[governance] Innovation

[Karl Auerbach]

Jacqueline A. Morris wrote:
> Hi Karl
> You indicarte that Internet users have "shunned At Large in droves"
> But as soon as there was information about At Large and ICANN being
> published in the English speaking Caribbean, there was a great interest and
> a lot of the people who are interested in ICT have joined and are quite
> enthusiastic.

It is good to hear that people are getting interested.

Was it you who mentioned previously that you thought that the Director 
elected for LA in year 2000 did not fully represent the Caribbean area? 
  Do you think that the ALAC - a channel in which your regions views are 
filtered and then filtered and then filtered again - is as good as 
having a Director you can chose and elect?

Back here in the US there was a thing known as a "company union" - see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_union

This was a technique used during the latter 1800's and early 1900's by 
companies that wanted to crush the voice of workers by creating a 
plausible substitute for independent worker-formed, worker-controlled 
unions.

These substitute company unions were formed by the company.  The company 
provided money and time off work for employees to attend meetings.  Of 
course this company union tended to adopt mild stances and was not quite 
willing to bite the hand that fed it.

You might begin sense a resemblance between these company unions and the 
ALAC.

As it turned out the company union approach was very effective - that 
is, it was effective from the company point of view.  But from the 
worker point of view it was often a disaster.  The company union almost 
always muted the demands of the workers, much to their detriment.

The company union system turned out to be such a good way of suppressing 
labor needs and demands that it had to be banned in the US by Federal 
law in 1935.

It is natural that internet users who are starving for representation in 
ICANN should reach for the waterlogged life preserver, the ALAC, has 
thrown to them.  And in the absence of any alternative it is only 
natural that many internet users ill invest their hopes and grab on.

However, what I am suggesting - elections is not the waterlogged life 
preserver but a fully seaworthy lifeboat.

And the election mechanism need not require the ALAC to be abandoned - 
it would merely have to be relegated to a level in which it obtained no 
more support from ICANN and had no more privilege in ICANN than any 
other user formed group.

If you were drowning, as internet users are, in a sea of powerlessness, 
and if given a choice between the ALAC, and its nearly vacuous ability 
to hold ICANN to account, and real elections for real identifiable 
people - including themselves if they chose to run, don't you think that 
many, perhaps most would chose elections?

ICANN did have this lifeboat.  But they dropped a stone through the hull 
and caused it to sink.  Then they threw us the soggy preserver.  Perhaps 
some might feel grateful; many of us do not.

		--karl--
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance