[bestbits] [governance] Internet - whether to regulate it or not

[parminder]

Milton

There are two levels to this discussion, one is a simple 
argumentative-ness, and a second one which in my view address the key 
issue of  who or which actors can and should be considered as the 
primary target of global civil society advocacy, as being the prime 
threats to the kind of global Internet that we want to see in global 
public interest. And an associated question being, which actors are 
blocking rightful public interest governance of the global Internet.

I will first respond in this email to your largely superficial if not 
misleading arguments, and address the key underlying question in my next 
email. excuse my indulgence.... parminder


On Sunday 05 October 2014 11:53 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> *From:*governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org 
> [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] *On Behalf Of *parminder
>
>
> Throughout this email, you seamlessly move between UN based 
> international law making and US law making, which may get forced on 
> the world bec of the US's economic and technical might, as if there 
> isnt any real substantive difference between the two...
>
> MM: Nope. I make it very clear when I am talking about one or the 
> other. Your point was “the U.S.” was preventing us from talking about 
> certain issues. My contention was simply that the U.S. is talking 
> about those things extensively at its own domestic level, and that 
> indeed, many of those dialogues originated in the U.S. and went 
> transnational. No confusion as to levels.
>

PJS: No.  I said, and I quote "We badly need a global discussions on and 
adoption of a model law on IP based telecommunications, and on net 
neutrality. But any such possibility will be resisted tooth and nail, 
and a lot of resources thrown into it."

What I am saying is that US and its cohorts prevent global discussion 
and *adoption* of needed public policy frameworks in the IG space... Do 
you content this statement. if you do, lets focus our discussion on 
that. Or else, concede.

> When did I say there is no global discussion on net neutrality ?
>
> MM: In your original post. Glad to see you backing off here.
>

PJS: Can you please quote me, instead of insisting that I said something 
which I did not, and then saying I am backing off..... What I said is 
quoted above, I never said "there is no global discussion on net 
neutrality". It would be stupid to say that - I myself am a member of 
two global coalitions on NN.
>
> ... As for the resistance to it and the resources thrown in for that 
> sake I have historical details of how an NN debate and position 
> forming got resisted on the IGC list as well in the MAG, for years, 
> before it was finally taken up this year,
>
> MM: Another factual error. See this, a NN workshop from 2011:
>
> http://intgovforum.org/cms/component/content/article?id=883:ig4d-workshop-183-a-possible-framework-for-global-net-neutrality
>

PJS: Again, I do know there have been workshops on NN at the IGF.... One 
of them, at Baku, was actually organised by me for ITfC. Can you stop 
producing meaningless and diversionary 'evidence'.

> Yes, I know the European Commission as well as Council of Europe has 
> been working on it, and I have participated especially in the latter's 
> effort.
>
> MM: So apparently the “US” effort to prevent discussion has failed 
> there, too.
>

PJS: Yes, US does get away with everything it wants. We all know that. 
But it has succeeding in stopping NN being taken up at any truly global 
policy making/ framing forum, and you know that.

> Well, yes. How much ever may I like to, we are just not able to come 
> off the colonial and post colonial yoke. Dont we still take everything 
> of worth from the west?
>
> MM: A typical Parminderism. Someone notes the irony of you claiming 
> the “the U.S.” is stopping us from discussing an issue that is being 
> actively discussed in large part because of US domestic politics, and 
> you transmute that into a claim that everything of worth originates 
> from the West.
>

PJS: I repeat, US does try its best that global Internet related public 
policy issues are not discussed and taken up by globally democratic 
forums in any manner that could move towards their global democratic 
resolution. As for your assertion that many of these issues are beign 
discussed globally "becuase of US domestic politics", this just betrays 
the symptoms of the very regrettable diseases of seeing the US as the 
centre of the world that many US policy makers, and policy commentators 
suffer from. It is not going to be very useful, but still let me repeat 
- we discuss Internet public policy issues globally becuase they impact 
us and not becuase ofUS domestic politics...

> Apart from US and its corporate allies being the chief instigators for 
> filtering the debates at the IGF,
>
> MM: The chief instigators of filtering debates at the IGF are those 
> who don’t want to disturb the IG status quo, as you know well. But 
> that camp includes people in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia as 
> well as “the U.S.”
>

PJS:Has it not been amply clear that the US political and business 
establishment leads the pack and is its epicentre..

> I’ve run up against those filters as much as you have, btw, only about 
> 5 years before you. Ask yourself why I wasn’t asked to be on the IANA 
> transition panel at either Netmundial or IGF, for example. But I am 
> from the US. Why didn’t they welcome a fellow imperialist hegemonic 
> white male? How do you explain this, my friend?
>

PJS: You are slipping into a rhetoric which has no connection to 
anything I may have said.

> Maybe there are substantive policy differences at stake that cannot be 
> reduced to 1970s-vintage state-centric worldviews?
>

PJS: Interesting! Ask Snowden how state-centric the world still is.. 
That is just one example.

> Maybe “the US” is the wrong label to be using to characterize your 
> enemies? Your whole mentality is still locked into the nation-state 
> mindset.
>

PJS: This point will be addressed in my next email,
>
> The US rules the global Internet, politically and economically . Any 
> civil society actor whose chief aim is a better distribution of power 
> (that at least is what civil society used to be) would naturally make 
> the US as its chief target.
>
> MM: But redistributing power to whom, and for what purpose?
>

PJS: To people, for their benefit.

> First, it is obvious that you are talking exclusively about a 
> redistribution of power among nation-states
>

PJS: Where is it obvious? However, yes nation states are one of the main 
vehicles of such redistribution, since they are still the primary 
vehicle of people's democratic representation ( the US constitution’s 
"we the people..") .  And seeking to dismantle this system of democratic 
representation without building a more democratic one is one of the most 
important contemporary strategies to check redistribution of power 
towards the people.


> – an approach that is intrinsically hostile to civil society.
>

PJS: Please expand this.... I think the hostility is to the rule of free 
unregulated market which is basically rule of big business... It is the 
latter's increasing power that is hostile to civil society ..

> Further, I don’t think a redistribution that, say, strengthens the 
> Russian or Chinese states is anything to get excited about
>

PJS:To the extent that it can decrease illegitimate US's political and 
economic power (heard to the recent BRICS bank, you sure would say it is 
inherently hostile to 'civil society', right!) . To the extent it may 
empower the state vis a vis its own people, no.... Two different 
battles, bot important.

> – or haven’t you kept your eyes on what is happening in Hong Kong? 
> Perhaps you will follow Putin and Xi and blame all the HK unrest of 
> “the U.S.”?
>

PJS: Slipping again into unsustainable rhetoric... Since when market 
fundamentalism has become revolutions friendly... I fully support the HK 
democratic movement, and so do colleagues inside HK who work with us.  
BTW, the only comment on the HK unrest I saw in IG lsits was one of 
Michael Gurstein showing detials of HK's Internet speeds etc and 
wondering whether it had to do with the protests. The whole 
multistakeholderist group and the Internet freedom did not utter a 
word... So, dont create accusations which have no basis...

> All part of our attempt to maintain global hegemony. So let’s suppress 
> freedom and democracy in Hong Kong so we have a better distribution of 
> power?
>
PJS: Milton, you need to do better than this.
>
> I don’t think strengthening the Indian or Turkish or South African 
> states is such a great idea, either. All of them seem to be more 
> interested in Internet control than anything else.
>

Good, you were not able to bring yourself to mention India :) .. Anyway, 
nation state is a complex reality, and a general one kind of branding 
versus other may not help. Context matters. Within South Africa, almost 
all reform movements will be aimed against the state (happens in India 
and we participate in so many of them.).. At the global level, it is the 
US political and economic establishment which undoubtedly has the 
greatest concentration of power and this the greatest threat. In 
confronting this threat, most developing country governments can be used 
as allies.

> Again I ask you to frame your debate and discourse in terms of 
> substantive policy choices and not polarized power blocs centered on 
> nation-states.
>

Well, I greatly admire the US as a nation of people. My problem is with 
its political and economic might which is overbearing and a threat to 
the world. As for substantive policy choices just go to theJust Net 
Coalition website <http://www.justnetcoalition.org/>, and read its Delhi 
Declaration <http://www.justnetcoalition.org/delhi-declaration> as well 
as more than 20 statements made by it in the last 6 months. And if you 
find another IG group which is clearer and more profuse in offering 
policy choices let me know. All I have heard most IG groups is just 
saying over and over again, in with multistakeholder-ism, down with 
UN... Hardly a portfolio of "substantive policy choices".
>
> Your mode of discourse is essentially a Cold War mentality, where our 
> political choices are centered on being for or against the US.
>

In fact it is entirely post cold war, where the US has become a unipolar 
political and economic power, with no brakes or constraints, which is 
leading to an unsustainable concentration of power. The global Internet, 
born post cold war, is its prime example. Pity that there are so many in 
the global civil society that side with this greatest concentration of 
power on the global Internet "against civil society interests" to quote 
your somewhat flippant phrase.


parminder
>

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