With Christmas comes the holiday commercials, where each one brings a sense of hope, no matter what it is. This commercial pays tribute to a star football player from my old high school in Minnesota, who capped off a monumental career that was full of dedication, promise and mission- all of which were fulfilled thanks to the legends that helped him make a difference. His family, including his older brother, his fellow classmates and football players, a legendary football coach who has lead the team for many decades and the community. All of them made a difference in his career as well as his football team, which finished undefeated for two seasons and with two state titles. His personal career was capped with the Mr Football Award, one of the highest honors in high school football His career will continue with a Big Ten university with his goals aimed high and a cast that is cheering him on, from the first down to the end of the game. And it all started with someone giving him the ball and a field to run with it. 🏈🏟️
This commercial, presented by Easy Credit, an arm of the Volksbank and Reifeisenbank, looks at how a small deed helps one boy fulfill his dream of being a professional basketball player. Growing up and achieving with support of his family and friends, he reaches the top before passing down his experience to the next one in line. 🏀
The commercial is ironic given the fact that Easy Credit is the sponsor of the German Men’s Basketball League and thanks to their support, basketball has become a counterpart to the other well-established sports in Germany, soccer and handball. 😊🇩🇪
Following up on my last post, we have this one by Timothy Garton Ash. Mr. Ash has been the sole authority of European history, in particular with regard to the Cold War, the Revolution of 1989 and the aftereffects of it. He has been following up closely with the developments of the Russian-Ukrainian War and has written an extensive piece that I will show you an excerpt on (the rest you can read by clicking on the link below.)
In his argument, Mr Ash argues that the Divorce between Trump’s America and the European Union has been in the making for over a decade, dating back to Trump’s first administration. From TACO’s point of view, Europe is a garbage can full of colorful trash that needs to be dumped; a bunch of kindergartners who don’t know how to “grow up.” According to Mr. Ash, Europe has indeed grown up and has the potential to become a federation of states, a new symbol and beacon of democracy that is being passed down to them, as the US falls into demise with Trump’s own doctrine. It’s a question of not just if it can be done, but also how. Here’s a look at his piece:
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Europe, you have been warned. President Vladimir Putin has waged a full-scale war against Ukraine for nearly four years and this week threatened that Russia was “ready right now” for war with Europe if need be. President Donald Trump has demonstrated that the US is ready to sell out Ukraine for the sake of a dirty deal with Putin’s Russia. His new US National Security Strategy prescribes “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. How much more clarity do you need?
Now it’s up to us Europeans to enable Ukraine to survive armed assault from Moscow and diplomatic betrayal from Washington. In doing so, we also defend ourselves. For a year now, people have been telling me that Trump will eventually get tough on Russia. It’s been the geopolitical version of Waiting for Godot. Then his personal real-estate emissaries come up with a 28-point “peace plan” that is a Russian-American imperial and commercial deal at the expense of both Ukraine and Europe.
European leaders jump into their familiar Trump-management mode, whittling away the most outrageous points by track-changes diplomacy to produce a version that – predictably enough – Russia in turn finds unacceptable. Although this 28-point plan only lasted a few days, it should long be studied as a historical document. It reveals just how far Trump’s US is prepared to go in reverting to a politics of empires and spheres of influence, over the heads of all Europeans. The old Polish rallying cry Nic o nas bez nas! (nothing about us without us!) must now go up from the whole of Europe.
Two questions follow. First, can Europe, together with like-minded countries such as Canada, sufficiently strengthen Ukraine and weaken Russia for the former eventually to prevail? Second, will it?
The answer to the first is that it will be very difficult, but we still can. If, at their summit on 18 December, EU leaders agree a way to use the frozen Russian assets held in Belgium, the gaping hole in Ukraine’s budget can be filled for at least the next two years. Europe’s combined economy is 10 times the size of Russia’s. European defence production is being ramped up. The list of military essentials that only the US can supply is getting shorter and Trump’s profit-seeking logic means most can still be bought. Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada recently agreed to purchase another $1bn of US weapons for Ukraine. If Trump were again to cut the supply of US intelligence, trying to blackmail Ukraine into accepting a capitulation peace, that would be a major blow, but Ukrainian and European intelligence can already plug some of the gaps.
Ukraine itself has vital homework to do. The departure of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s right-hand man Andriy Yermak, in a major corruption scandal, creates an opportunity for Ukraine to make a bold domestic reset, perhaps in the form of a genuine government of national unity. The yellow-and-blue line of soldiers at the front is getting desperately thin. Since February 2022, prosecutors have opened almost 300,000 cases relating to absence without leave or desertion, and one does meet a lot of Ukrainian men of military age outside the country.
But Russia has growing problems of its own. Graveyards are reportedly being enlarged to accommodate at least 250,000 war dead and, with perhaps a further 750,000 wounded, recruitment becomes difficult even for a dictatorship that has a much larger population than Ukraine. The economy has held up remarkably so far, thanks to a “war economy” boost and flourishing ties with China and India (witness this week’s Delhi love-in between Putin and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi). But inflation is soaring, interest rates are above 16% and, crucially, the price of oil is declining. Long-range Ukrainian attacks have damaged more than a third of Russia’s oil refineries. Some 80% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports go through the Danish straits in “shadow fleet” ships that generally don’t meet international safety and environmental standards. Europe could slow this revenue flow by stopping and rigorously inspecting those ships.
If Europe can generate sufficient military and economic support for Ukraine, and economic pressure on Russia, then at some point in 2026 or 2027 the incentive structure for Putin would change. His generals would tell him “we’re not getting anywhere” and his central bank would tell him “the economy is cracking”. A ceasefire along the existing frontline then becomes more likely. It’s hard to envisage any formal peace treaty that both Putin and Zelenskyy could agree to sign, but a longer-term truce is a realistic possibility.
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Read the rest here if you want to know if this is possible from the European aspect:
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