Six Principles
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
This is where the 6 Principles hang out
Stephensonia
One has to hope Avi's H.E.A.P. endorses these.
Community entry: The global Green party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A (generic or 'small-g') green party is any contemporary political movement which springs out of concern for the destruction of ecosystems - "environmentalism", and then broadened to encompass the whole spectrum of political issues, attempting to implement a "paradigm shift" in how human beings relate to each other and their ecosystems. The term green party is used to describe political parties that emphasize those concerns, including especially the co-operating Green parties in all countries of the developed world.
As with all such self-descriptive terms, whether the term is accurate or deceptive is itself a political question. The term "green" is heavily appropriated by politicians and marketers, even used as a verb--it's not uncommon to hear of "greening" a party or a candidate, or 'small-g greens'. Typically these do not support the Green parties in all particulars, but are movements or factions within existing or established political parties.
When did it begin? In March 1972 the world's very first green party (the United Tasmania Group) was formed at a public meeting in Hobart, Australia. At about that same time, in Atlantic Canada, 'the Small party' was formed with similar goals. In May 1972 a meeting at Victoria University, Wellington New Zealand, launched the Values Party, the world's first national Green party. The term 'Green' was first coined by the German Greens when they contested their first national level election in 1980. The values of these early movements were gradually codified into those of today's worldwide Green parties.
The distinction is very often made between "green parties" (generally spelled in lowercase) in this general sense of emphasizing environmentalism, and specific organized political parties with the name "Green Party" (capitalized) that have grown up around a statement of principles called the Four Pillars and the Green Party consensus process built on them.
The four pillars or four principles are: 1. Ecology - ecological sustainability 2. Justice - social responsibility 3. Democracy - appropriate decision-making 4. Peace - non-violence
Which became refined into the
The Six Principles
There are Green Parties in hundreds of countries around the world, and Green representation at national, regional and local levels. Links to all the Green Parties around the world can be found at www.greens.org.
The main difference between a Green Party and a 'generic or small-g' green party is that the former, in addition to environmentalism, also stress social justice and global peace goals. See Worldwide green parties for further discussion of these parties.
The organized Green Parties themselves may disagree with the distinction between "green party" and "Green Party", as many Greens argue that there is no respect for nature without peace, and no viable peace without thriving ecoregions. In other words, they claim that every truly green party will by necessity also subscribe to the Green Party tenets. Some Greens view the compromises of other political parties as dishonest, inherently unethical, as they fail to respect
In 2001, delegates for green parties from 70 countries decided upon a Global Greens Charter which proposes six key principles. The Global Greens Charter is a document that 800 delegates from the Green parties of 70 countries decided upon a first gathering of the Global Greens in Canberra, Australia. This happend in April 2001.
The signatory parties and political movements of the Global Greens Charter commit themselves to global partnership and to six guiding principles. These principles are:
- Ecological Wisdom
- Social Justice
- Participatory Democracy
- Nonviolence
- Sustainability
- Respect for Diversity
The charter document describes these principles and proposes ten key fields of political action following from the principles.