Re: [ga] At-Large

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

On 06:49 05/07/02, Ray Fassett said:
>Kristy Mckee writes:
>"Too bad ICANN does not believe every citizen deserves the right to vote."

I am afraid we serve Joe Sims interests here. He is genuinely frustrated by 
the lack of some basic understandings by his fellow countrymen, but this is 
just the dressing.

1. Kristy: democracy must not be confused with votes. You have democracy by 
representation and democracy by delegation. In Athens only 500 people 
voted. In the USA only citizens of age can vote. Ages of vote varies among 
countries. Number of candidates and ways of voting vary. 99,99% for the 
single candidate is not what I call democracy. In Bucharest every Director 
was allowed to vote ....

2. Ray: your reaction is a pure demonstration of what Joe says. I am sorry, 
I do respect and share most of the ideas of the US democracy which fit well 
the needs of a federated nation with a rather simple common law practice 
and a short legal history.

>So, I guess we are supposed to just shut up instead of going on and on 
>with our "head-in-the-sand attitude [that] is unfortunately quite common 
>among ICANN's American critics" (Joe Sims).

I will certainly not take the USA as a model for democracy and for loyal 
commercial practices because I will take no one: every country culture has 
con and pros and should work for improvement and for adaptation to the real 
world. To understand and accept that, as Joe and Esther do, is what many 
call civilization. But civilization also comes with mutual respect: when 
some are more civilized than others, many call it machiavellism


We have to accept that the ICANN is not to manage the Internet but to 
manage us. Its true role is to protect the "stakeholders" from the market 
leading forces which are seen as competition or dangers fo the network 
stability (competition, politics, lobbies, NGOs, experts, activists, 
foreign govs, techies, consumer organizations, etc.). Statu quo is the key 
word - the DNS never changed in 18 years since we delegated it under the 
State Department, ITU and foreign Govs (monopolies of the time) approval.

I can only admire Joe's memo. The vote of the BoD he is so proud of is a 
master piece of influence over the last six months. I would be really glad 
to know the truth about Karl's not showing up. Worked out? Luck?  Now what 
is (by chance or by intent?) the effect of his memo? Joe will be able to 
produce it to show that Gillmore's testimony about Vint is part of a 
personal feud of Gillmore against Joe, dating from the Postel's days. That 
it is rooted in a loony proposition of Gillmore rightfully refused by Joe. 
Joe did not quote anything real, many texts with references where quoted in 
response, but the harm was done. It might be the same in front of a Court.

I am very interested also to learn that JDRP is not looking for long term 
customers. Also that a single individual with no legal case, being helped 
by one lawyer (and may be one or two assistants) in a USG support matter, 
may get a 1 million dollar bill. If JDRP cancelled the bill either JDRP is 
in the charity business and should get tax deductions, either it was 
favoritism and in some way Jon Postel, or IANA, should be taxed on the 
advantages they obtained, either it is a fantasy say which may cost a lot 
to JDRP as other clients may ask for the same treatment, or it was a pure 
investment that would not pay back and Joe's leaving is to cut on JDRP's 
losses. I am interested in knowing who Joe is going to replace the ICANN 
with? and what about Louis?

I can also only admire the way the Blueprint is worded in order to close 
the mouth and ambitions of the @large and of EEC and others. The @large 
trap was triggered first. The use of Vittorio was brillant, but Vittorio is 
a smart and honnest fellow, so let watch what happens. The GAC's trap was 
the usual way (last minute document saying that this will not happen 
again). The EEC trap is a very good one. It will be triggered probably this 
summer. There are some other traps, some we see, some we do not see yet. 
Joe and some others are far better at managing human networks ties than 
Internet links :-)

Since, I am only interested in servicing the Internet Participants we are 
on planets apart..
jfc