[ga] Re: Recordings of Amsterdam Meetings
Title: Help I agree with Jan's assessment here : the primary objective of the At Large
movement should be to obtain democratic representation and a proper say for
millions of ordinary internet users in the running (and future) of the Internet.
This is an irreducible imperative because, frankly, this vast constituency (far
bigger than any other) effectively owns the Internet and makes it what it is...
they are the real stakeholders and yet they are locked out by ICANN (at least
from its Board - a catastrophic error).
There is NO EVIDENCE that ICANN has any intention to use these RALOs to
"let in" the democratic principle to its Board room (where the real power
resides) and as Jan says, the effect of participation in the RALOs will
inevitably be the dissipation of the democratic imperative which should truly
fuel and justify the At Large movement.
Basically (in the 'realpolitik' terms Esther loves to allude to) there is
nothing in it for the ICANN Board to grant the At Large its rightful democratic
place in control of their organisation... the Board (and its friends and
contacts) would stand to lose in all kinds of ways, even though the human race
as a whole would gain.
Therefore it is transparently obvious that the RALOs lead not to the
objectives of the At Large, but to the objectives of the Board. It is as logical
as that.
The RALOs are a vague, non-democratic, top-down attempt to sideline and
dissipate the At Large.
The emergent At Large organisations should not buy into this ICANN Board
Invention, but should mobilise to create their own independent umbrella
structure, so that they can press the case for Internet Democracy (or more
precisely, representation and accountability) from a position of unfettered
independence.
Season's greetings
Richard Henderson
----- Original Message -----
From: Jan Siren <sirenj@iu.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2002 4:58 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Re: Recordings of Amsterdam Meetings
and PROPOSAL] Esther Dyson wrote: > > Thanks, ALexanderl > > to ampligy on the RALOs, as I understand it, the idea is not to bless a > single organization to form a RALO< but to get all the "at-large > structures" in a region to join together to *form* the RALO. In order for > that to happen, obviously, the RALO is unlikely to be able to have much > character of its own... it's merely a collection of individual orgs (and > perhaps people) with a variety of opinions of their own. The key > requirement for the RALO is that its membership be open. The idea is more > to have some structure to communicate through to all the constituent orgs, > than for the RALOs to be thick organizations themselves. Instead, they > should be broad. > > I don't know, Esther - I've read the "Blueprint for Reform" and the
At-Large Advisory Committee Assistance Group (ALACAG) Report that describes the "Regional At-Large Organizations" (RALOs). The RALOs seem formless and vague, lacking any characteristic that would motivate existing organizations (*or* individuals, should the option be provided) to choose to join them (and thereby dilute and dissipate their influence with ICANN). The RALOs don't appear to point the way towards Internet democracy, which I feel should be the ultimate goal of the At-Large. As I read the ALACAG Report I was reminded of Hillary Clinton's attempt in the early 90s to devise a national health-care system, itself a laudable goal. The "single payer" function of the Federal Government would be exercised through negotiations and contracts with so-called regional "health care alliances" among insurers and providers. These were groups that historically, had never pulled cooperatively in harness before. Why should they start doing so now, just because the Federal Government was providing the money? And nowhere in the proposal was any means provided for the public, the ultimate recipients of health care, to express their needs and preferences and thereby provide policy guidance for the "health care alliances." No one bought into the concept, and it foundered. We're left with the same hodge-podge we started with, and there are still around 40 million people in the US without a health plan. The analogy between RALOs and "health care alliances" isn't perfect, admittedly, but I'm convinced that the ALACAG failed to learn from history; they just didn't try hard enough... |