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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6711 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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Ronde van Spanje: Tumult, Unrest, and Vingegaard Wins

There is one road cycling event which exceeds all others in general notability, Tour de France. This post is not about it, but about its Spanish counterpart, alike in the rules, mechanics, participants.

The 2025 edition of the Tour of Spain has just ended on Sunday, and boy was it memorable. Not for the cycling, but for what spilled over the side of the road, onto the course. Namely: Pro-Palestine protests. The stated cause of these protestors was the participation of the team "Israel - Premier Tech" (IPT), which despite its name, is not owned by Israel, but by a Jewish Canadian. (Israel has not exactly disassociated itself from the team, its PM expressing support to the team for not buckling).

Stage 5 was a Team Time Trial, where instead of all cyclists starting together, each team starts separately at regular intervals. Perfect situation for those targeting some team. Protestors were aware of this, and attacked IPT, whose finishing time would later be reduced by 15 seconds.

In Stage 11, when cyclists were about half an hour from the finish, shortened by 3km, it also was declared it would have no winner.

IPT would change jerseys, replacing "Israel" on them with the Star of David.

Stage 16 was altered, when the race was already on, by reducing its length by 8km.

Stage 18 was an Individual Time Trial, where each cyclist starts separately at set intervals, again perfect if one targets a particular cyclist. Race organizers sensed the danger, and shortened the course from 27.2 km to 12.2 km, the day before the stage.

Stage 21, the final one, was set to end in several circuits around Madrid, but that part was cancelled. The stage would have no winner, nor would it count for the Spanish Yellow aka Red Jersey.

Safety concerns also prevented podium ceremony from taking place. An IPT rider, American Matthew Riccitello becoming the leader in the Youth (or White Jersey) classification in stage 20, thus entitled to participate in the ceremony, probably exacerbated the perceived security situation. (The teams would go on to conduct their own ceremony in some parking lot, with the production value of an amateur race.)

Currently the position of PM of Spain belongs to the Socialist Party, and in the conflict between making his country look competent and his support for Palestine, chose the latter. Explicitly supporting the disruptors, (following the Spanish FM's calls for IPT to abandon the race a bit over a week earlier). The opposition opposed, as did Israel's FM and PM of Denmark.

Incidentally, the team at the center of this controversy on Sunday participated in a Canadian one-day-race, "Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal" under "IPT", instead of the full name. The race went smoothly, and was won by an American Brandon McNulty riding for the state-owned team "UAE Team Emirates - XRG".

Protestors having veto rights over sports participants, is something I oppose. It would be anti-pluralist. It would be like some manifestations cancel culture in being a variant of tortious interference. The audience wants to see the best riders, the best riders want to participate, but a politicized minority wants to come between them.

It reminds of some democrat-tinged critiques of the US political system, in that it has too many veto points, thus changes are hard to enact. It is, however, out of of all institutions the government, for which it makes the most moral sense to be veto-full as it is unique in wielding force against everyone. But such a veto-full system applied to all of society would be undesirable, as another person watching a cyclist riding for a team you do not like, does not make one coerced. This is why one should have less say in it.

EDIT: Cycling's governing body, UCI, has issued a statement. Most damning for Spain is the following paragraph:

We also regret the fact that the Spanish Prime Minister and his government have supported actions that could hinder the smooth running of a sporting competition and, in some cases, expressed their admiration for the demonstrators. This position is contradictory to the Olympic values of unity, mutual respect, and peace. It also calls into question Spain's ability to host major international sporting events, ensuring that they take place in safe conditions and in accordance with the principles of the Olympic Charter.

If you look at the wars that became horrendous PR failures such as Vietnam, the French in Algeria, South Africa etc they have all been wars against a population that fundamentally has no reason to accept that order. The South Vietnamese government had no real claim of authority or legitimacy. The palestinian population has no reason to accept large number Eastern Europeans who moved there in the 90s having more rights than they do. They have no reason to accept having a country that is chopped in two parts of which the largest part isn't connected to the sea.

Israel is dropping like a rock in the polls and especially among young people. Palestine's best weapon is IDF soldiers with tiktok showing the world their true nature. Israel is not going to be viable as a state when the state is deeply unpopular in the rest of the world.

and in the conflict between making his country look competent and his support for Palestine,

The completely incompetent looking one was the one who dragged Spain into the Iraq war. Competency is ensuring we don't have a Mediterranean state that creates a massive refugee crisis near Europe. A country that bombs six MENA countries in a week is an enemy of Europe.

Israel destroyed Gaza's catholic church and expects to be treated like a normal country. Does Israel treat countries that destroy synagogues the same way?

Israel is dropping like a rock in the polls and especially among young people.

Israel is not going to hold a world democratic referendum on its own existence.

Palestine's best weapon is IDF soldiers with tiktok showing the world their true nature. Israel is not going to be viable as a state when the state is deeply unpopular in the rest of the world.

Israel's best weapon is IDF soldiers, full stop. And if North Korea can be viable as a state, so can Israel.

if North Korea can be viable as a state, so can Israel

North Korea is a fully centralized totalitarian party-state, heir to centuries of cultural isolationism. Israel is incredibly unstable politically, there are routinely massive protests and huge factional divides. You could not have picked two countries any more different.

And if North Korea can be viable as a state, so can Israel.

I'd imagine even most Israelis who don't give a damn about Palestinians would start having second thoughts if they were promised North Korean living standards. Is Israel going to force Jews to stay in the country at the threat of torturing their families to death?

Is Israel going to force Jews to stay in the country at the threat of torturing their families to death?

If it gets to the point where the United States is willing to make Israel a pariah state, the Israeli Jews won't have any place to go.

Of course, none of this is going to happen. All of this fantasizing about how the entire international community (including the US) is going to look at Israeli atrocities and the angelic behavior of Hamas and cut Israel off once and for all is just mental masturbation.

If it gets to the point where the United States is willing to make Israel a pariah state, the Israeli Jews won't have any place to go.

The Boers didn't have any place to go either but they gave up instead of choosing to become North Korea despite facing infinitely worse demographic prospects.

Of course, none of this is going to happen. All of this fantasizing about how the entire international community (including the US) is going to look at Israeli atrocities and the angelic behavior of Hamas and cut Israel off once and for all is just mental masturbation.

Thinking it's going to happen because the "international community" miraculously decides to start caring about morality would be mental masturbation, but it's actually going to happen because Israel is a gigantic liability whose subsidy is indefensible from an America First realpolitik perspective.

The total American expenditure on behalf of Israel over the past two years is measured somewhere between tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, including nearly a quarter of the THAAD interceptor supply in just under two weeks. This enormous investment towards a country that appears to operate parasitically vis-a-vis the US and which has no issue taking actions that directly harm American interests seems unlikely to survive the next election cycle.

The Boers didn't have any place to go either but they gave up instead of choosing to become North Korea despite facing infinitely worse demographic prospects.

Even the black South Africans aren't, as a whole, as genocidal as Palestinian Arabs. And the whites may yet find they made a mistake.

Even the black South Africans aren't, as a whole, as genocidal as Palestinian Arabs.

Based on what, exactly? Jews lived alongside Palestinian Arabs for the past thousand years and the number of major anti-semitic incidents prior to the arrival of the Zionists can be measured on one hand. It's only after people arrived who hid explosives inside Synagogues and engaged in "assassination, terror attacks and even castration that the Palestinians became bloodthirsty.

Anyone forced to live under the domination of such people would eventually become pretty genocidal. Would they maintain this attitude in the event said domination ceased, forever? I've yet to see any evidence that they'd be any worse than Zulus or Xhosas.

You're not arguing that the Palestinians aren't genocidal, you're arguing that it's justified that they are. That's an entirely different argument.

Israel is not going to hold a world democratic referendum on its own existence

Taken to the extreme, at some point Israel gets so unpopular that Western countries start arming the Arab states specifically to wage war against Israel.

Shortage of weapons, was, to put it mildly, never a problem for the Arab countries. Israel faced this situation before.

Israel is not going to hold a world democratic referendum on its own existence.

Zionists aren’t. The Ultra Orthodox Jews are as anti-Israel as Hamas is.

They are not. They are critical of the state of Israël’s policies. There is a difference.

Have you actually read their statements at all? They are entirely opposed to establishing a State in Israel because they believe their Exile by God is still in effect.

Most ultra-orthodox Jews, especially in Israel, are not satmar.

Which is an important factor that no-one really takes into account when doing the demographic projections.

Israel is a welfare queen that wouldn't last many days if it got the south Africa during the 80s or current Russia sanctions.

If Israel's military is so great why have they failed to take an area the size of a suburb in almost two years despite massive brutality and having to beg for boundless supplies of weapons? Israel's main military asset is propaganda and giving low IQ west bank settlers the capacity to do things that are seen and heard globally effectively turned that on its head.

If Israel's military is so great why have they failed to take an area the size of a suburb in almost two years despite massive brutality and having to beg for boundless supplies of weapons?

Because they aren't actually being all that brutal. Depopulating and securing an area is quick and easy if you're willing to adopt the ROE of Ghengis Khan or the Greco/Turkish war.

Israel's main military asset is propaganda

This seems wildly inaccurate.

giving low IQ west bank settlers the capacity to do things that are seen and heard globally effectively turned that on its head.

I think you've got that backwards.

Because they aren't actually being all that brutal. Depopulating and securing an area is quick and easy if you're willing to adopt the ROE of Ghengis Khan or the Greco/Turkish war.

The Israelis shot their own hostages while they were shouting in Hebrew and waving white flags, they aren't operating according to strict ROE. Just being brutal doesn't always translate to being more militarily effective: the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide were so focused on the genocide that they actually wound up losing to the much smaller Tutsi militias that prioritized actual military objectives over pointless slaughter.

If Israel's military is so great why have they failed to take an area the size of a suburb in almost two years despite massive brutality and having to beg for boundless supplies of weapons?

Your premises are incorrect.

Israel's main military asset is propaganda and giving low IQ west bank settlers the capacity to do things that are seen and heard globally effectively turned that on its head.

The West Bank is over ----> thataway. West Bank settlers aren't doing anything in Gaza.

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