[video=youtube;fOIGg4ZU_ww]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOIGg4ZU_ww[/video] http://sports.yahoo.com/news/muhammad-ali--simply--the-greatest---dead-at-74-042902069.html Muhammad Ali was a prominent and influential figure. He will go down in history as one of the best Boxers of all time and an inspiration to many people especially the African-American community. RIP champ.
I once saw the Champ at a book signing in the Del Amo shopping mall in Torrance California some time around the early/mid 1990s. He was a very quite man except for standing there whispering occasionally to various people in his entourage before the signing was taking place. What I remember most about that encounter was how quiet and gentle this man seemed and his great stature...he still stood straight and tall at the time. The other thing I was amazed at the size of the great mans hands! I thought to myself, thank goodness I was never on the receiving end of one of his legendary 'jabs'! Rest in peace Champ, you were 'The Greatest'!
I wonder if he was an inspiration to the many ARMY draftees into the Vietnam war (including myself) that saw Cassius Clay first change his name to Muhammad as being a card carrying member of that religion that honors and respects the gentile killing passages and of the fact that he had pulled a Bill Clinton by refusing to become a part of the American military. Very un-American of your hero to say the least.
It is no more American to celebrate and perpetuate military service and warfare, than it is to refuse to. A refusal to serve at the behest of generals, and admirals in its newest and most fashionable call to arms, has its antecedents on our soil, as old as the revolutionary war. Sometimes saying 'no' to government wishes, is at least as patriotic as saying yes.
In my opinion enlistment in the army should be voluntary. They should never have a draft. Ali didn't believe in the war so why should he have to fight and kill people that never did anything to him? His opposition to the VIetnam War and refusing induction in to the army is why many consider him to be a hero aside from what he did in the ring.
Muhammad Ali was great inside and outside of the ring. I'll never forget his response when someone asked him why he didn't want to go fight in VietNam. He said "Why should I go fight to free those people in VietNam when my own Grandmother is not free in Mississippi?" I don't recall anybody being able to answer his question. RIP Ali. You will always be one of my heroes.
The war in VietNam was a mistake. Even the man who helped advise President Johnson on it, Robert McNamara, admitted that. Turns out Ali was right for refusing to go. Many others avoided going also. 1) G. W. Bush. 2) Rush Limbaugh 3) Dick Cheney 4) Donald Trump 5) Bill Clinton. Just to name a few.
Anyone surprised by this? I mean really, aren't there a plethora of white supremacist racist websites one could 'hang' their 'hater' moniker at and rant on to their hearts (for lack of a better word) content?
Wow, these Koran followers do have a penchant to wipe out our or my Christian brothers and sisters, and you fools are evidently okay with that type of religious dogma. Whether the Vietnam War was or wasn't a mistake isn't the point here. The point here is that both Clinton and Ali refused to be drafted into the American military. Look those two bozos didn't even have to abscond to Canada to get away with doing their anti American escape routine. Seems to me that neither one of these leftists were punished for their refusal to serve in our military. How or why you people have a screwed up view of who to praise as our heroes is beyond comprehension. These two were and are still the bottom of the barrel and about as anti American as one can get. You'll all need to praise and thank the Libhater for serving in a combat role so that you ungrateful-s can have the opportunity to spew your nonsense over a forum such as this. Be glad and grateful that Khrushchev didn't bury our young, and be grateful that those in the American military fought so that you can praise whatever anti American lowlife you choose. Pathetic at best!
[video=youtube;80wMMFAcweQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80wMMFAcweQ[/video] I'm too young to remember him as a boxer but I reckoned that he was a legendary figure when he participated in the torch relay at Atlanta. I wondered why he was shaking uncontrollably at the time.
I saw that Ali had died and I reflected on the man and my opinion of him through the years. I remember his fight against Sonny Liston. I had never heard of the then Cassius Clay. I was 13 at the time and it was an exciting upset bout. During the next ten years I thought he received more admiration than he deserved. He was a great boxer but his status outside the ring was what brought him the most fame. I thought his refusal to enter the armed services was, to me, relatively benign. I thought it neither a courageous act, as many people contend, nor unpatriotic. It was his choice and I was okay with it, given the type of war we were fighting at the time. But during that same era he referred to Joe Frazier as "gorilla". Frazier was one of 12 children born to a sharecropper in South Carolina. That reference did not sit well with me and that Ali should be bigger than that. Eventually the ordeal did not sit well with Ali and he came to regret what he'd said. I don't think the late Joe Frazier ever really forgave Ali for it. Ali's converting to the Nation of Islam did not sit well with me, either. At the time it was a racist organization, and is still one to this day. Eventually Ali separated himself from the group. In Ali's later years he could be found doing such things as hugging elderly women, many white, gleeful that one of the most recognizable people on earth was giving them a few moments of attention. It was unfortunate that during this time in his life he had become disabled by Parkinson's Disease and had lost most of his ability to speak. Still, his actions, if not his words, were often compassionate and noble and in my book, the period in Ali's that most deserves praise.
I admire him for participating in public events like this even after he was suffering from Parkinson's. Many people would have just became a recluse.
Some great proverbs from 'Ali and images... If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you. I don't count the sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they're the only ones that count. That's what makes you a champion. The will must be stronger than the skill. Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. What I suffered physically was worth what I've accomplished in life. A man who is not courageous enough to take risks will never accomplish anything in life. All I can do is fight for truth and justice. I can't save anybody. He's a science fiction character, and I'm a real character. - Ali at a news conference to announce a comic book in which he beats Superman. "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?" Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell Muhammad Ali and Malcom X family photo Will Smith, Muhammad Ali in Ali Tribute Bush called him "the Greatest of All Time" and "a man of peace," and tied the Presidential Medal of Freedom around Ali's neck. When you say the greatest of all time is in the room, everyone knows who you mean. Quite a claim to make, but as Muhammad Ali once said, its not bragging if you can back it up, and this man backed it up. Far into the future, fans and students of boxing will study the films and some will even try to copy his style. But certain things defy imitation. The real mystery, I guess, is how he stayed so pretty. Probably had to do with his beautiful soul. -George W. Bush on Muhammad Ali "I am the greatest!" ...as a black man who won the heavyweight title ... Michael Parkinson: What plans do you have for the future now - apart from fighting? Muhammad Ali: Let me tell you something - Ive never said this before. I really care nothing about boxing. Boxing is a stepping stone just to introduce me to the audience. If I was still in Louisville, Kentucky and never was a boxer I still might get killed next week in some kind of freedom struggle and youd ever hear the news. But now, if I even say the wrong thing I make the news. Boxing is just to introduce me to the struggle. Like, when I speak I draw people in the States to teach them various things or to give them dignity, pride and self-help. I have to help the dope and prostitution problem. And I use my image to try to help young people fighting and killing each other. Boxing is just going to be another year. But my main fight is for freedom and equality. This is what I plan to do. Boxing is good for the livelihood but mainly, money dont really mean nothing - cos I proved that by gave up the title, not knowing that I wouldnt be back for four years. And they let me back on my terms - I didnt deny nothing I believe. Im still the same everything. Even today, if my title hadnt been given back to me and I was in such poverty where I had to go and find a job, I would have done that. But I made a good living speaking in colleges. Cos the war got unpopular and so many black militants were trying to do all they could. And I naturally I was right in the middle of it and represented all of it and that kept me alive. But if I couldnt fight I would still not be fighting. So number one comes freedom first for my people and equality. And this is what I plan to do after Im through fighting - working with nothing but the people, the little people in the alleys: the downtrodden people, going out and helping them with my image.
Pathetic at best is not staying on topic. This thread wasn't about Bill Clinton. You want to bash Ali, fine it's only your opinion. But since you brought up Bill Clinton...If you're going to mention the President who happened to be a member of the Democratic Party, along with bashing Ali, why don't you mention all the Republicans who received draft deferments and refer to them as 'draft dodgers' or what ever other term you want to use. As well as a huge supporter of them, who was so disgusting in his zeal to avoid the draft, Ted Nugent.
Those Republicans mentioned before got legitimate deferments whereas both ali and bubba took the extra time to break the law by refusing to get drafted into the military. You really ought to read clinton's anti military and cowardly letter to his commanding officer in 1969. Real patriotic hero of the left is that turkey
That war was a mistake anyway. Robert McNamara, in his book, admitted it was a mistake. All those young men who ended up dead, maimed, and mentally troubled for nothing. Ali was right to refuse to go. On top of that, his own people were not free here in the USA.
