[At-Large] Say Whut!

[Carlton Samuels]

Yessir, I can recall your exact words to me so long ago; waste of time,
decision already made. The reasoning you offered was bold, too.

I was interested at one point. Then when it was too clearly a bridge too
far, I retired to the shadows.

A congressman from Texas once told a writer I truly loved that in politics
you have no right to call yourself a politician if you cant drink their
whiskey, take their women and money and still vote against them. Theres a
lesson there somewhere.

The arguments you hear on this or that are stimulating for a policy wonk.
But quite frankly at this point much of what the At-Large does is
margin-gathering.

Someone has to. And we live in hope.

-Carlton





On Mon, 10 Dec 2018, 1:07 am Evan Leibovitch <evanleibovitch at gmail.com
wrote:

> So... Do all of you who sank your valuable time into that
> where-do-the-auction-funds-go sham of a process feel a little betrayed now?
>
> How many more times will we continue to play this futile game?
>
> The fix is always in. Let the "community" thrash about with well-meaning
> but big-picture-pointless debate, then swoop in at the end to remind where
> the ultimate decision lies. It lies with the money.
>
> "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
>
> I got fooled enough with the Applicant Support process, the CCT and a few
> others. Yeah, it's more than one but at least I can say I know the
> experience intimately. But the aftermath of these efforts (or lack thereof)
> is why you don't see me wasting my time on subsequent ones. (Cue the theme
> music from "CSI:Miami".)
>
> Countless of my colleagues continue the good-faith attempt to disprove
> Einstein's definition of insanity(*), unsuccessfully. I love my ALAC
> friends (I've literally invited you to my home) and it pains me to watch
> the story repeat so often.
>
> But sooner or later the collective massochism and denial has to end.
> Turnover in ALAC is low enough to have plenty of veterans around who should
> know better.
>
> Stop playing the game. Challenge the rules instead. Perfect example: why
> is ALAC involved in the minutiae of "subsequent procedures" for new rounds
> of gTLDs without having even challenged the rationale for new rounds at
> all? Also, I've previously spoken at length about ALAC's sad longtime
> choice to respond to the agendas of others rather than even try to set its
> own.
>
> Monied interests overpower us politically by orders of magnitude, and
> without a regulatory role ICANN has no incentive to push against the money.
> This needs to be changed, or others will change it from the outside.
>
> I remind that we are now living through a period of time in which awful
> political choices are being made, all over the world, in desperate moves
> to disrupt deaf and corrupt status quo. ICANN and ALAC ignore this trend at
> their danger.
>
> ___________________
> Evan Leibovitch, Toronto
> @evanleibovitch/@el56
>
> (*) that may not have ever actually been said by Einstein, but it's a
> useful phrase regardless of source.
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2018 12:34 AM, "Carlton Samuels" <carlton.samuels at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/07/dot_web_review/
>
>
>
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