Ali's military call up

[dalcumly]

Having listened to the history lessons about those bad white people I would now like the Vikings to apologise for raping and pillaging Britain and those nasty Romans for taking over half the civilised world by force and stealing all our resources.!!!

[gp.]

Having listened to the history lessons about those bad white people I would now like the Vikings to apologise for raping and pillaging Britain and those nasty Romans for taking over half the civilised world by force and stealing all our resources.!!!

Are you so stupid that you think this is a legitimate response to the points being made?

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

. . . and we now know that Ali was approached by the military and it was made clear to him that he would be "Joe Louis-ed' - all that talk about Ali being a coward was nonsense/irrelevant - Ali understood he was going to be used to recruit young African-American, and to justify an unpopular war to the Black community. - He gave up much for his principles - it would have been much easier to play along, do two years, and probably spend most of it fighting exhibitions and doing stand up with Bob Hope. - Never liked him as fighter, rooted against him in very fight he ever had - but I had nothing but admiration for him as a man.

- Congrats guys on a far more civil discourse than displayed in the Wilt/Ali thread now locked.

This a far more volatile topic, but in the main I go with Perno here. Regardless of motivations, Ali took it to the Supremes who ruled in his favor, so end of. Nonetheless, I see plenty of cartoon history mooted here. There was The Domino Theory of states falling to the Communists that the highly credentialed LBJ braintrust took seriously that led to much greater Vietnam involvement that set the stage for most US military wars today. We win all the battles, yet continue to lose the Wars because of distant central authorities disconnect from actual reality. Yeah, in any war the military contractors always make money and it's a much bigger biz today with all the oil in the middle east.

The Draft Lotto was sorta like the TUE/Manny fight where authorities couldn't even fill out a grade school level scorecard properly. They failed to mix the numbers properly, and then held supplemental drafts I wasn't aware of. Don't recall my draftcard having my lotto number on it, but I dropped my first year student deferment after former dorm mate dropped by to tell me he'd just joined the army so he could go over and kill him some gooks. It was a miserable time to be a student caught between protesters and patriots, and worse to be shipped into killing fields over there. BTW, Roger Staubach served well, but yeah, not many athletes that I recall. Don't know how George and Holmes got out. Net result was in the confusion, turns out I really didn't know my draft number that would have changed anyway, so there but for the grace of God could've been me over there stuck in a war I never wanted and was too young to vote for or against. After riding the active draft list for a year they deactivated me.

The people of the US were becoming naturally integrated in baseball, boxing, and even bicycle racing with Major Taylor by the end of the 19th Century in spite of brutal reconstruction imposed on the south against the wishes of assassinated Abe Lincoln. The Republican Congress allowed the monopoly of MLBaseball to be formed with their segregated policies that empowered the Democrats in their Jim Crow policies. Yet, still, Stan Musial played HS baseball with the father of Ken Griffey Sr who begot KGJr for example. My own community was historically integrated and suffered less from economic policies that nearby communities imposed on minorities, but after a couple of centuries we are now being overrun by both legal and illegal criminally smuggled immigration policies seeking to exploit our natural beauty and tranquility for a rush of some of the most pathetic development I've ever seen. Hence the election of Prez Rump and his ilk as a backlash and the rise of the Sanders movement.

BTW, Rump graduated from a military academy and used his student deferment to save his ever expanding bacon.

Look at a political map and you'll see the skunk politicians have swapped out their stripes across the same Mason Dixon Line of the Civil War with former Northern Republicans now Democrats, and former Southern Democrats now Republicans, and still setting their civilian stock against each other in a sociopathic rush for power and money. Nothing ever changes but for new shiny faces, so I'd say by extension western democracies are failing yet again. The US said no more Vietnams, yet created far worse with now at least a 100 year war of reformation of Islamic countries just getting warmed up. Be glad for today and remember all those draftees who didn't have Ali Money or political backing who were lost. How many hundreds of millions lost over these thousands of years of war?

Do you believe in evolution? Do you think maybe over the thousands of years that many of the bravest, fittest folk have been eliminated to create an over preponderance of cowards running the show? Sure seems that way in boxing today, and in fact the today's grizzly bears are far less aggressive and lethal than when Lewis and Clark first explored the west, and that just a couple centuries ago.

[hhaehre]

. . . and we now know that Ali was approached by the military and it was made clear to him that he would be "Joe Louis-ed' - all that talk about Ali being a coward was nonsense/irrelevant - Ali understood he was going to be used to recruit young African-American, and to justify an unpopular war to the Black community. - He gave up much for his principles - it would have been much easier to play along, do two years, and probably spend most of it fighting exhibitions and doing stand up with Bob Hope. - Never liked him as fighter, rooted against him in very fight he ever had - but I had nothing but admiration for him as a man.

This is absolutely true. If anyone thinks that the US military would have risked the American heavyweight champions life on the front lines in Vietnam they must be crazy. Had he been killed in combat it would have been a PR disaster for the ages. I am not really a big fan of Ali but his stand against the Vietnam war is something to admire.

[dalcumly]

Ali was a great boxer and phenomenal self publicist. He was funny, most of the time, unless you happened to be JOE Frazier . He was also an outrageous womaniser, a cheat and liar to his several wives .
But this thread has a political dimension, and it's severely slanted towards the beliefs of thankfully the significant MINORITY of Americans. Donald Trump will be the new President and like 100 million yanks I'm absolutely delighted. Build the wall, Donald! And by the way he's done a marvellous job with the Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry, right in the heart of God's country !!

[gp.]

Ali was a great boxer and phenomenal self publicist. He was funny, most of the time, unless you happened to be JOE Frazier . He was also an outrageous womaniser, a cheat and liar to his several wives .
But this thread has a political dimension, and it's severely slanted towards the beliefs of thankfully the significant MINORITY of Americans. Donald Trump will be the new President and like 100 million yanks I'm absolutely delighted. Build the wall, Donald! And by the way he's done a marvellous job with the Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry, right in the heart of God's country !!

You don't have any arguments so you resort to whooping "Trump! Trump! U!S!A!"

I'd like to think that your moronic views are shared by only a minority of Americans. The election result would seem to indicate that; and that it's just the bias inherent in the system that got trump over the line. I hope that that's true, because if it isn't you are fucked. You are everything that everyone who has ever talked down America said that you were.

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

I still say that Ali was a 'draft dodger' and his sole reason for deliberately failing the Test was to avoid joining the military because

He didn't want to die for fornicating nothing.

60000 Americans died in that war, for NOTHING.

The Americans do business with the very same government today that killed lots of America's finest back then.

No democracy, no workers rights in Vietnam, which is why American big business is knee deep in there.

The one thing Ali called right was his refusal to join the US army and get sent out to that mindless shitfest - good on him.

If I had been 18 years old and American back in 1965, I would have happily gone to Vietnam and got my head blown off for nothing, he (and all the other 'draft dodgers) had more sense than I would have done.

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

Having listened to the history lessons about those bad white people I would now like the Vikings to apologise for raping and pillaging Britain and those nasty Romans for taking over half the civilised world by force and stealing all our resources.!!!

Wrap up you absolute bore.

[dalcumly]

I absolutely love to imagine you all jumping up and down pulling your hair out and realising that the MAJORITY are fighting back at the ballot box and your left wing views are eventually being seen for what they are. I just love democracy.

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

I absolutely love to imagine you all jumping up and down pulling your hair out and realising that the MAJORITY are fighting back at the ballot box and your left wing views are eventually being seen for what they are. I just love democracy.

You sound dead thick, sorry man.

I see you didn't refute my point regarding Ali and his refusal to go to Vietnam.

With the hindsight you now have, was he wrong?

And obviously he wasn't, because if he had gone and died out there, he would have died for nothing.

The people who fought the Americans are still in charge today and doing very well out of American big business.

As for your point about the ballot box, I didn't know UKIP took power? I must have missed that one.

How's Brexit going for you?

[gp.]

I absolutely love to imagine you all jumping up and down pulling your hair out and realising that the MAJORITY are fighting back at the ballot box and your left wing views are eventually being seen for what they are. I just love democracy.

And what are they? What do you think "left wing views" actually are?

[Counter-puncher]

I absolutely love to imagine you all jumping up and down pulling your hair out and realising that the MAJORITY are fighting back at the ballot box and your left wing views are eventually being seen for what they are. I just love democracy.

You talk about trump winning.

And you talk about the MAJORITY fighting back at the ballot box.

It seems you might be unaware that Trump LOST the popular vote in that election, and did not in fact get a MAJORITY of the vote.

[dalcumly]

Happy New Year everyone.
I know I'm going to.

[APerno]

I absolutely love to imagine you all jumping up and down pulling your hair out and realising that the MAJORITY are fighting back at the ballot box and your left wing views are eventually being seen for what they are. I just love democracy.

There is no 'majority' in America today, no liberal majority, no conservative majority; we are a deeply pluralized nation. A nation of men, who when you ask them about their individuality what you get back is the 'group think dogma' of one group or another, what they think expresses their individuality, but is really just some group think he or she has bought into; and then practices it like a religion.

We are in a pluralized culture war with one group battling another, whether it is guns or gun control, abortion or life, Christian or gay - there is no majority in America today, just millions of single-issue voters, all of whom are certain they are an oppressed minority; who on election day pick a side and then turn on one another the very next day.

Even white people have divided themselves into a separate minority group (real-Americans) and are now convinced they are an oppressed minority as well; everybody in America thinks they are an oppressed minority.

That is what Trump played on, he is the 'pluralized' candidate, who spent months disrespecting the supposed 'conservative majority' ('the Republican establishment') which he understood was not really there - he had to find another route to victory, so he made endless lists of groups that loved him, and groups he loved. Each group he put on his list loved him regardless of what else he said or did regarding the other groups, so long as he loved their group, that was enough for them. He seduced America one group at a time and told the conservative majority to F off.

[Sidney Carton]

If Muhammad Ali was called up to fight in Vietnam and refused, what about the other boxers around that time? Why didn't Foreman, Frazier etc get their careers interrupted by war/prison/ban?

"called up to fight in Vietnam" ?

Ali would have fought exhibitions for the soldiers, like Joe Louis, Tony Zale, Billy Conn did in WWII.