> 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".  

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."
 
 http://www.halcyon.com/FWDP/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."  
 
  

 http://www.halcyon.com/FWDP/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.  
 
 


  

Mike,
>  I do think though that the on-rushing ubiquity of the Net, the
> fact that it is in the home, that it engages/interacts rather than
> "broadcasts" all are rather different from anything similar that has
> happened in the past.
>

Quite so. Its not a coincidence that its here that 'Q1,' How do we
protect children (etc) from exploitation' and Q2, 'How do we protect
our *means of protection,' come together. Community is
communication, and the 'threat' to commercialism (which has
historically relied on fairly localized populations) is that community
may become globalised faster that business enterprises. (The anti-
MAI movement, the rebellion against genetic engineered foods and
protests against changes in US banking regs illustrate the
possibilities.)  So, if controlling the communication system
preserves your control of community values, the strategy is to
peddle that control in the name of decency and innocence -- and
trademarks of course, all elements which are 'easy to understand'
and get indignant about -- and hope that communication _per se_
(not to mention the contradiction of rushing the net into every home
at the same time as decrying the results of doing so!) will fall off
the public map.

> I think the issue is whether one is optimistic about the outcome
> of a freely evolving Net as for example enhancing popular education
> and democractic decision making or whether one is pessimistic and
> expects that the Net will become simply another
> advertising/marketing utility.

Im all for optimism, but the enhancements can only come from
netizens, not Netizen, Inc. The fundamental democratic process is
nothing more or less than this: that as we speak, we are educating
somebody, somewhere. Thus isnt the issue whether one *asserts
responsibility for one's acts, or reneges? In the latter case, experts
and professionals will happily continue to swipe the power, leaving
the public another day older, deeper in debt, and not a whit wiser.




Notes









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