Race War

AT LEAST 2 million readers visit DrudgeReport.com daily, and, for the last two weeks, it seemed like most of them were steamed at me. Thousands of hostile messages flooded my e-mail after my Sept. 2 column that the Daily News called "We Need Obama, Not 4 More Years of George Bush. " Drudge cleverly headlined it: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " I stand by the column - but after all of that backlash, I realize I was dead wrong.

She sure could get people riled up. Like the time she suggested that if John McCain beat Barack Obama for president of the United States, "look for a full-fledged race war. " The reaction hit the fan! Fatimah Ali, who dared to make such a prediction in a column in the Daily News, was deluged with mail that would singe the eyebrows, little of it printable. DrudgeReport.com headlined the story about her column: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " Was she remorseful.

Former Daily News editorial page columnist Fatimah Ali died yesterday. We are excerpting two of her most well-known columns here. The first ran Sept. 2, 2008; the second ran Sept. 16, 2008.   CRITICS of the GOP believe that a four-year extension of the Bush administration will be disastrous. People are struggling, and the privileged are so out of touch they pretend it's OK that children go hungry. Over the last eight years, we've lost 3.2 million jobs, and started a war that's cost trillions.

DEAR DOCTA Shock, After reading your letter, "Barry Bonds: The real story," I need to set a few things straight. The only thing you accurately say is that Bonds is of color. You make it out to be a race war, which it isn't. Why does Philadelphia hate Barry so much? Because he isn't the type of player he ought to be. Did you watch his press conference after the Sunday game? He wouldn't even sign the ball for the guy who caught it. Yes, he is put in the spotlight for allegedly using steroids and, with the home-run race, everyone is watching.

SHE SURE could get people riled up. Like the time she suggested that if John McCain beat Barack Obama for president of the United States, "look for a full-fledged race war. " The reaction hit the fan! Fatimah Ali, who dared to make such a prediction in a column in the Daily News , was deluged with mail that would singe the eyebrows, little of it printable. DrudgeReport.com headlined the story about her column: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " Was she remorseful?

THERE'S SO much to refute in Fatimah Ali's diatribe against John McCain, Republicans and anyone who doesn't share her hysterical belief that our nation is heading back to the dark ages if we don't elect Barack Obama that I'll focus on the most egregious charge in her essay ("Obama-McCain: No Contest," Sept. 2): that a McCain presidency would start a "race war. " Predictions of an impending race war are a common ideological trope on white-supremacist and neo-Nazi Web sites, again showing that right-wing and left-wing extremism are merely flip sides of the same hateful coin.

The racist and paramilitary ultraright made the immolation of 76 Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993, their very own Harpers Ferry - more evidence that "the gun-grabbing Clinton crowd" really had it in for real Americans. The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City exactly two years later was a counterstrike. Most acts of domestic political violence over the last 20 years have come not from foreign-born invaders, but from the U.S. ultraright. These are people who populate a hidden, parallel universe, a shadowy and Rambofied world of mercenaries and survivalists and "counter-terrorists" stocking up for the great war of each against all. The botch of the Waco raid and the subsequent siege by government agencies led far rightists to conclude that it was yet another piece in a conspiracy against middle America, a trial-run for future and unwarranted intrusions into the lives of "patriots.

Even Beena laughs at the thought of receiving a round-trip ticket to and from jail. But the reality is that whenever he's released, he takes another "fall" within months. When he's free, Beena, 27, often can be found pumping gas at a North Philadelphia Texaco station. He's a real hustler, handing out welcoming "pounds" and big, crooked tooth grins. He shares whispers about nothing special with those he knows will tip well. The regular crew, three or four African American men, are polite when they approach customers and ask whether they can pump gas for some change.

Bush sure isn't green As Earth Day approaches, President Bush has been trying to polish his environmental image. He will not roll back stronger lead standards and has partly backed down from his very unpopular decision to roll back strengthened standards for arsenic in our drinking water. However, not rolling back strong public health protections does not make Bush green. It merely tempers his assault on the basic protections that have safeguarded our health and improved the quality of our air and water.

SHE SURE could get people riled up. Like the time she suggested that if John McCain beat Barack Obama for president of the United States, "look for a full-fledged race war. " The reaction hit the fan! Fatimah Ali, who dared to make such a prediction in a column in the Daily News , was deluged with mail that would singe the eyebrows, little of it printable. DrudgeReport.com headlined the story about her column: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " Was she remorseful?

Former Daily News editorial page columnist Fatimah Ali died yesterday. We are excerpting two of her most well-known columns here. The first ran Sept. 2, 2008; the second ran Sept. 16, 2008.   CRITICS of the GOP believe that a four-year extension of the Bush administration will be disastrous. People are struggling, and the privileged are so out of touch they pretend it's OK that children go hungry. Over the last eight years, we've lost 3.2 million jobs, and started a war that's cost trillions.

She sure could get people riled up. Like the time she suggested that if John McCain beat Barack Obama for president of the United States, "look for a full-fledged race war. " The reaction hit the fan! Fatimah Ali, who dared to make such a prediction in a column in the Daily News, was deluged with mail that would singe the eyebrows, little of it printable. DrudgeReport.com headlined the story about her column: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " Was she remorseful.

AT LEAST 2 million readers visit DrudgeReport.com daily, and, for the last two weeks, it seemed like most of them were steamed at me. Thousands of hostile messages flooded my e-mail after my Sept. 2 column that the Daily News called "We Need Obama, Not 4 More Years of George Bush. " Drudge cleverly headlined it: "Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. " I stand by the column - but after all of that backlash, I realize I was dead wrong.

THERE'S SO much to refute in Fatimah Ali's diatribe against John McCain, Republicans and anyone who doesn't share her hysterical belief that our nation is heading back to the dark ages if we don't elect Barack Obama that I'll focus on the most egregious charge in her essay ("Obama-McCain: No Contest," Sept. 2): that a McCain presidency would start a "race war. " Predictions of an impending race war are a common ideological trope on white-supremacist and neo-Nazi Web sites, again showing that right-wing and left-wing extremism are merely flip sides of the same hateful coin.

The polls say the war in Iraq is the top issue this fall. And on this divisive issue, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. agree on one important point: Neither wants to impose a deadline for U.S. withdrawal. But the two Pennsylvania candidates for the Senate have their own distinct views - if not detailed and competing battle plans - about the conflict that has taken 2,700 American lives. Santorum, the two-term Republican incumbent, supports President Bush's view that the war is part of a worldwide struggle against what the senator calls "the most dangerous enemy ever to confront this country.

DEAR DOCTA Shock, After reading your letter, "Barry Bonds: The real story," I need to set a few things straight. The only thing you accurately say is that Bonds is of color. You make it out to be a race war, which it isn't. Why does Philadelphia hate Barry so much? Because he isn't the type of player he ought to be. Did you watch his press conference after the Sunday game? He wouldn't even sign the ball for the guy who caught it. Yes, he is put in the spotlight for allegedly using steroids and, with the home-run race, everyone is watching.

Perennial GOP candidate Theresa Lappe likens her Gloucester County party to the schizophrenic but brilliant mathematician in the film A Beautiful Mind. The Republicans, she said, have their troubles, too: the inability to raise more money than their opponents. But like the movie's genius, John Nash, they hope to disprove a standing theory - the one that says money wins election. "Our disorder is not having enough funds," Lappe said. "We can overcome it. " Lappe spoke Tuesday night at the party's reorganization at the Republican hall in Williamstown, where representatives of local committees outlined a game plan for November and elected a new county chairman.

According to the plan of the shadowy group called "Die Volk," South Africa's white revolution was to have happened something like this: In the approach to elections in 1999, a corps of elite Afrikaner commandos would take over South Africa's military, massacring black troops and poisoning the water supplies in black townships. The commandos would hijack submarines and fire missiles into black suburbs near Cape Town. As black townships erupted in tribal warfare, whites would step into the anarchy and seize control of the government they lost in 1994.