Re: [ga] At-Large membership: definition
On this list it was written about the ALAC that "individuals" can join as long as they wrap themselves in an "organization": You need to apply as an organization or group (even if informal), as long as it has individual members that use the Internet. In plan language that means that individual people have no worth except as members of organization, that they have no voice except through the voice of those organizations, and that they have no power over questions of internet governance except indirectly through those proxy organizations. But, of course, individuals do, at the end of the day, foot the bills of ICANN and suffer the consequences of ICANN policies (such as privacy-busting whois and the trademark uber alles UDRP.) The ALAC has a very clear historical ancestor - one that contains as much democratic elements as the ALAC and one in which the individual is about as equally empowered as the ALAC - and that is the old system of soviets in the now-gone Soviet Union. Compared to the red carpet treatment that ICANN gives to selected business enterprises and the intellectual property industry, the ALAC reduces members of the community of internet users to something well below third tier, and thus negligable, status. It's time to abandon the ALAC. It was a product of the minds of several people who intentionally wanted to dismember individual participation in ICANN. The ALAC had its chance; it has failed. And the ALAC has not failed merely in the US; it has failed everywhere. Changing the ALAC merely in the US and Canada is not acceptable. The notion that the US and Canada are different is condescending to the hopes of those people around the world who wish to play a role in the improvement of the wellbeing of themselves, their families, and their communities. It is not justice to give those of us who by a quirk of fate happen to live in the US or Canada a superior role in the governance of the internet. If direct participation in ICANN is appropriate for people who live in the US and Canada then it is appropriate everywhere. --karl--
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