[CPWG] [GTLD-WG] [registration-issues-wg] Reminder - Today by 17:00 UTC: ACTION/ALAC and CPWG Members: Statement on Evolving ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model

[Evan Leibovitch]

> We are engaged in a struggle for legitimacy, not just of voice.
>
If only we WERE actually engaged in that struggle. I read this thread with
an increasingly recurring mix of amusement and exasperation.

So much needs to be done, so much research, so much reasoned analysis
remains undone to reveal/prove how existing ICANN policies and operational
modes harm the end-user and society in general. Yet here we are, with a
thread more than 20 messages long and still counting, fretting over a
non-controversial statement that might be too "aggressive", asking for
substantiation that can be trivially found within the bylaws that define
At-Large's role.

Forever the micro, never the macro. At-Large, still, focuses more on the
need to be loved than speaking truth to power. And that is a dereliction of
our duty.

Imploring us to "keep the conversation open" by speaking meekly is simply a
plea to be satisfied with being invited to the dinner but kept at the
children's table.

In fact, this strategy is harmful as it's counter-intuitive. The more we go
with the flow and simply react to ICANN's existing agenda with tiny tweaks
and wishful thinking -- the more we focus on the incremental rather than
the substantive -- the more we convince the rest of ICANN of our
irrelevance. Playing the existing game -- rather than unabashedly asserting
what end-users need from ICANN -- is At-Large's express lane to being
declared redundant, for indeed we are in our present state.

The case for two At-Large Board members (etc) is no different than it was
when it was rejected after the ALAC review. The power imbalances are not
only well-known, they're conscious and deliberate, and now we're being
asked to burn volunteer resources to document it. And we meekly do what
we're told, can't be too "aggressive" can we? Shameful. In the process of
forever begging the rest of ICANN to deem us worthy of more than cosmetic
representation, we have lost the will (if it ever existed) to actually do
what the bylaws actually say we need to do.

But ..... sorry to interrupt. Please proceed with this vital debate on how
tiny changes to an irrelevant statement on an artificial issue will lead
our PoV to move ICANN in a way it has never moved before.

- Evan
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