or know orgs that are doing this work? If so can you mention them here?

It turns out my position is on track to be unionized. I’m honestly pretty excited about this - not just for the benefits, but for the possibility of doing agitation and doing whatever I can to develop class consciousness.

The only thing is, I don’t know where to even start. Does anyone here know of some good resources for how to agitate and organize within a union structure.

It’s the Teamsters so not exactly a radical group to begin with, and this is doubly so with my immediate co-workers who are in the Local that I will be a part of.

Any help is appreciated.