There is indeed a powerful revolutionary current in American politics, running through Jefferson and Jackson, through both Roosevelts, and into modern times. Americans ignore or forget this powerful rejuvenating force at their peril. I am indeed very hopeful that America will soon experience a new – always peaceful, of course – political revolution that will restore the Republic to something approximating its foundations. I am convinced that Spain urgently requires such a political revolution too; also peaceful, as I have always indicated. Far from being insulted by being called a “revolutionary”, I completely agree; and I am very happy you have so accurately identified the tendency in my thinking. I am very much a disciple of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy.

In any event, if Spain doesn’t embark on a course of Jacksonian revolutionary reform, I fear that it might embark on a far more extremist brand: whether it be “Bolivarian” or reactionary is hard to predict, but neither is desirable.

Kind regards,

Fernando Betancor

while in America you are ‘only’ a Democrat, in Spain you are starting to become a ‘revolutionary’ – in 1776 sense, of course -.

P.S.: Apologies for me unseriousness on explaining my impressions

Sorry for not responding sooner, I was on holiday in my country. Your point about the demonstrations being illegal is perfectly correct, and I agree with them, though not every illegal march should be so. Sometimes people must break the letter of the law to uphold the spirit of it, or we would never have achieved the Civil Rights Act in the US or the end of apartheid in South Africa. Mr. Verstrynge was not alone in that demonstration either; and if he has other means of making his position clear, his fellow demonstrators were less well known and less able to have their voices heard.

Spain is a country which is experiencing a dangerous trend in the suppression of dissent: that is not only my opinion, it is the opinion expressed by numerous international organizations including the EU. It would have been a very simply and powerful initiative on the part of the new King to expressly forbid any suppression of republican sentiment: it would have cost him nothing, since the number of protesters was very small, and it would have underlined his message of “renewal” and his “conviction to listen to every Spaniard’s voice and treat them with dignity.” That promise is already ringing hollow.

I did read up on Prof. Verstynge and his political career, but nothing I found disqualified him from being both a professor and a septuagenarian, nor in having been arrested for no good reason that I could find except his protest un favor of a referendum. So radical right or not, I still count him as a victim of police repression.

It is even more interesting perhaps that such a person would be there in the first place.