Wojtek:
> Differences in the voting system - first past the post (US)
Sure, of course that means the U.S. Greens have no chance of coming to power. But that is exactly the Catch-22: the argument against the U.S. Greens selling out that you use is also the argument for not voting for them is futile in any case.
If they will never turn to the right because they have no chance of coming to power anyway, then by that argument it is also useless to vote for them.
I should note that I do not have some principled ultra-left opposition to parliamentary work; I think things like DIE LINKE or in France the NPA are welcome developments (whatever problematic aspects they both have). But the development of the German Greens is a cautionary tale. And this time the argument about "yes, the European welfare state is in decline, but it's still better than the U.S." doesn't hold, because the Greens in Germany were instrumental in **destroying** the welfare state: they are too young a party to have ever played a role in implementing it.
To a certain extent the Greens are the living proof of what Slavoj Zizek says about the movements of 1968 being in a sense antcipatory of the "new spirit of capitalism".