Re: [ga] Re: Byfield on GA Reform / comments

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 12:01:33 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>I *am* interested in the formation of an Internet Union of Internet Users
>(IUIU) that would serve as the voice of internet users in all the various
>internet governance bodies, ICANN being merely the earliest , that will
>arise over the next few years.

That, I guess, is what most of us are here for! However, it seems to
me that, no matter how much ICANN is badly organized or corrupt, the
continued inability of the user representatives to work out a positive
relationship with the rest of the Internet technical and business
community will not help the user representation in any way. 

I am not saying that users need to be remissive, but that sometimes
being polite and practical and accepting compromises helps in building
long term reciprocal trust and thus gaining long term victories; and
even if a good number of ICANN "characters" do not deserve an ounce of
trust, thinking that all individuals participating in ICANN apart from
the users are selfish, corrupt and in bad faith is ridiculous. So we
should work to gain their support and sympathy, rather than to isolate
the users more and more; because the more we continue this struggle,
the more we get weak and isolated.

>ICANN's "reform" plan throw the public voice into the dungeon where the
>best it can do is tap on the door and beg for sustenance.  Were the public
>to organize outside of ICANN, it could come back and knock on the ICANN
>gates with an irrestable battering ram.

This is definitely a truth, yet in the last years there have been many
tentatives to build such "irresistible force", and not one went too
far (though icannatlarge.com potentially has good chances). I am tired
of waiting for reinforcements that never come. I think we have to
accept the fact that we lost a long row of battles in the last two
years, and to seek peace for a while; to use peace, not war, to
organize ourselves and to grow slowly but steadily, because it's easy
to gain people and support when you cry for war, but it's even easier
to lose them at the first defeat, and this is exactly what has been
happening to the At Large.
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
----------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <--------------------------
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