Re: [ga] Posting rights of Jeff Williams suspended for 14 days.

[Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@nic.fr>]

On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 05:30:03PM +0100,
 Richard Henderson <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com> wrote 
 a message of 143 lines which said:

> "ALAC, whose goal is to legitimitize the total elimination of public
> representation on the Board of ICANN"... yep... the whole point of ALAC is
> to minimise and contain the impact of the internet user community and to
...
> ICANN is regarded with disdain because it is perceived as a self-serving
> clique of insiders, working on behalf of the US Government,
...
> The comments of Jeff Williams were insubstantial.

I hope that nobody will accuse me of defending the US government or
its front in Marina del Rey but you raise an important point: besides
Jeff Williams' empty and useless contributions, there is the issue of
"at large" involvment (I use lowercase to emphasize that I talk about
the concept of "at large" participation, not the actual attempts by
ICANN to organize it.)

IMHO, there is still no serious way to build a real democracy online:
the various "at large" attempts are a proof by experience that the
situation is not ready yet. This GA list is a typical
example. Discussions are focused on the intense activities of a few
trolls like Joe Baptista. Although some people like Vittoria Bertola
and yourself try to stay calm and to express their views in a way that
reasonable people could read and understand, and although these
reasonable people are probably the majority, nervertheless, the
debates revolve around a few jerks which are not connected to any
actual practice.

Not having any responsability, they can work full-time sending
messages on the GA list, screaming "censorship" and "fascism" at every
possible opportunity.

I have no suggestions at the present time. I just wanted to
acknowledge that the ICANN at least tried (and failed). I strongly
hope that the idea of an Internet democracy will raise again and will
be successful next time but I have no idea how.

> mentality which could be seen as institutionally fascist and arrogant.

Here, I agree with Vittorio: the real fascists are people who kill,
torture and mutilate. They do not try to silence you by suspending
your posting rights on a mailing list for two weeks. They shoot you
right now. Calling the administrators of this mailing list "facists"
is a insult to the victims of the real fascists. (It's like saying
"genocide" for every murder: you blur the responsability of the real
genociders.)

--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html