Re: [atlarge-discuss] Last Man Standing

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

Danny,

I appreciate your periodical challenge to get our democratic house  in 
order and I appreciate even more the response your challenge provoked from 
Ron Sherwood. (Well spoken, Ron--would you kindly copy it into the Forum?)


So far you have done an excellent job of responding to the DNS issues that 
the ICANN -process is throwing at us.
Someone has to do it, in order to keep others free to spend their precious 
time on the building of a representative structure that must one day 
replace the ad-hoc "speaking on behalf of all"  that you can practice now.
Don't worry, if people disagreed strongly with your representations, they 
would tell you so on the GA list or here. :-)

If I have been relatively quiet on issues such as "deletes" , "WHOIS 
accuracies and enforcement", etc. it is only because I realize that it is 
even more important to give voices like yours the democratic credibility 
that will be needed to give them political weight.

The seemingly petty and childish struggles around how to best fulfill the 
members' wishes are all attempts to gain or retain control of this process 
before the rules are firmed up and ratified. .
Perhaps having elections at this stage is a reverie as you call it.
But if all of us (re)turned to speaking on DNS issues only, the small goal 
(of being heard and perhaps even listened to) might be attained, but the 
longer-term goal (of having fully empowered representatives, speaking with 
authority) would be neglected.

Sotiris is right to flag the presence of enemies of any well-run mechanism 
of representation for those affected by ICANN's "rule".

After the sabotage of the IDNO and the partially successful subsequent 
attempts to kill off of its website and archives,  expect nothing but the 
same for the icannatlarge attempt here.
You can trust only those who prove their  fine words with their consistent 
*actions*.

The disheartening aspect of this whole fight for democracy is, that 
once  the battle for the uncapturable structure is won, we will still face 
the battle of the voters' registry.

Who will be our future voters?
If you want to read how that is determined in "real politics" read 
http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/economistredis.htm
(how to rig an election).

With only 1070 members, how easy will it be for ICANN or the DNS -industry 
to flood us with new members that are pre-selected?

I do not know how to "solve" this,  except by being active with promoting a 
membership-wide spirit of competition for recruiting new members and aim 
for the highest possible numbers.

That the sandbox shrinks in the meantime is not such a worry. The 
(founding)members that we have now, before the gerrymandering has started, 
must have the privilege to determine the structure and make it solid.

After that, let the outreach begin.



-joop-



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