[governance] ITU participation by CS (was: IG questions ...)

[Dan Krimm]

At 9:51 AM +0100 12/14/07, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>Dan Krimm <dan at musicunbound.com> wrote:
>
>> As a politico in the techie/politico conversation (thought not exactly a
>> "diplomat" -- I'm of course an advocate), I must insist on realism when
>> evaluating political dynamics.  While I am optimistic that with sufficient
>> attention we can push back effectively at "the wrong thing" it would be
>> dangerous to think that "the right thing" will emerge of its own accord
>> without the application of explicit political force (mostly by CS).  We
>> must keep our eyes on the prize, or else someone else will surely take it
>> from us while we're not looking.
>
>Yes, indeed.
>
>And we must not overlook the reality that the "IP" lobby and other
>industry lobbies that we're up against are very savvy with regard
>to tactics like forum-shopping.
>
>I'm getting more and more convinced that in addition to pushing
>back in whatever fora the industry lobby driven action moves to, we
>need to work independently of all that on establishing a credible
>genuinely democratic forum in the form of an international internet
>users parliament, even if that will initially have no authority
>besides the moral authority of making statements which are genuinely
>democratically legitimized.  The main problem with this idea is
>funding.


The main problem with *all* of CS is funding!

:-)

Dan

PS -- Not only to be glib:  Civil society deals with "collective interests"
which are diffuse in terms of individual interests, while our opponents
tend to be driven by very concentrated interests that apply to concentrated
wealth.

This is the central conundrum of money and power.  Funding collective
interests ultimately has to be addressed in a collective manner.  One way
is taxation by a government with some accountability to public interests.
Another is the vast-membership donation model (ala Moveon.org).  An
additional component could be philanthropic angels like George Soros, but
at the end of the day the angels do not have the resources to stand up to
the narrow interests on their own, and the mix of philanthropists at any
point in time in unreliable to sustain an ongoing political system.

This is precisely why democracy is not a spectator sport, and why it
requires constant participation and contribution of resources in order to
succeed (and thus why it requires a solid middle class, in order to provide
"disposable resources" to contribute to such participation).  The past
century of passive (broadcast) media has trained us in developed countries
to be couch potatoes rather than citizens.  (This is one reason why public
participation is not habitual in politics, though among Netgen it seems to
be growing somewhat, if still a bit fickle and "crisis-driven" like the
hits/star market for popular music.)

This is my hope: that interactive/participatory communications platforms
will allow citizens with disposable income and leisure time to engage in
democratic politics as a form of avocation (substituting in some respects
for other forms of "entertainment" or "hobbies").  We have only taken baby
steps in this direction so far, and cultural norms take time to evolve,
especially when the middle class is under systematic political attack as it
has been recently.

Bottom line:  Even with institutional funding for a "users parliament"
there is a further resource issue regarding the participation of users
themselves, which is prerequisite to the legitimacy of any such institution.
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