Via a circuitous route that took me from communicating with someone who worked on Lamine Touré’s web site (Sasha) to discovering who hosts the web site (Ben) to reading about where Ben lives (a house in Cambridgeport that used to be owned by Anarchist Physicist George Salzman, but has since been deeded to a perpetual trust) to reading Salzman’s web site to finding a reference to James Herod, I ended up reading part of James Herod’s essay “Getting Free.”As I continue to think about property, ownership, lifestyle, and the future, I’m constantly thinking about other models of governance and decision-making. I’ve seen some amazing examples of small-scale consensus-based decision making (in communities up to 200 people), and these seem like the most plausible means to transforming our hierarchical relations.Herod asserts that, to truly transform our society and work toward eliminating repressive relationships,

“We have to gather ourselves together in directly democratic, face-to-face deliberative assemblies at work, at home, and in our neighborhoods. This would give us a foundation from which to begin draining power and wealth away from the ruling class.”

But even though I’m focusing on something constructive and positive, I can’t resist including a snarky quote from his introduction:

“If you do not believe there is a ruling class, perhaps you have been watching too much television or have taken too many sociology courses.”

The most recent version of his essay “Getting Free” is available at his web site, http://www.jamesherod.info/?sec=book&id=7