[atlarge-discuss] Re: Focused Mission Statement (was: point of order)

["Ron Sherwood" <sherwood@islands.vi>]

Good morning, Joop:

    I did not suggest that we abandon democracy.  Your response using that
premise has generated a lot of mail, but does not correctly characterize my
post.

    Your recognition that there are two factions within the membership that
have opposing views on the methodology we should adopt to achieve our goals
prompted my response. What I suggested was that we do not have to be so
inflexible that we adopt a single measure that alienates one group of
members in favor of another.

    The goal as I understand it, is at-large participation in management of
the Internet as a global resource.

    Let us assume that the majority of our membership is in favor of our
organization addressing ICANN and Internet governance from a standpoint of
massive external consensus, having sufficient weight to demand meaningful
participation (or by creating a DNS system that bypasses ICANN altogether).
The creation and management of such a group could prove to be extremely
difficult, and the time-line to success extremely long.

    Now suppose that a smaller group of members is in favor of working from
within, or at least working with, ICANN to achieve the same goal.  What is
wrong with our organization adopting both modus operandi as a dual strategy?
The membership can vote democratically to approve either method or both.
This is not an abandonment of democracy, it is an inclusive solution rather
than an exclusive one.

Ron Sherwood


----- Original Message -----
From: "Joop Teernstra" <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>
To: "Ron Sherwood" <sherwood@islands.vi>
Cc: <espresso@e-scape.net>; <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 8:54 PM
Subject: Focused Mission Statement (was: point of order)


> At 08:12 a.m. 13/10/2002 -0400, Ron Sherwood wrote:
>
> >     Your suggestion that we develop two mission statements and then vote
for
> >the most popular, has the benefit of democracy but also suffers from the
> >biggest problem with democracy...  alienation of the losing side.
>
> Ron,
>
> If we abandon democracy, we undermine our raison d'etre.
> I am not interested to stay with a group with "leaders" that do not want
to
> listen to their own members.
>
> The members must be polled, reliably and frequently, especially in the
> beginning.
> Polling officers should be elected.
>
> >     Isn't it possible for us to have two (or three) strings to our bow?
>
> It is possible, but you have to look at  the dispersion of the few
energies
> that people with real lives have to give.
>
> My preference is for a focused mission, a battering ram that remains aimed
> at the weakest point of the "Global Internet Governance" fortress: ICANN's
> obligation to be a membership organization.
>
> Here we are, members who signed up to be counted as "ICANN AT Large"
> members  having been corruptly excluded and sidelined by ICANN.
> I feel that, without going back to our members and *ask* them,  it is
> nothing short of betraying them to now insist on diluting the focus and
> instead  using their names to take on "the whole bad world".
>
> May I point again to the beginning that has been made by Cecily Wood,
> Sotiris, Walter Schmidt and Vittorio trying to find a more focused
> formulation. http://www.icannatlarge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7
>
> Let me add my own draft:
>
>
> Preamble:
>
> This organization (ICANN At Large) has grown from the original commitment
> of ICANN and its Memorandum of Understanding with the Unites States
> Government to be a membership organization.
>
> Our initial membership has voted to have an internet presence named
> icannatlarge.org
> Both our name and our website domain may be changed when they would be no
> longer relevant.
>
> ********
> Our Mission is to create a legitimate and respectable  structure that
> allows for the democratic consultation and representation of
> Individual  Internet users in global internet governance bodies such as
ICANN.
> ********
>
> Legitimate means developing process and respectable means undertaking a
> *big* PR job.
>
> Even such a focused mission is  in itself already a huge task for people
> who may not have more than 30-60 minutes a day to devote to such a task.
>
> If we succeed in this mission, ICANN, or whichever body that may replace
it
> and still has provisions to be a membership org , cannot look past us.
>
>
>
> --Joop
>
>


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