[icann-europe] Re: "proto-fascist"

[Mike Roberts <mmr@darwin.ptvy.ca.us>]

At 11:40 -0400 9/19/01, Michael Sondow wrote:
>Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>>
>>  Oh, good, it has been a while since we heard the last insults on this list,
>>  welcome back, Michael.
>
>Thank you for your cordial welcome. I extend the same to you. As to
>insults, the only one is from Mr. Roberts, directed at the users of
>the Internet, who, according to Mr. Roberts, don't possess the
>intelligence or trustworthiness to be participants in ICANN.
>
>"Elitist", "authoritarian", andare not insults,
>they are descriptive terms, found in any lexicon or history book.
>They describe the type of personality that, like Mr. Roberts',
>believes that a debate on what constitutes consensus is a luxury
>that should not be "granted" to the public by their rulers (i.e. Mr.
>Roberts, George Bush, etc.) at a time of decision-making, but
>instead should be made by those who have guns. "Elitist",
>"authoritarian", and "proto-fascist" are the appropriate terms for
>describing such a person.

Michael - you've long insisted that ICANN must be viewed in 
dialectical terms, and you've been perched about as far left in the 
political spectrum as one can get without preaching overthrow of the 
government.

But injecting fascism into this discourse is repugnant. 
Totalitarianism of the left and the right killed hundreds of millions 
in the last century.  I suspect many of the people on this list had 
fathers or grandfathers who fought for democracy in those wars.  The 
work of ICANN has nothing to do with fascism or communism, and 
admitting that doesn't damage your well known quest for more social 
justice in the world.

My recommendation to the GA in my post two days ago was:

"The GA, bastion of rugged individualism, has an opportunity to 
contribute to the solutions to these challenges. But if you're not 
interested in being part of common solutions and the compromises 
involved in them, and if throwing rocks at me for being the messenger 
of the new reality gives you a bigger thrill, go right ahead and lay 
a claim to irrelevance. "

I think it's good advice, I commend it to you.

- Mike
-- 

-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: icann-europe-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: icann-europe-help@lists.fitug.de