Muhammad Ali. Real American hero. What do you think?

I lost friends in Vietnam. Color was not a factor.

I probably know as much about Islam as most people do.

 

Some of it was and some of it wasn't. Takes a secure and confident person, and country, to admit something like that.

 

If 90% of Americans thought America was great back then and today we are told by revisionist that it wasn't because 10% saw it differently, it's cultural-marxism.

Today 90% don't think America is as great as it use to be be. But that 10% are better off today while the 90 % aren't.

If you had to look at Suesy panties during "duck and cover drills" you turned out ok, If you had to look at Billy's bunghole, you might have gone gay.

 

As I said, there were many good things and some not so good things. As for the latter you've only to ask any racial, sexual or religious minorities or women. Pretty much anyone who wasn't a straight white male.

 

Ali was asked: “What would you like people to think about you when you are gone?”

“I would like for them to say.

He took a few cups of love.

He took one tablespoon of patience,

One tea spoon of generosity,

One pin of kindness;

He took one quater of laughter,

one pinch of concern,

And then he mixed willingness.

with happinnes.

He added lot of faith,

and he stirred it up well.

Then he spread it over a span of

a life time, and he served it to

each and every deresving

person he met”.

 

Muhammad Ali was my hero as a kid, it is fair to say I wanted to be just like him.

I was too young to understand any of the politics but I did understand that he was a bloke who came from the same background as me and made it.

Because of him I got into boxing and that took me from an aggressive little twit to someone who could control his temper and understood the consequences of violence.

He also influenced my attitude to racism, it's hard to think black men are not equal when your heroes are Muhammad Ali and Jimi Hendrix!

So thank you Mr Ali you were an inspiration to a young man from the wrong side of town.

 

"Fearless" until there's a war to be fought. Then it's tuck tale and (*)(*)(*)(*).

 

The war was a bunch of the old and bitter sending the young and stupid to kill some foreigners that only wanted to sort their problems out for themselves. It was a farce. The USA massacred innocents and devastated the land for with no moral justification in order to participate in the same exact puppet-state empire-building bull(*)(*)(*)(*) they condemned the USSR for.

 

Better a Chickenhawk than someone like Bill Clinton who had TWO chances to
Nab Bin Laden in the Sudan. Excuse moi. Did Bill Clinton register and attend his
Draft induction.Of course not he weaseled out. Ended up with a Draft deferment
to attend Oxford.John Kerry tried it { desperately searching for a deferment to study
as a student in Paris }.Was denied everywhere he looked.Ended up in the Navy
where his connections made it possibly for Johnny Frauds to enlist ahead of a 2 year
Naval waiting list.Thereby escaping the dreaded front line duty of an Army recruit.
The more one knows about Dimocrats the more there is to Fear.

 

I remember reading a feature story in a Periodical { TIME Magazine ? } about
Cassius Clay. How he trained in Miami in a really tough part of town.
Like just walking the streets at night was very hazardous.Yet,he was somehow blessed.
There was a feeling he was quite different.He refused to Drink or do Dope.
All he did was spend his time in the Gym training.And then home { wherever that was }
to get a little R & R. He was almost religiously disciplined in his craft { to be THE best
boxer imaginable }.There is absolutely no question at all ... That Muhammad Ali earned
by the sweat of his brow,all the Glory he sought in the ring.
Unlike Thugs like Sonny Liston who was Born ... Big and Bad to the Bone.
Bert Sugar once told the tale of Sonny Liston and his demise.He was being used
by the Mob in Las Vegas as their Gambling enforcer.Don't pay what you owe and
guess who's knocking at your door.Sonny Liston,who had absolutely No sense of
humor.Well Sonny also had no sense of his own importance.He was not and never
would be as big an enforcer than his Bosses { Costra Nostra lieutenants }.
Well Sonny felt otherwise.I mean,like who's gonna argue with the Big son of a sharecropper.
So as Bert Sugar explained the real skinny behind the mysterious death of Sonny Liston.
Sonny was to meet at a Las Vegas Hotel/restaurant his bosses.And a big name Mob
Lieutenant.Upon meeting this supposed Mob Lieutenant,Sonny started acting up.Slapped
him on the back really hard as if a friendly greeting.Then just for effect ... did again.
The Mob Guy immediately warned him NOT to do that again.Sonny did it again.
Then the mob guy warned him ... I'm Not kidding.Don't do that again.Sonny did it
again. About a week or so later,Sonny Liston was found Dead from a Heroin Overdose.
Sonny Liston,amazingly enough had a morbid fear of Needles { Syringes }.
At that time,heroin was always injected via a syringe.
End of story.End of Sonny Liston,as well.

 

Ali's stance on vietnam was awesome. No vietcong called him a negro. That's enough to be a hero in my opinion.

 

Ali did not run away from anything. He refused to serve in the US Military based on his moral judgement. Our nation did not need Muhammed or anyone else to be in Vietnam in '67. He was right to refuse to be an accomplice in that horrible spectacle. The U.S. Supreme reversed his conviction therefore exonerating him from criminal prosecution. Ali was a great sportsman in the ring. He was the most courageous athlete I have ever seen in my 62 years. What he has done with his life since his retirement despite suffering from a debilitating disease for the last 30+ years has been remarkable. He has been a world wide messenger of peace and justice throughout his incredible life. In my opinion, he is one of our Greatest American Heroes in every sense of the word.

 

At the time Mohammad Ali was a member of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam has always supported the side that was shooting at Americans.

They supported Imperial Japan during WW ll and refused to serve.

They opposed the Korean War and refused to serve.

And during the Vietnam War they sided with Ho Chi Minh and refused to serve.

Mohammas Ali was tried and convicted for draft invasion and was sentance to five or six years but took his case to the SCOTUS and his defense was religious so he said.

If Ali were to have showed up and served his two years in the Army, he wouldn't have been sent to the Nam, more likely Germany since we had just as many American soldiers in Germany as we had in Vietnam. More likely Ali would have been assigned to Special Services and boxed on the Army's boxing team. Boxing was still a big thing in the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps.

Read the book or watch the movie "From Here to Eternity" and you get an idea how it worked back then.

Mohammad Ali left the Nation of Islam I believe in 1975 and became a Sunni Muslim, like Al Qaeda is made up with Sunni's.

I wonder what Mohammad's stand on the Vietnam War would have been in 1975 ?

 

Black Hero, but he refused to serve his country and was an arrogant loud mouth. So he is not way an American Hero.

 

Why should someone give up his career, maybe even their life, to fight a war on foreign people, who did nothing to you nor to your country. Vietnam is such a shame in american history.

 

Funny you should say that.. My sons boxed and then took up martial arts.. and that taught them to never lose their tempers or be aggressive.

 

Because a soldier and a citizen is not asked for permission when his country goes to war, he must support his nation no matter what type of war it is. Otherwise he is a fair weather patriot, and at worst a piece of (*)(*)(*)(*) traitor.

 

I am unwilling to use the term "hero" in this context. Someone who charges into battle to save his mates is a hero, someone who sacrifices himself for the betterment of his ideals and his mates.

I don't think Ali fits that bill. I think his conscientious objection was pretty noble. Good on him, that takes guts and I strongly support his related right to be free from the slavery which is the draft.

Not a hero, but a strong willed, decent lad.