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Username: David J. Thompson
Date/Time: Wed, November 15, 2000 at 5:56 PM GMT
Browser: AOL Browser V5.0 using Windows 98
Score: 5
Subject: dot co-op

Message:
 

 
                               Dear ICANN:  History sometimes gives us a glimpse of the future.  The application and support for dot co-op comes for a numbe of reasons mainly that it will allow co-ops around the world to communicate and assist each other.  Over 800 million people are members of cooperatives and we cover almost every country in the world.  In many cases, the local co-op or credit union is the only place in the villages of Latin America, Africa and Asia where there is access to the internet.  Our future is strengthened by being able to unite our economic and social activity.  The world will be better for it.

Writing about the British Cooperative Movement in the late 1800's Beatrice Potter stated, "In truth, it is doubtful whether any single measure passed by the British Parliament during this century has had a more potent effect in accelerating the democratic control of our national life than the cheap and uniform postage invented by Rowland Hill..."

The Penny Black stamp was first issued on May 1, 1840.  The worldwide cooperative movement began on December 21, 1844.  That stamp provided the poor working cooperators with the ability to communicate their ideas and plans together.  It allowed them to notify each other of meetings and conferences.  It facilitiated the provision of information about starting their own wholesale society, their own bank their own insurance company and a host of other economic alliances.  These secondary level cooperatives could not have been achieved were it not for cheap and easy access to communication for all of the small co-ops needing help. 

Ten years later, in 1854 the post office handled 684,047 letters many of them between the hundreds of co-ops now established and working together to help each other rather than being isolated because there was no way to communicate.  The bible of the day for cooperators was the extensive Cooperative Directory published by the Cooperative Union which showed the street address in the kingdom of every co-op store, co-op butchers shop, co-op drapery, co-op coal depot, co-op farm and co-op funeral parlor. The Penny Black Stamp made the future possible.

An ICANN adoption of dot co-op would be the Penny Black of the New Millenium.  It would be used to identify partners, to establish unity, to foster economic development. to speed communication, to send out fresh ideas and remove old myths.

Please adopt dot co-op and help 800 million people help themselves.  You will provide an internet gateway to a stronger future for those presently left out.  Thank you for your consideration.

David J. Thompson, Author of Weavers of Dreams: Founders of the Modern Cooperative Movement, President of Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation and Chair of the Policy Advisory Board at the Center for Cooperatives at the University of California (identification only).

     
     
     
     

 


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