Re: [ga] The rebid vote

["todd glassey" <todd.glassey@worldnet.att.net>]

I personally would support a rebid demand myself since I feel the current process is both open-loop and failed to answer a number of critical questions.

 

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message -----

From: William S. Lovell

To: ga@DNSO.org

Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 11:51 AM

Subject: [ga] The rebid vote

I don't know why all you folks continue to succumb to this whole bit.  I count 17 emails with
the heading "Point of Order," and not a nickle's worth of input on the wording of the proposed
motion, or indeed very much at all. This "vote" will be conducted by Thomas Roessler, under
the dictates of the DNSO procedures, under very constrained time limits that allow little or no
comment, opportunity to amend, alternative proposals, and the actual content of the "Motion"
is something that has been "agreed" to between James Love and Thomas Roessler. That is not
the way things are supposed to work.

This side-tracking onto "point of order" issues is of course the standard tactic of William X.
Walsh -- he's been doing that for years, so as to prevent any meaningful operation of the
ordinary democratic process, and he's been getting away with it because too many folks fall
into his trap. As to the "Motion" itself, Thomas Roessler asked for a list of 10 supporters of
it, and Joanna Lane posted both the Motion and the list of supporters.(However, motions do
not ordinarily include within their wording any explanations thereof.)  James Love reasonably
asked about how the wording would be settled, would there be any other motions and so on,
and the answer from Thomas Roessler seems to be that there will be only the one motion and
"time is up." The ordinary characteristics of a democratic process have again been thwarted by
the fact that the GA indeed has no settled procedure that would allow a meaningful length of time
for meaningful debate, and I would not blame the DNSO Secretariat one bit if the Motion were
rejected because it had no cognizable foundation, beyond the fact that the poll recently
conducted certainly indicates that the issue garners sufficient interest to be addressed further.
There will now be a motion, but no significant "addressing." What was presented, in terms
of alternatives with respect to ICANN reorganizing and the like, seems to have fallen into a
very deep well.

Now it is true that the DNSO procedure will allow a time for debate. But the scope of that
debate will be limited by the scope of the one Motion, which I don't think will suffice to cover
the complexity of the issue.  I've suggested that within the GA itself, before anyone rushes to
the Chair with something called a Motion, there be extensive debate and discussion, so that
all of the elements of the issue will be known to everyone, and from that a most meaningful
Motion would emerge that at that time would be presented to the Chair. It is only by that
kind of procedure that the slim chance that the BoD would pay any attention to it anyway
might be enhanced.  I've said before, and I'll say it again, that the GA is a third-world
country, run for years by a dictatorship, and the GA members cannot get themselves out
of that because they don't understand how the democratic process works, and hence
continue to bow to the rules of the dictator. Those rules seem to have been set up with
that very intent: by definition, anything that runs that constrained course will show a lack
of any consensus, and the BoD will routinely so announce.  Very few in the GA seem to
have the ---- to have the GA proceed on its own, outside of the deliberately constrained
DNSO procedures.  To those Pavlovian dogs who will now salivate in the form of saying that
anything so done would have "no official status," please allow me a moment to try to stop
laughing. In terms of ICANN policy, the GA has no status. The only difference between
toeing the DNSO line on voting and the GA doing it on its own is that the latter choice,
wherein free democratic processes might occur, would more likely produce definitive,
meaningful results from which a real consensus might well emerge.

Bill Lovell