"Reconquista" will be the new talking point on the right

[underpants]

Just heard it on local RW radio. They had a speaker (a high school history teacher *yikes*) speaking at a rally in L.A. He used the word and off they went.

If, like me, you were wondering what Reconquista is and how they are making up complete nonsense out of it

Reconquista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of nearly 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking (and repopulating) the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Al-Andalus Province.

also
http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Reconquista

Well now that we have that established..... it was, no surprise, Michelle Malking (meaning Ed Meese and the Conservative Action Project (CAP)

Malkin: "he vast majority of mainstream Hispanic politicians" believe that "the American Southwest belongs to Mexico"
March 31, 2006
http://mediamatters.org/research/200604010001

April 2, 2008
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/02/absolut-reconquista/

and so on
http://politifi.com/news/May-Day-Reconquista-returns-554156.html

Of course the New York Times follows along
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/opinion/03douthat.html

and this excellenet rebuttal of the NYT's Russ "does anyone know why?" Douthat
Ross Douthat’s Mendacious New York Times Column on Immigration

http://thefastertimes.com/topstories/2010/05/03/ross-douthats-mendacious-new-york-times-column-on-immigration/

But after some reasonable points on the issue Douthat takes his argument onto that hallowed conservative ground of excusing out-right bigotry and racism,

This entire paragraphs is little more than warmed over 18th century nativist agitprop. Immigrants have always self-segregated particularly through the first generations or two. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the way that Hispanics self-segregate today. The allegation that there is a lack of assimilation by today’s Hispanics is demonstrably false as a 2007 PEW report demonstrated,

In his next sentence Douthat argues that if only we had fewer Spanish speakers coming to America the crazy xenophobic conspiracy nuts would have nothing to be crazy xenophobic conspiracy nuts about! Look, the people who believe in a reconquista are per se irrational. If the immigrants coming to this country were from Germany, Kenya or Japan these people would cook up a conspiracy theory about their presence. That’s what bigoted nativists do. In the mid-19th Century Irish-Catholic (my people) were believed to be evidence of a grand Catholic conspiracy to over-take the United States.

Once one studies the history of nativist movements in the United States it becomes clear that today’s fears about un-assimilated Mexicans who are here to destroy the United States is quite literally the same argument that we xenophobes were making in the mid-19th century. Some advice to my conservative friends, if you find yourself relying on discredited arguments from 150 years ago to support your position it is time to rethink your position.

[slackmaster]

1. Old news - RW radio blatherers have been using the term for more than 10 years

Roger Hedgecock started it in the '90s.