Mike,
> This leaves me with the question. If we as a "community" or a "nation"
> want to assert the public interest (as for example in the form of
> "values" such as limitations on violence, consumer protection, equity of
> access and so on) in this domain as we have in others, how/where can we do
> so.
>
> What are the means, whether practical (see the Australian approach
> which seems technically naive in the extreme), or legal/commercial
> (the WIPO approach which seems misdirected and manipulated by uncontrolled
> and virtually uncontrollable commercial interests), or technical (the
> V censor chip for example) which not only allows this to be done but also
> gives the "community" some means to democratically direct how and where it
> will be done...
>
> Again it seems to me that only through some sort of global
> regulatory pact/global regulatory institution with appropriate means for
> democratic representation and control, is anything resembling a (socially)
> responsible (rather than commercially uncontrolled/uncontrollable) global
> Internet possible.
>
> In the absence of leadership by countries such as Canada where there is
> both Internet savvy and where the balance of forces between those
> representing narrow commercial interests and those representing the
> broader public interest is not completely out of whack, the "default
> position" is with the corrosive anarchy of an uncontrolled and completely
> irresponsible "market".
>
You're asking some good questions, in a good forum My first
impulse was to point out that by definiton, the only nexus equal
and opposite to commercial producers is that of public
consumers: if we dont like the way they are managing affairs, we
can do it ourselves -- provided that we *knew how to take such
responsibility.
So I'm sorry, but I dont have the answers, only another question
(call it Q2): *how have we come to such a state that we have to
ask such questions as yours (Q1)? Are there no institutions which
educate us to value 'democratic representation and control' within
the family, for instance? After all, for many peoples in the world,
"How do you as a community or a nation assert your values?"
would sound utterly crazy and paradoxical -- or perhaps as a riddle
(Answer: one leg is both the same!)
But before I revealed my ignorance of some 'obvious' answer to my
meta-questions, of course I went to Alta Vista, hoping to hit, say, a
comparative education+parenting connection. There is none.
However, I was struck by some of AV's second guesses, in which
education appears in the context of international studies. (I'd put
them discreetly towards the end, but my mailer doesnt do
hypertext footnotes:
============
[> > Like
> >Clinton bombing Belgrade without even intending to ask Congress
> >to declare war, now its money versus the common people (hmmm,
> >not so different, at that!) !]
The Atlantic Council is "a bipartisan network of private individuals
who are convinced of the pivotal importance of transatlantic and
transpacific dialogue in promoting the effectiveness of U.S. foreign
policy and the cohesion of U.S. international relationships
worldwide."
http://www.acus.org/Publications/Speeches/NATO50.htm
[Dr. Margarita Mathiopoulos, British Aerospace, 9 April 99:]
"A new partnership quality of the transatlantic relationship will be
needed to deal also with the other old and new challenges of a
multi-polar global post-Cold War environment -- the war, the
present war in the Balkans, India and Pakistan, the eternal Turkish-
Greek- Cypriot crisis, the situation in the Middle East, as well as a
new Russian-Chinese rapprochement vis-a-vis America's immense
new political power.
"The Chinese and Russian defense ministers meet now on a
regular basis. Beijing's procurement policy is very favorable to
Russian products. .. Prime Minister Primakov, in his last visit he
paid to New Delhi in December 1998, even invented the idea of a
trilateral relationship between Russia, China and India. ...Zhu
Rongji,.. and the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, reassured each
other during their meeting this February in Moscow of the
necessity to enhance their political, economic and military
cooperation. ...Yeltsin even proposed the establishment of a
Russian-Chinese dialogue on a regular basis which will start this
year when he will visit Beijing. ...
"... New global challenges require a new NATO with new structures
and new mechanisms of burden sharing. Europe must become a
strong pillar of a new NATO. Therefore, rightly, the alliance decided
that only NATO can be the instrument to deal with the new threats
ahead. If it really finds its role, and the existential answer to the
existential question, Why NATO remains in business, must be
NATO's new strategic concept to be discussed in two weeks
time here in Washington."
===
The Center for World Indigenous Studies - Fourth World Institute is
an American Indian controlled research and education organization
dedicated to the advancement of indigenous peoples' ideas and
knowledge.
http://www.halcyon.com/FWDP/cwisinfo.html
"Access to knowledge and peoples' ideas reduces the possibility
of conflict and increases the possibility of cooperation between
peoples on the basis of mutual consent. By democratizing
relations between peoples, between nations and states, the
diversity of nations and their cultures will continue to enrich the
world."
~/seminars/collapse.html
"The (pre)dominant world view in the "new world order" has
traditionally focused on analysis that proceeds from a states
position, with all the priorities and rights it accords itself as a
corporate construct ruled by central authority. States rely on the
ideas of mutually recognized sovereignty, military defense of
artificial boundaries and suppression of cultural diversity of nations.
Cultural resistance, environmental breakdown, social instability,
economic breakdown, military power and levels of external threat
are explained as factors in the breakdown of states. Nations,
persistent peoples with a common and shared culture (cult:
worship; ure: earth), acting as distinct cultural personalities
contribute by their actions to the continued expansion or
increasingly abrupt breakup of political states."
~/ctm.htm
"This was an incredible cross cultural experience. I received
focused attention and the highest caliber teaching from faculty. I
truly valued the opportunity to learn from as well as contribute to
the people in the village." -- Physical Therapist and M.A.
candidate in Somatics
=========
The impression I get is that and peoples' knowledge no longer fit
the vocabulary or the *practice of education, parenting skills, or DIY
assertion of values -- that think-tanks assert the value of asserting
values, but have no 'mandate' to actually examine the
'fundamentals.' One now 'gives' something to a 'community,' but
that one learns from the experience becomes only a footnote, an
apology for revealing one's individuality.
Why, one might ask (Q2ically), did this come about? Whether due
to sheer population pressure, or the progress of civilization, or
simply a human passion for 'organizing,' the language which once
referenced *your talking to *me has been supererogated
('borrowed') by groups talking to groups -- on our behalf, of course.
Strategic planning, stakeholders' investments, and new
mechanisms (bureaucracies) for 'burden sharing' have replaced our
talking to one another as a 'mechanism' of recognizing mutual
needs and comming (sic) to a common understanding -- exactly as
if people can only be *told what to do, not *asked.
But at least the solution to *this problem is clear: if one is not a
machine, then there is no need to operate, or be operated, like
one. Specifically, we need only take back the language, reassert
the human value of speech, insist that the meanings of words must
be grounded in lived lives, and compel organizational constructs (if
they cant concoct their own terms) to license our intellectual
property. (I suspect the DNS mess would be resolved in short
order!)
Perhaps there is a need for a credential in Semetics, to bridge this
credibility gap. Candidates would learn -- recognize and assimilate
and implement -- that "learning from" is not merely a cross-cultural
experience, but part and parcel of 'indigenous' wisdom, and that
*we* can talk about 'international development' in precisely the
same terms as parents and educators talk about a youngster's
development. Delegating dialogue and partnership to states (i.e.
*dis*corporate instruments) leaves us sans wisdom, sans
indigenicity, sans 'existential' vocabulary with which to *assert our
particular blend of diversity and homogeneity -- in short, it leaves us
with Q1.
kerry
