[WSIS CS-Plenary] speakers list transmitted to the ITU

[KovenRonald at aol.com]

Dear All --

I'm not sure that it is a "reasonable request" to ask people with autonomous 
existences as recognized figures in their fields to get their texts vetted by 
a bunch of people they may or may not know and may or may not agree with. At 
least some of the personalities whose names were submitted as speakers were 
chosen because they have important standing in their fields and are thus likely 
to be listened to by others. 

It does not strike   me as a "reasonable request" to make such personalities 
seek permission on what to say from an ill-defined mass of persons, myself 
included, whose leading qualification may be that they can get to attend lots of 
meetings that people with active, time-consuming professional lives in the 
real world can't take part in. 

If the names of prominent persons with real intellectual authority are 
submitted   by us, it seems to me that we simply need to take our chances that they 
will say things we can live with. And, if they don't, that strikes me as just 
too bad. And just maybe such speakers are right and we're wrong. It's a big 
world out there, much of which has "not been dreamed of in your philosophies," 
as the Bard would say.

And those who might be willing to bend to such a text-vetting process may not 
have ideas of their own and thus not much worth saying or hearing.

There's surely more than one acceptable set of ideas in a "civil society" 
that is in fact infinitely broader than our congenial band of conference-goers.

Rony Koven
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