Like with all things you post, maybe you should check your sources better. I’m not the one who posted the 10% statement

It’s an 8.16% increase, not 10% but still awful

It’s Germany’s biggest union

I’m pretty sure there are other exceptions

No, a lot worse

It looks like shit though

That thing looks AI generated. Better than what we got but still ridiculous. I mean, it’s huge but still somehow doesn’t really seem to have much space for passengers or cargo at the same time

Also, why is the cabin aerodynamic while the hood is not? The whole thing is nonsensical

There are many more examples than just Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan comes to mind but also many other Muslim countries use Islam and Shari’a law to control the population or use religious laws as an excuse for their authoritarianism. No religion is free of that.

The Chinese approach is far more effective I fear. The Soviet way worked only with mixed results and was more ideology driven than logical. In Poland, the Catholic Church became a huge factor in the opposition because of that. If religion is deeply rooted in society, controlling and steering religion makes for a powerful tool to control the masses while fighting it automatically makes it a strong opposition force.

Lol, sure it does

Two choices is not complete control

What? Not all positions are elected, in no system. Or when did you vote for secretary of state in the US?

The prime minister of France is not an elected position but appointed by the president. This has nothing to do with multiparty democracy.

Counter examples exist. Willy Brandt was social-democratic German chancellor in a coalition with the liberals while the conservatives were the biggest party in parliament. The conservatives could only watch.

Also recent state elections in Thuringia, the fascist AfD is the biggest party but nobody wants to work with them, so they don’t get a chance to form a government.

What’s important in both cases: the majority of voters want it that way. They wanted a social-democratic+liberal government under Willy Brandt and there is a clear majority in Thuringia that don’t want the AfD to govern. In both cases it’s more democratic to not let the biggest party govern.

In a two party system the power balance within the coalition is decided behind closed doors and the voters have no say in it

As long as the coalition represents the majority, I don’t see why the largest party needs to be part of the government. The largest party doesn’t represent the will of the people by itself, otherwise they would have a majority.

still taking Russian oil

That’s a lie

Also: Germany’s coal power production drops to lowest level in 60 years in 2023

Stop with that bullshit

Hm… let’s see, we let in Hungary, there’s a strong push against messenger encryption, and we kill a lot of people at our outer border. Yep, we’re great.

The article is pretty well done and shows exactly why this discussion is moot. There’s simply no merit to the accusation, plain and simple.

If an accusation comes from Russia and only from Russia, it’s part of their misinformation warfare. That’s not ad-hominem, that’s paying some fucking attention.