To me, "democracy" refers to an acceptance of certain "rules of the game." It is first and foremost about procedural considerations, not about substance. There is no a priori reason to believe that a Monarchy, democracy, and a plutocracy could not adopt substantively identical policies on a number of crucial issues. The ways in which they would go about taking those decisions, however, would be radically different.
Democracy as such therefore begins and ends with the proposition that the voice of the people is decisive and must be recognized as such. Democracy is intimately bound up with freedom of expression. Freedom to criticize. Freedom to disagree. And it also presupposes that members (yea, "founders") will not be cut off from the community without the assent of the community. Democracy is confident that in an environment where people can express themselves freely, the people will coalesce around workable political decisions. Democracy also presupposes that the voters have access on some level to the process of initiating decisions.
That's not how IDNO works. Only one person decides what will or will not be put to a vote, and he determines the way in which issues will be put to a vote without consulting the membership. Even as undemocratic an organization as the United States House of Representatives allows the Members of Congress to make motions, including motions in chief and amendments. Here there is not even a pretense that a member can propose a matter for discussion and voting.
More importantly, members of IDNO are subject to expulsion at the whim of a single individual. All it takes at IDNO is for criticism to leak out (in my case, I was guilty of the sin of not reviewing the headers after hitting the reply button to a cross-posted message. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea minima culpa.)) whereupon one finds oneself . . . without notice, without an opportunity to be heard, without a vote being conducted or the membership being consulted . . . booted from membership. Expelled by fiat from on high.
IDNO is evidently engaged in a new and interesting use of the word "democracy" that I have not before encountered.
And what, exactly, was the substance of the remark that got me so unceremoniously booted from IDNO? It was the observation that you (I had to erase the "we" that I typed the first time I wrote this sentence :-( are perceived as linked with Iperdome and NSI.
It's not hard to see the connection or the rationale for it. The Executive Director of the IDNO is Jay Fenello, the promoter of the Iperdome venture and a paid consultant for NSI. NSI's agenda has always been opposed to ISOC, IAHC, and now ICANN, and IDNO has had a decidedly anti-ISOC bent, as well as being opposed to the present configuration of ICANN. Denying this element of IDNO's weltanschauung simply makes it look like IDNO is an operating arm of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. When people ask about an archive (that which is inimical to Minitruthfulness), the inquirer is castigated as an obvious opponent. OF COURSE when NSI offered IDNO one of its seats on the Names Council, it did so out of purely altruistic motives. (Yeah, right. BTW, there's a bridge in downtown Manhattan that goes across the East River that has been in my family for generations but my health is failing so I have to give it up it's real lucrative and you can charge tolls and I'll sell it to you for!
just $500 okay?*)
By adding another voice to the noise surrounding the startup of ICANN, IDNO serves NSI's agenda of postponing unto death the emergence of real competition.
I can no longer support this organization or its activities. While I have had my differences with many of the members of IDNO, I believed it was in the best interest of the Internet that individuals as such be empowered, and I saw IDNO as a means to that end. I no longer see IDNO as anything more than a pawn of NSI, and I will not continue to further NSI's agenda. I remain undecided as to whether trying to empower individuals in internet governance is a quest for the Holy Grail or an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
But let's make sure we all understand something: I am still a believer in democracy. I'm not leaving this group voluntarily. I'm being expelled because the high poobah will not tolerate dissent nor will he trouble himself to consult hoi polloi such as the mere mortal membership of IDNO/CA before doing so.
Adios!
Kevin J. Connolly
*For da sake of youse who are unfamiliah wit' da Big Apple, dat's da Brooklyn Bridge I'm offerin' ya :-)
>>> Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz> 06/15/99 10:06PM >>>
At 12:51 15/06/1999 -0400, Kevin Connolly wrote:
>And you guys have the nerve to suggest that you're a legitimate voice of
individual domain name holders? This is some kind of joke! The funny
thing is, I've been pushing away the players in the domain name war who
believe that I should organize an individuals' constituency as a
counterweight to IDNO. I believed (up until I found myself purged, about
half an hour ago) that while I had differences with some of the members
here, it was in the best interest of the Internet that we work together to
advance the empowerment of individuals with respect to the internet.
>
>And then you guys decided to go ahead and purge me :-)
>
I take responsibility for taking your name down from the website, Kevin.
I did so after your posting to dnso.org where you stated that in your view
our IDNO had almost no legitimacy left.
You also stated that we identified ourselves with Iperdome (?) and NSI.
Extremely damaging and unsupported statements.
(Indeed it looked like you were positioning yourself to organize a
constituency as a "counterweight to IDNO".)
I presumed that you were giving up your membership of our illegitimate
organization.
Are you?
If not, I will put your name back on forthwith, and with apologies for
misreading your intentions.
>Golly gosh gee willickers, but you've simplified my life :-)
>
Do I read that correctly then, that you no longer want to be a member.
Please clarify.
--Joop Teernstra LL.M.-- , bootstrap of
the Cyberspace Association,
the constituency for Individual Domain Name Owners
http://www.idno.org
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