Difference between revisions 34721 and 34840 on enwiki

PILLARS OF LIFE
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The Four Pillars of the Green Movement are Ecological Wisdom, Non-Violence, Social Justice, and Grassroots Democracy.  These mimic the Five Pillars of Islam (faith, prayer, tithe, fast, pilgrimage) in purpose and structure - a concious attempt by Greens to unify the major strains of religious thought.  Greens often describe their movement as having political and spiritual ideals, some inherited from <a href="http://www.greenparty.on.ca/history.shtml">idealistic 1960s movements</A>, many of which sought a universal ecology-based peace faith, or at least tolerance between ecology-and-peace-based factions of many faiths.
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PILLARS AS AGENDA
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Modern Greens are generally pragmatic consensus-seekers, many abandoning "the left" and its rhetoric in favor of geo-libertarian ethics (sometimes in standalone Green Leaf or Marijuana Parties) just as compatible with the Four Pillars as any top-down movement.  These "four pillars" <a href="http://www.monroegreens.org/minutes/011002.htm">are often used as an organizing structure for Green meetings, ensuring progress towards each is measured at regular intervals</a>.  They were initially adopted as <i>policy</i> values of the Green Parties in Europe, starting with the German Greens (die Gruenen).  Challenges between ideals and values have however led to moral conflict, which is presently being resolved by ethics and politics, bottom up, using consensus processes, in all Green Parties and the Movement.  To understand the Four Pillars and the Green Party completely, it's important to review exactly how they combine to resolve the problem of refining values:
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VALUES AND VIOLENCE
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As the Green Parties evolved, the initial list of four values expanded to <a href="http://www.global.greens.org.au/charter.html">the "Ten Key Values" of the GlobalGreens Charter approved in Canberra AU on Monday 16 April 2001</a>.  This has yet to be ratified by a majority of <A href="http://greens.org">Global Green Parties</a> - many predictably resist any attempt to impose any statement of values, in English, on other Greens.  Some even consider this itself to be an act of violence against a consensus!
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WAR VERSUS VIOLENCE
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A War on Drugs, a War on Terror, and advancing technologies useful for conflict (such as artificial intelligence and perhaps entirely new molecules) highlight the increasingly sharp split between "Party" and "Movement" Greens:
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Most obviously, one of these "Ten Key Values" or "Four Pillars" is clearly unsuitable for a Green Party in power in a modern state as opposed to a powerless protest movement:  Non-Violence.  Although many argue that Gandhi, Chief Seattle, Martin Luther King, and other major influences on the Greens could rationalize self-defense and maintenance of "the power to punish" if only for purposes of abstention, it is a plain fact that Green Parties that see a continuing role for government, regulators, military, police and law are not devoted to "Non-Violence" as such, although they all oppose "Wars".
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MEAT VERSUS MURDER
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A similar split is observed on the issue of vegan diet:  many Greens refuse to eat the flesh of, or use other products of, any living animal whatsoever.  A "Movement" approach is to spread vegan values - a "Party" approach is to make meat and dairy substitutes readily available and eliminate subsidies that discourage energy-efficient farming - without judging indigenous life ways or other carnivorous diets.  Green Parties are not therefore able to directly spread Non-Violence, but must engage in less direct "De-Escalation", "Peace-Making", "Mindful Conflict Mediation" and "Peace-Keeping".
No Green Party fails to apply these processes, with or without the preaching!
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HARMS REDUCTION
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But legal processes involve responding to violence with some less violent response, or "Harms Reduction".  As the German Greens (in a coalition cabinet with German Social Democrats during the American War-led on Terror) discovered, taking actual power in a democracy involves compromises.
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It seems likely that the Ten Key Values or Four Pillars will remain, but with De-Escalation or Harms Reduction taking the place of Non-Violence for purposes of Green Party meetings and organizing.  Peace and ecology movements that do not advocate legally-violent or defensively-violent tactics are likely to continue to preach and follow the Values or Pillars in the original, Gandhi-inspired, form, perhaps using the original Hindi words "Satyagraha" and "Ahimsa" which denote the processes of Non-Violence.
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PRIORITIZING "PILLARS"
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While "pillars" must all be equally strong to work, and by definition can't be traded off, "values" are by definition traded off to achieve local results.
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Whatever the values or balances or rights or pillars are called, they will increasingly be ordered differently for those who take electoral versus non-electoral paths to power:  Green Parties seem increasingly focused on local production and consumption, ending "dirty subsidies", and urban sovereignty and secession.  
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FOCUS ON ACTION
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Meanwhile, the Green Movement as a whole seeks to achieve peace through ecology, and this cannot occur without drastic changes in people's values: faith, prayer, tithe, fast, pilgrimage and other features of religions are increasingly observed in civil disobedience and bodily intervention actions.
<a href="http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org//t/s/994757281/index_html#1000042977">Greenpeace's Open Campaigning policy, announced in 2001</a>, quickly <a href="http://cybercentre.greenpeace.org//t/s/994757281/994863177/995002641/995090339/995090965/999257494/999747404/999804362/999829028/999833512/999833782/999879482/999907698/999925205/999973966/index_html#1000042977">led to several preliminary attempts to order values into a 'Green Ethic' that would make it clear what priority an individual had agreed to 'from body to ecoregion'.</a>
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ECOLOGY FIRST
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It is in such projects as wild Great Ape and Stone Age Peoples and rainforest conservation, Olive Tree planting in the Middle East, and defense of the Great Ceteaceans (dolphins and whales) that the morality common to all Greens can be observed.  Increasingly, scholars such as Thomas Homer-Dixon identify lack of Ecological Wisdom as the root of human conflict, Violence and lack of Social Justice.  Grassroots Democracy is reliable only if there are "roots"!
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As ecology and peace become higher human priorities, it seems likely that the "Four Pillars of the Green Party" will become a basis of unity of faiths, even a "Universal Ethic" like that proposed by the <a href="http://uri.org">United Religions Initiative</a>.
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It is a fact of all ecologies, that the greatest competitor to any being is those of its own kind.  By putting ecology first, we take the path of ending the conflicts, taking only what we need as we need it, and trusting the Earth.
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Yours in satyagraha and ahimsa,
A Green.  ([[7th century BC]] - '''6th century BC''' - [[5th century BC]] - [[Centuries|other centuries]])

([[600s BC]] - [[590s BC]] - [[580s BC]] - [[570s BC]] - [[560s BC]] - [[550s BC]] - [[540s BC]] - [[530s BC]] - [[520s BC]] - [[510s BC]] - [[500s BC]] - [[Decades|other decades]])

([[2nd millennium BC]] - '''[[1st millennium BC]]''' - [[1st millennium AD]])
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==Events==
* [[Cyrus the Great]] conquered many countries and created the [[Persian Empire]].
**[[History of Persia|Persians]] conquer [[Ancient Egypt]], dominate eastern [[Mediterranean]].
**Ruin of the [[Kingdom of Judah]] and the destruction of the First [[Temple in Jerusalem|Temple]] ([[586 BC]]), return of the Jews several decades later ([[538 BC]]).
** Fall of the [[Babylonian Empire]] ([[539 BC]]), destroyed by Cyrus the Great.
** The [[Persia|Persians]] under [[Darius I]] and later [[Cyrus]] invade [[Transoxiana]].
* [[Carthage]]'s merchant empire slowly dominates the western [[Mediterranean]]
*[[Roman Republic]] founded
*[[Gautama Buddha]] founds [[Buddhism]] in [[India]]. It becomes a major world religion.
*''[[Tao Te Ching]]'' written (traditional date)
*[[Confucius]] formulates his ethical system of [[Confucianism]], which proves highly influential in [[China]]
*The [[Sinhalese]] emigrate to [[Sri Lanka]]
*Apparent writing of the [[Book of Psalms]]
*The prophet [[Lehi]], according to the [[Book of Mormon]], leaves [[Jerusalem]] and settles in [[North America]].
* [[Abkhazia]] is colonized by the [[Greece|Greeks]].
*The celtic ''Bruthin'' or ''Priteni'', invade Britain and Ireland the [[British Isles]] some time before the [[5th century BC]].

==Significant persons==
*[[Stesichorus]] of [[Sicily]], [[lyric]] [[poet]] (c. [[640s BC|640]]-[[555 BC]]). 
*[[Solon]] of [[Athens]], one of the [[Seven Sages of Greece]] ([[630s BC|638]] - [[558 BC]]).
*[[Thales]], Greek mathematician ([[630s BC| 635]] - [[543 BC]]). Predicts solar eclipse in [[585 BC]].
*[[Pythagoras]] of [[Samos]], Greek mathematician. See [[Pythagorean theorem]]. ([[582 BC|582]] - [[496 BC]]).
*[[Cyrus the Great]], king of [[Persia]] ([[576 BC | 576]] - [[529 BC]], reigned [[559 BC|559]] - [[529 BC]]).
*[[Gautama Buddha]], founding figure of [[Buddhism]] (c. [[563 BC|563]] - [[483 BC]]).
*[[Confucius]], founding figure of [[Confucianism]] ([[551 BC|551]] - [[479 BC]]).
* [[Aeschylus]] of [[Athens]], [[playwright]] ([[525 BC|525]] - [[456 BC]]).
*[[Darius I of Persia | Darius I]], [[History of Persia | King of Persia]] (reigned [[521 BC|521]] - [[485 BC]]).
*[[Lehi]], first prophet recorded in the [[Book of Mormon]]

==Inventions, discoveries, introductions==
* First [[archeological]] surveys of the Arabian peninsula by [[Babylonian]] king [[Nabonidus]].

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[[Category:6th century BC]]
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[[es:Siglo VI adC]]
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[[fr:VIe siècle av. J.-C.]]
[[lb:6. Joerhonnert v. Chr.]]
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