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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Actually Milton, the term is “We the People<u>s</u>”… recognizing the diversity and multiplicity of the peoples of the world and presumably their various forms of governance and aspirations towards efficacy and empowerment including through their representative governance structures most of which at least nominally have presented themselves as “democracies”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>True that many states haven’t lived up to those early aspirations, (some of us even remember when the US could, with a straight face present itself as a fully functioning model democracy) but this is no reason to deny the legitimacy of those aspirations and instead out of what--cynicism, fatigue, self-interest, racism, elitism—whatever--opt for governance through corporate autocracy errr… a multi-stakeholderism dominated by Western, technocratic, primarily male, overwhelmingly white elites.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But at least I give you credit for being clear and straightforward in opting for this form of governance by “private sector-based MS institutions”, would that others in CS were as forthright in admitting where their loyalties lie..<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>M<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'> Milton L Mueller [mailto:mueller@syr.edu] <br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, October 22, 2014 1:04 PM<br><b>To:</b> 'michael gurstein'<br><b>Cc:</b> 'bestbits@lists.bestbits.net'; 'IRP'; 'governance@lists.igcaucus.org'<br><b>Subject:</b> RE: Time-sensitive: 24 hour sign on period for ITU Plenipot joint recommendations<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The UN has never been about “we the people.” It has always been about “we the states.” With nearly half the states in it being nondemocratic, and international law treating any and all states as sovereign individuals with equal rights, “democracy” in the UN system means one government, one vote. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Not ‘democratic’ in the good sense at all. We can agree on this, however: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 4.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>we should find alternative and effective ways of manifesting [snip] democratic impulses in this new era and with new mechanisms and processes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>But personally I think private sector-based MS institutions are doing a better job of that than anything that will come out of the UN and its clientelist co-optation of civil society and development groups. And some of these institutions work better and preserve the freedom and autonomy of communications better precisely because they are _<i>not</i>_ democratic in the old sense of pure majority rule.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Milton L. Mueller<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Syracuse University School of Information Studies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><a href="http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/mueller/Home.html"><span style='color:#0563C1'>http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/mueller/Home.html</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>