Kevin,
Did you perhpaps forget this little part of Joop's declaration:
> 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.
>
If you want to characterize that as expulsion, go ahead. I personally
think that people got a bit heated up over there but nobody got
expelled IMHO.
So your timestamps are kinda irrelevant. There are a lot of
hot-blooded posters on all the lists. I suggest you take a deep
breath and plunge back in.
Cheers,
Dan
(sig file somewhere below)
"Kevin J. Connolly" wrote:
>
> If you check the time stamps, you'll see that my declaration that I could no longer
>support IDNO or its activities came AFTER I was expelled from membership by Joop
>Teemstra. I did not resign. But since you've chosen to cross-post part of my essay
>to these lists (golly, I wonder if Joop will slap your hand for violating the
>no-cross-posting rules) I will republish the whole of my message here. And I just
>realized (on checking my inbox for duplicates) that the substance of the e-mail that
>I hesitated to republish is already public.
>
> So here we have my essay on democracy, my indictment of IDNO as undemocratic, and
>Joop Teemstra's declaration that taking me off the list of members at IDNO.org was no
>mistake:
>
>***************************************************************************************************************
> When I was studying political science (bachelor's and halfway to master's degree
>before switching to law) I learnt that different people have different perceptions of
>what "democracy" means. That may be the problem at hand.
>
> 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 f!
or 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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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.
>
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