[governance] People's Daily of China: US must hand over Internet control to the world

[Riaz K Tayob]

 From anecdotal reports I have heard about the Germans, Swiss, etc, the 
talk was that one can develop one's one structure in the event of a 
failure (particularly if there is the now discounted single point of 
failure), abuse or national whim. This option is real for countries that 
have both capabilities and resources. All others are however subject to 
rules that may or may not be in their interest. Some of us are not 
miserly with the  conjuncture of interests of less well resourced 
countries and those seeking to challenge US hegemony.

On politics, I am not sure I understand the allusions in the context 
they are made. Asserting a 'don't fix what's not broken' is ALSO 
politics (I remain unconvinced by arguments that technical and politics 
are seperate, as does Lessig in principle) - if but a power maintenance 
rather a power grab view. So as an exposition it is rather empty, and 
used previously to stifle debate that challenges power maintenance.

The (ex/)implicit point being, this is just politics, it is irrelevant 
as there is 'no problem'. On this list we have a range of views (my 
characterisation, and probably faulty) from Status Quoist (of various 
shades, some technical, other Exceptionalism, etc) through to 
anti-Statist (in a Leviathan monster kind of way, or liberal - not 
American, but continentalist) and radical autonomist (like no need for 
government in this sphere - can be read as anti-Statist, but seems to be 
determined by the potential of the technology - not suggesting 
techno-determinism but not excluding it either) as well as a South view 
(not homogenous, and picking the strand I prefer - IT4C) that is 
critically engaged (sometimes I get the feeling that Mueller is more 
radical than Parminder in conception - although it can just be my 
reading of how to get from here to there... i.e. strategy vs tactics) 
working with what is there to decolonise the transformative/evolutionary 
imagination (although it stands out for less deference to creationism 
than some of the "evolutionary" arguments presented here).

So, in short, the politics of the "don't fix what ain't broke" is pro-US 
DOC ultimate control. And we see, the proponents of this view are 
powerful but struggle to engage on the legitimacy issue. Some 
sophistication is in the offing, but I remain of the view that it 
remains hard to find good help these days to defend the indefensible 
(from a legitimacy point of view) ... and I am sure that better 
arguments could be put forward (at least in this space)... and the only 
inference I can make about this is (in my limited understanding) "why 
bother"...


On 2012/08/21 01:57 PM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> Anyway, articles like this always leave me wondering, whether it is 
> because of utter ignorance, or some political agenda (*).
>
> Daniel
>
> (*) It is always about power grab. Some think it is about money, but 
> money is just a way to grab more power, as humans are greedy. Some yet 
> think it is about politics, but politics are ultimately about money 
> and power grab. Yet, some believe it is all for the imaginary "public 
> good" or "so God said", but it is simply about grabbing more power. It 
> is pointless to argue with religion (as opposed to faith). Same with 
> patriotism. Luckily, Internet is designed to deal with this. 


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