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ICANN Stacks Board with Non-Critical Appointees
Froomkin writes "ICANN's outgoing dissident Board member, Andy Mueller-Maguhn, has leaked the slate that ICANN's so-called NomCom (actually an appointments committee) has picked. The new public representatives are mostly a mix of incumbent ICANN Board directors who don't rock the boat, corporate executives, and ISOC members. Dissident Andy Mueller-Maguhn got replaced by a former member of the board of Deutsche Telekom. Dissident Karl Auerbach (who had to sue ICANN to get to see its documents) got replaced by the President of the U.S. Council for International Business. At least the Board Squatters are finally going to be history. Details at ICANNWatch." ICANN is an interesting study in how a ruling regime can usurp a democratic institution and turn it into an autarchy.
First off, the article isn't /.'d.
Next, nice troll there at the bottom. Hey moderators! Read before you moderate!
I'd particularly welcome blow jobs from readers who are acquainted with any of the newly selected Board members.
+1 funny!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Despite the local laws in your "country" the major corporations and governments of the world have long since merged into a single governing body. A body over which 99.9% of you have no control or input. Whether it is through laws, treaties, contracts, customer statements or agreements, the message this massive organism sends you is clear: Obey "Us" or "We" will make your life miserable, through arrest, imprisonment, lawsuits, job loss, or simple threatening phone calls. These tactics are currently being used by your corporate lawmakers and property police to mold you into all-working, all-buying, mindless consumer-citizens. Your worth is measured by your ability and willingness to make the rich 0.1% richer and to keep electing them into their positions of power.
Our corporate masters use their massive wealth and resources as leverage against the (mostly) powerless common people. "They" can out-spend, out-harass and, if necessary, out-live anyone who chooses not to follow the rules "They" make. Most real property in the world is owned by corporations and governments, not ordinary people. "They" have gone so far as to invent the concept of intellectual property, so that now "They" even own your thoughts and ideas. "Their" combined wealth is measured in the TRILLIONS of dollars, an order of magnitude most folks cannot even visualize, while your bank account is measured in the thousands, if your are lucky!
Most of you hardly own enough to fit in the moving truck you use to race from job to job, in your desperate attempt to one day catch up with the neighbors. In reality neither you nor your neighbor makes even the slightest difference. Your combined lifetime income won't even come close to "Their" yearly revenue! The sum total of everything you own and will ever own is pocket change compared to the vast storehouses of wealth that make "Them" powerful. That house you own? Actually, the bank owns it. Even if you were lucky enough to have inherited it or somehow managed to pay it off, the land itself is owned by the government, and "They" can take it back whenever "They" want, or when you become an undesirable. Your car(s)? Owned by the bank. The music you listen to? "Theirs". Your thoughts and ideas? Owned by the corporation that employs you. Oh, and your employer also owns at least 50% of your time when you're not sleeping (and "They" will probably soon find a way to own your dreams).
Most folks are slaves to their employment. Not to any specific employer, but to employment in general. Because of "Required Consumption Programs" such as property taxes and rent, electricity and phone "services", you ordinary people are forced to participate in the economy--forced into employment. "They" have gotten you to pay "Them" for the luxury of being slaves! Interchangeable slaves, that is. Think of your job. Chances are, it's something that can be done by anyone, and, more likely, something that doesn't even need to be done. You are a cog in the great global economic machine. Less than a cog. You're just one tooth in the gear. If you fail "They" will throw the whole gear out and find a new one to run into the ground. Be happy you're allowed to be your employer's slave.
And happy you are, because if you aren't, you stop doing what is required: working and consuming. If you don't do what is required, "They" will make your lives miserable. Don't pay your taxes? You're a felon and you go to jail. Don't pay your electric bill? "They" will threaten you, sue you, and come to take what you own. Don't participate in the economy at all? You're a vagrant--an undesirable. You go to jail where you will be forced to make products that enrich a corporation anyway. You really have no choice but to conform! Be a happy sedate little worker-consumer! Give to "Them" "Their" share and yours too, and everything will be all right.
It reminds me of feudal Europe. "Give us everything you own and we will protect you", or at least provide an illusion of protection. But deviate from
I think some of you are going to burn in meta-moderation...
Hmmm.... I wonder which one?