[governance] JNC perspective on making Internet governance democratic (was Re: URGENT: Last call...)

[parminder at itforchange.net]

> On 21/11/2014 5:22 am, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>> JNC certainly has every intention of working hard to convince many of
>> those who are currently unconvinced of the importance and feasibility
>> of making Internet governance democratic. Greetings, Norbert
>
> Whilst such evangelical zeal is - I suppose - admirable, do you really
> think that is going to be productive, rather than just compounding the
> discord you have already caused?  As you know full well, none of those
> whom you are addressing accept for a moment that their ideal of
> multi-stakeholder Internet governance is undemocratic, as JNC insists it
> is.

Simple claims matter little. Lets put the proposition that your (and your
associates') style multi-stakeholderism is democratic (or not) to a simple
practical check.

Do you *not* advocate a system for dealing with global Internet related
public policies whereby corporates will have a veto on agenda shaping - 
meaning on letting an issue go on the agenda or not?

Do you think such a clear veto to corporates in determining the agenda of
public policy formation is democratic?

I firmly believe that such a system is undemocratic. JNCs believes so too.
And all people, groups and political theorists that I know believe, or
would believe, such a practice to be definitely undemocratic.

parminder

( I write this email without prejudice to my views and action reg the
obnoxious emails that Jeremy wrote recently calling either an individual
or a coalition as 'acting like a dick' and then declaring that the elist
was off territory for "JNC pathologies". )

>
> Neither are they naïve babes in the wood who haven't fully thought
> through their positions, over in some cases a decade or longer.

  I can
> assure you that there will not be some sudden transformation, as along
> the road to Damascus, where the scales fall from our eyes and we convert
> to the JNC ideology, if only you berate us about our sins for long enough.
>
> I am not saying that there is no value in you developing a socialist
> critique of emerging multi-stakeholder global governance norms for which
> others are advocating. But recognise that your audience for that
> critique is always going to be limited, and you are not going to win
> over hearts and minds with these continued personal attacks - you are
> only going to continue to alienate people.
>
> The rather quite despicable slur that Michael levied against Anriette
> and APC about not being concerned with social justice is a paradigm
> example of this - I'm not claiming that it alienated Anriette and I
> certainly don't expect that it will silence her, but it may certainly
> alienate and silence others who respect her and APC's many years of
> selfless service.
>
> As Ian alluded to in a recent mail, what you are doing is simply driving
> people away, either completely out of the conversation, or at least into
> a stated of cowed silence where they afraid to voice their opinions. If
> ever you seem to have "won" the debate, it will only be because they are
> frightened to contribute to it for fear of retribution, or because they
> have moved their discussions to closed lists where you are not present
> (indeed this is already happening).
>
> JNC needs to have a long, hard think about whether this is what you
> really want.
>
> --
> Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Global Policy Analyst
> Electronic Frontier Foundation
> https://eff.org
> jmalcolm at eff.org
>
> Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161
>
> :: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::
>
>
>



-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t