Pinkerton Outs Immigration 'Movimiento' in Radical Media

June 15th, 2006 6:00 AM

I'd call Jim Pinkerton's Newsday column - 'Movimiento' Aims to Take Back America - today's must-read.

Pinkerton reports on his brief foray inside the belly of the 'immigrant rights' beast. Far from being an echo of the black civil-rights movement of the '60s based on non-violence, Pinkerton says that it's a radical 'movimiento' animated by dreams of 'reconquista.'

Pinkerton explains that earlier this week he attended a panel discussion entitled "The New Immigrants Movement," part of a "Take Back America" conference convened in Washington, D.C., by the left-wing Campaign for America's Future.

Writes Pinkerton:

"Consider the words of Roberto Lovato, identified as a writer for New American Media, describing itself as 'the country's first and largest national collaboration of ethnic news organizations.' Speaking first, Lovato declared that he had problems with the words 'civil rights.' Why? In part because that phrase had been used by black Americans half a century ago - it was their term. But mostly, he continued, the term is inapt because today 'a lot of the members of the movement were political revolutionaries in countries such as Nicaragua and El Salvador.' And that's why, he concluded, 'this is not just a civil rights movement - this is the northernmost expression of a continental rights movement.'

"Got that? This is 'the northernmost expression of a continental rights movement' led by 'political revolutionaries' from Nicaragua and El Salvador. Could Lovato have gotten carried away? Could perhaps I have misquoted him? Fortunately for the sake of a verifiable record, Lovato made the same argument in an article, 'Voices of a New Movimiento,' in the June 19 issue of The [far-left] Nation magazine. And how do I know about this piece? Because it was handed out to all attendees of the breakout session."

Asks Pinkerton: "Is that what we want to let into the United States?"

Good question.