So that's how I feel about your comment above. I'm not writing things out of resentment at the creepiness of your weepy invitation to call on you for help at any time when you were mourning Gary Webb combined with the absolute lack of response when I did. I'm just pointing it as an example of your smarmy hypocrisy. Nor am I jealous of your life style (whose details I am not privy to) or the support that you've gotten from foundations. I was merely pointing out that I actually work for a living in what passes for the real world and I do not ask for or get any financial support for my political writing. The only financial grants I've ever received were for a total of $1,000 from a foundation devoted to emergency aid to indigent authors when I was crippled in 1974-75 and my only other income was the California welfare system. I don't use my website to beg for donations (although I did issue an urgent appeal when we were wiped out by Hurricane Wilma). I sell my work and my services. I am not a political operative. I am a totally independent journalist.

If you want to suck on the foundation titty, and troll for handouts from well-wishers, that's your choice, but don't you ever dare to ascribe any kind of motives other than speaking my brand of truth to anything I write or do, or accuse me of cowardice. That's beyond insulting. It is despicable.

I did not pull rank on you. I have no rank. I called you a pipsqueak not because of your age, but because of the limited size of what passes for your brain as demonstrated by your really rotten attacks on my integrity. No one attacks my integrity. I write what I write because I want to write it.

As far as making things up, that's really a matter of interpretation. You weren't sued for what you wrote about Fox, but for what you wrote about Banamex. You can say that you weren't for Fox, but being against the PRI for most of the campaign and then popping up at the end to chime in on the money-laundering charges speaks for itself. I was against Fox from the beginning. You finally conceded that I was right about that. I'm not going to search through all my back-ups and find your positions. I remember very well being attacked and insulted by you for daring to examine what the vote-buying charges really meant. You called me a chayote and you suggested that I had some kind of personal motives for making those statements, just as you have done here.

You can argue all you want about how the Other Campaign supported voting in theory. But your comments disparaging the electoral process are all over the Internet.

As far as my fear of the collapse of social order, well, you've kind of got that right. I do dread the prospect of chaos and violence and militia groups that will accomplish exactly zero because they will ultimately be controlled by power-crazed caciques who will install yet another round of kleptocracy. That's actually the most favorable scenario. The collapse of social order in Mexico will only serve the interests of the ruling class, who will survive the troubles in great comfort, and most likely pick up where they left off when it's over. The poor will remain poor and powerless. The middle class will harden and turn fascist. And the ruling classes will profit, as usual. There will be periods of exhileration, but the end will be just another flavor of tyranny. No structural changes will last other than changing seat assignments in the deck chairs on the Titanic. Excuse the cliché. It fits so well that I can't resist using it.

Democracy is not the perfect solution, because there are no perfect solutions. I think that a partial democracy is better than even benevolent despotism. I welcomed the arrival of democracy in Mexico, even though I admired the accomplishments of the PRI. There was a lot to admire in what Stalin accomplished, too, but in the end he was just another scummy Tsar. With the possible exception of Nicaragua, the Mexican Revolution is the only revolution that I can find in world history to have transferred power to its opposition -- the heirs of the losers, those who still hailed the war cry of the cristeros -- by means of democratic process.

Everything I read about Marcos and the Zapatistas and the Other Campaign turns me off. A lot of it actually disgusts me. I feel that it worked to the favor of the PAN and the detriment of López Obrador. It seemed like performance art revolution to me. I find Mexico's struggle to achieve democracy thrilling, however. I'm with my Mexican friends who want to make this all work. Patricia Mercado -- the presidential candidate I found most intelligent and practical of all -- today called on all candidates to respect the decions of the IFE and to begin dialog to construct agreements.

That's the side I'm on. I think you're on the side of anarchy. You've got a slick way of expressing yourself, and you've got all the political theory of class warfare down pat. But it's clear that you only pay lip service to democracy when it suits your current interest. You're on record as saying that the outcome of the election doesn't matter. So why would you care if one candidate or another won by fraud? It's all a fraud, as far as you're concerned. When it comes to voting and democracy, you're an opportunist. Your only interest seems to be to make sure that everyone knows that the election was a fraud. Well, other people, want to examine the evidence and correct the fraud, if that is possible, and to continue to work for the best version of democracy that Mexico can obtain without resort to violence. If we are bourgeois, so be it.

"Lo mejor de la democracia es que se puede hablar mal de ella." --Note found on the Cancun post office bulletin board about ten years ago.