Re: [atlarge-discuss] Membership fees

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Either we want to promote a small organisation of relatively wealthy
specialists, in which case they can pay $25 to $50 a year, and operate just
another group, run in the same way, and lumped together with various other
groups by ICANN. It will be informed, it will have a few smart meetings a
year, it will be a club

or...

We are simply the internet users of the world, anyone who wants to join, no
fees, no barriers, no smart and fancy meetings, but simply an ideal... a
bottom up democratic movement, claiming what nearly everyone feels
emotionally... that this world shouldn't belong to the wealthy few and the
corporate elite... and that the Internet belongs to every single individual
who uses it... and our very openness, our cost-free openness, run on a
shoestring of voluntary contributions, becomes part of the cult...

because...

The key isn't the refined informed contained project... but the key is
*imagination* and *feeling*... to capture the imagination of internet users
all over the world, even though we are poor, even though we start with a
website and a message... and yet without the financial stumbling block...
the door is open and no-one feels estranged... we are identifying with the
poor and the ordinary and regular people

and we aim...

To get an "Our Internet" banner in the top corner of more and more websites,
and we communicate the people's net... and we aim not for a small informed
inclusive club, but a romantic movement... so easy to join... and easy to
understand... and a noble thing which people can embrace...

money...

is the language of USG and ICANN and it is the paradigm of power... but you
see, we don't even need to attend ICANN's meetings (though some of us
may)... because we should aim instead to build an alternative... a different
polarity... a stakeholders movement... on our own ground, and on our own
terms... until the media notices, and governments outside US notice, and
academics notice...

it's them and us...

it's not about negotiating a Director or three on a stacked Board... it's
not about ALAC... it's about building something separate and apart, as a
platform for informed assertion and a vision for the net... and if we fall
into the trap of charging membership fees and doing everything respectfully
and predictably, then we may just become like them... but we are trying to
demonstrate a more open, and fairer model...

a network of communities and individuals... in an alliance... with power not
based on money but on conviction... using technology to define and determine
our own future internet... defining it bottom up through the will of every
single individual - one member one vote - and demonstrating the legitmacy of
that ideal... an exercise of authority for which there is no entrance fee,
no exams to pass, and no Nominating Committee or Delegates ... but open to
all, and run from the poorest individual up

and the future...

I know people will say, we will have bills to pay... we will not be taken
seriously... but I say: the contributions will come, and people will take us
seriously, *if* we capture the imagination, if we are idealistic all the
way, and if we identify from the start with the poorest people on the face
of this earth, the digitally divided, and next the small village communities
who maybe share one computer between ten villages, and the single mums on
welfare who can't afford the next meal let alone $50 membership, and the
ordinary of this planet (who are mostly dispossessed)... and the poorer
countries too, who don't need to go and do homage and bow down to the
rich... and if we are just open and let this ideal become a virus... is
it...

is it...?

...just possible that the foolish thing will happen, not the safe
respectable club, but the shared humanity of one individual and another and
thirty of us here and ten more there and more individuals and more
individuals and more individuals... until we make ICANN and its preposterous
arrogance seem the foolish thing and the despised thing... the arrogance
that assumes the clique can self-perpetuate and "possess" the earth (or the
digital empire it envisages upon it)... and excludes the Users who are in
their millions, doing humanity everyday over this great net of networks...
for education, for trade, for compassion, for freedom, for information, for
health, for...

communication...

...isn't it strange, how in the birth pangs of this organisation, we have
struggled so much with communication, enough to scare each other off a dozen
times... and yet... we have something bigger in common... however hard it is
to communicate... we keep communicating... because we see in this technology
the power and the potential not just for us, but for the human race... and
somehow, though we often wish we could, we cannot shake off this vision...
that ordinary people should be able to communicate... the coming together of
nations, and communities, and individuals... without political control or
interference... without the corporations taking control... the right of
people to own their own networks... and communicate

I don't favour membership fees because then we start to close the doors, we
start to become the cognoscenti and the insiders, we start to diminish the
vision...

which needs to be demonstrated in the reality of what it is, even if it
seems like an affront at Hearndon, even if it seems like we're nobodies...
*that's* their possible mistake... to think you can marginalise the whole of
the world... when the whole of the world *is* what the net is about, who we
are about, and who we are open to

Richard H

PS: Some will say, "We need money to incorporate"... I say, "Then we
incorporate when we have that money"... I'm not wealthy, I'm not grand, I've
kids to feed, but I'd give $50 and maybe ten others can match it, and then
we have the first $500, and that's not much, but at least we get to verify
ourselves through Paypal :) ... and some people may be rich enough to
contribute a little more, maybe I can save up more for the autumn, and new
members will volunteer I'm sure... and those of you who are really poor and
it's a duty *not* to pay (because who feeds your kids) then it's free, the
door is open, welcome, you are still equal among equal, and nobody gets
judged here by the size of their bank account... maybe I'm just stupid, but
we're a not for profit, we're in the people business, and its people we
want, the money - well, we just spend what we get... if we get... when we
get. We will get. The more people, the more money. Entrance free, pay later
if you want. More people, because we're not taking their money. Entrance
fee, less people, or just the club. Friends, if you try to be normal, I'm
sorry but this org is just never going to get lift off, because we're trying
to achieve something which is a little more than normal, and it's the
feeling (not the logic) which needs to prevail. When people *feel* strongly,
they'll give. Their money or their time or their support. Let them
participate. Don't just govern them. A growing river of people, with a
vision, intent on determining the direction the net should take, intent on
defining the way it should be run, joining in, involved, defiant!


----- Original Message -----
From: Gilbert Estillore Lumantao <gilbert.lumantao@lycos.com>
To: <DannyYounger@cs.com>; <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>; James S. Tyre
<jstyre@jstyre.com>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Membership fees


> From: "James S. Tyre" <jstyre@jstyre.com>
> To: DannyYounger@cs.com, atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de
> Cc:
> >Danny, with respect, you are comparing apples and rutabagas.
> >At the bottom, you say "you get what you pay for," but what do you get
back
> >from belonging to any of these three organizations, or hundreds of
similar
> >ones?  Obviously it varies some from org to org,
>
> i agree. this boils down to what kind of organization are we building.
isn't it enough that people are using the net to be allowed to join @large?
>
> 1$ is around 52 pesos in the philippines. that would be around the price
of one meal. with that, i hope you can understand that 25$ or more can
easily be a barrier of participation, at least in the philippines. and isn't
participation what @large is?
>
> i would rather that we screen non-serious members through a minimum
requirement of participation (like voting) instead of requiring them to pay
unreasonable membership fees.
>
> gilbert
> ---
> Gilbert E. Lumantao
> 200 Commonwealth Avenue
> Quezon City 1101 Philippines
> Mobile No. 63-918-9387793
> Email Address: gilbert.lumantao@mailcity.com
> Website: http://www.batasayti.freeservers.com
> ---
>
> "Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is
small. The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are
still easy, the greatest things in the world must be done while they are
still small. For this reason sages never do what is great, and this is why
they can achieve that greatness." - Attributed by Sun Tzu to warriors of
ancient times.
>



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