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

[Eric Dierker <eric@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Not bad at all Leah
the term is dialectacal egocentrizm (excuse my spelling I am cooking 
spagetti) It is the argument over a word to avoid dealing with a true issue.
Lawyers and technicians use it equally. 
We all know that all people are righteous stakeholders and we all know the 
board Karl sits on does not listen to them, or they do and to the great 
extent do not care or only use it to defeat the stakeholder. dang now i got 
pettine impertinenza on my keyboard and my wife cancelled our trip to the 
Monastary of www.plumvillage.org
e


> Karl,
> 
> I don't understand why we are arguing.  We agree that everyone is at
> least indirectly  affected by the internet and, as such, has an
> interest in ICANN's decision making.
> 
> The argument is use or misuse of the term "stakeholder."  My contention
> is that  everyone affected by the internet is a stakeholder, and you
> are arguing there should  be no term used at all, if I read you
> correctly, because the US Constitution does not  use that term.
> 
> First, if everyone has an interest in ICANN's decision making due to
> the fact that  everyone is affected by the internet, what has the US
> Constitution to do with it other  than ICANN happens to be a US
> corporation?  It is a world issue, right?
> 
> There has to be some defiintion to describe those affected.  Call them
> persons if you  like or "those affected by the internet" if you like,
> but I don't think the semantics  makes much difference.  The point,
> IMO, is that ICANN has abused the term  stakeholders and that is what
> needs to be addressed.  If you define the term  stakeholders to be all
> those affected by the internet either directly or indirectly, it  would
> be used correctly.
> 
> Leah
> 
> 
> On 10 Aug 2003 at 2:20, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> 
>> 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--
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>