[WSIS CS-Plenary] Bush admin. objects to .xxx domains

[mclauglm at po.muohio.edu]

I tend to support Milton's position on this, although I don't know 
enough about Robert's position to characterize him as equivocating or 
misunderstanding anything.

I have to admit that I'm writing this message after having just 
listened to one of my favorite David Bowie tunes: "I'm Afraid of 
Americans." If you agree that music is an important source for 
political messages, the following lyrics may be pertinent:

"I'm afraid of americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it..."

[then, tongue in cheek, although it points to a right wing 
fundamentalist ideology)

"God is an american
I'm afraid of americans
I'm afraid of the world
I'm afraid I can't help it."

As an American, I'm afraid of Americans too--at least the ones who 
are dominating this country and are in the administration at the 
moment: the Religious Right. We should all be very afraid, and I'm 
convinced that we have come to a point where only pressure from 
outside the US or transnational groups is going to make a difference 
in respect to the Bush administration's hubris. This whole issue of 
.xxx domains is thoroughly hypocritical, but the US Religious Right 
has never let information get in the way of their doctrinaire 
positions. Clearly, they fail to understand that .xxx *may* offer a 
way to "partition" at least a certain amount of "acceptable 
pornography." The Right Wing position is that the .xxx domain is 
going to create pornography, which is ridiculous, because, as Milton 
points out, it's already on the web. I don't know enough about the 
DNS to help out in drafting a letter, but if Milton and others, who 
know far more than I do about this, draft a letter for Civil Society, 
I will be happy to sign on behalf of my organization.

Best,

Lisa

>
>>>>  rguerra at lists.privaterra.org 08/16/05 12:50 PM >>>
>>>  We should not stand by and let this happen. Are you willing to join
>CS
>>>  efforts to prepare a statement opposing this?
>
>>You as a US citizen, can complain to your congress person (senator 
>>Clinton, if i'm not mistaken) and see if you can get her to care 
>>about the issue.
>
>A very disappointing, equivocal response, Robert. You say, "it's a US
>problem, you take care of it." Thanks. But I and other IGP people have
>been saying for several years now that unilateral US control of the
>global DNS is everyone's problem. It's sad that you don't understand
>that.
>
>I can tell you this: what happens regarding this issue in ICANN will
>have far more influence over the future of Internet governance than
>anything that is going to happen in Geneva in September. Whether a Forum
>is created or not is trivial compared to this. And if the US, via GAC,
>succeeds in opening the door to unstructured, unbounded, informal and
>purely political interventions by national governments in any decision
>made by ICANN, then the real negotiations will take place in GAC, not in
>WSIS, completely out of view, and the WGIG Report calls for changes in
>US control of the root will be rendered utterly irrelevant.
>
>You as a Canadian citizen, can complain to your representatives, too,
>btw.


-- 
Lisa McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Mass Communication & Women's Studies
Editor, Feminist Media Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, M.A. Program in Mass Communication
Union for Democratic Communications Representative,
World Summit on the Information Society

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