Re: "stakeholders" was: Re: [ga] Re: ICANN before the US Senate...

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2003, L. Gallegos wrote:

> If we were to describe those whom we now call stakeholders as "users."  

I don't accept that those who not "use" the internet are not among those 
affected by the internet and thus not among the community of those who 
ought to have a voice in the creation of policies regarding the net.

It does not matter whether one has an e-mail address or a web site or even
knows how to use the net.  The net indirectly affects those who do not
themselves use the net.  And the cumulation of those indirect effects is
large - it ought not be disregarded.

Simply because one is not a "user" isn't reason to exclude a person from
the community of people who ought to have a say in the policies that guide
how the net is run.

So, it comes do to this: The atomic unit of internet interest is the
individual human being.  Not a "user", not a "stakeholder"; simply a
living, breathing person.

The United States Constitution begins with the phrase "We the People..." 
not "We the Stakeholders..."

And the United States Declaration of Independence begins "When in the 
course of human events..." not "When in the course of stakeholder 
events..."

The great minds of the 18th century understood that the most basic
building block of modern, stable, and just structures of government are
individual people.

When I look at ICANN in the historical context, I fear that it is a
retrograde step - backwards from the principles of 1776 and 1789, away
from democracy and towards oligarchy.

		--karl--