Few people I know write with as straightforward, simple language as James Herod. I can read his essays without a dictionary at hand. And he just says exactly what he means, never circuitous fancy language – never trying to impress the reader with his subtlety or his learning. Of course sometimes I think his ideas are wrong, and so we’ve had our share of arguments. But among the living anarchists I know, no one else has had as much impact on my thinking and my life as James Herod. Late last year he sent me a memorial note he had written about Bob McKinney, a comrade of his who died. It says much about McKinney, a plumber by trade, and much about James Herod’s thoughts concerning the human qualities that we must not let be eroded by capitalist culture. These are the qualities that I think should bind us all together in a true global human community.

      In June 2007 Herod’s thinking about how to get rid of capitalist domination, ideas that inspired me since 1996, finally were published in his book, Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods.^[1] It comes at a time of great social struggle in Latin America and elsewhere. The core ideas Herod proposes for transforming human society into a true civilization are, quite wonderfully, finding concrete realization right here in Oaxaca, where they are serving as an inspiration to people throughout Mexico and in other parts of the world to those people whose consciousness is not totally controlled by government and corporate media. This posting on my website is to give information about two exemplary human beings, neither one famous or celebrated, but truthfully the salt of the earth, our brothers.