[governance] Internet - whether to regulate it or not

Thu Oct 9 02:54:03 EDT 2014

1.  May I say that I am thoroughly enjoying this debate.
2.  I think Parminder won this round.
3.  Hopefully that will goad Milton into having another round...
:-)  Important questions.
Stephanie Perrin
On 2014-10-09, 1:03, parminder wrote:
>
> 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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