Every one of these articles reads like:
I never met Ali, but I knew he was something special the first moment I saw him! I was only ten, but I was one of the first to support him as he changed his name and when he dodged the draft and when he beat that guy in that place. Yeah, I was with him all along, not like the rest of white, conservative racist America. Yep, back when all white people tried to oppress black people, I came along and pulled for the marchers in the late 1960’s. We really shoved it down the throats of those racists. (//feels no shame at ignorance of role of whites in Civil Rights pre-1960's)
Let me tell you about me. See, I grew up in a hateful, right-wing Nazi-like town in arch-conservative Connecticut (//not aware that Connecticut has never been to the right of British Labor party) and my parents were blue collar, which means they supported the American Racist Party (//parents were liberals). I went to an East Coast private college where I faced a Nazi-like administration – all colleges were hardcore conservative back then (//not aware American education establishment has always been 5-1 to 10-1 progressive). But when those other students started blowing up buildings in a peaceful way, mind you, and then demanding freedom, I was right there with them. I mean, that happened a few years before I got there and it happened at some other college, but I certainly gave them my support after the fact. Yeah... we were something special back then!
All we wanted was peace and freedom (//and money for nothing). That’s why we gathered at Hate'N'Ashburn in San Francisco to hear classic rock music and live in communities. That’s why we did mind altering substances. //snicker If you get my meaning. //wink wink (Don't tell anyone, //giggle giggle, but I did something illegal. We called it “pot” back then... for those not in the know: pot is marijuana, but you didn't hear it from me!)
And then there was Woodstock. I knew that would be special when I hitchhiked up there with my hippie girlfriend, a real girl, and we made love for free! My racist parents tried to stop me //by refusing to pay my way, but they couldn’t stop me. We just got in the back of my friend's van and drove all the way to Illinois! Yeah, I was at Woodstock and I saw Jim Hendrickson play that one song on his electric guitar.
But none of this would have happened if Ali hadn’t inspired me. Think about that. Think about how the world might have changed if Ali hadn’t inspired me. Isn't that mind-boggling? You might not even be reading this article today if that hadn't happened. Crazy!
See, Ali knew something none of us did. He knew stuff. And that inspired us that he stood up for what he believed, like how he stopped racism and stuff. I just can’t believe all the racists who want to stop him even today. Why is the world so racist? Can't we learn anything from Ali? How can we have come so far and yet know so little? One thing is for sure, Ali and I connected. He was on the right side of history.
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! F YOU, BOOMER!!
The article above is a slight exaggeration of one written by sports writer Peter King, who is a leftist hack but doesn’t seem to be able to grasp that fact. He thinks he’s unbiased even though he holds hard left opinions on everything. He really thinks that Connecticut is a “conservative” place. He really sees history through the lens of how it made him feel. And the line that really pissed me off was this about his brother’s anti-war protesting and Ali’s draft dodging:
“But Ken was certainly on the right side of history. Ali was certainly on the right side of history.”Really? So the right side of history was to abandon an independent country so that its northern neighbor could take over and imprison or slaughter tens of thousands, drive tens of thousands more out of the country, go to war with China and impose communism and drive the country to the verge of bankruptcy before giving it all up and going for Capitalism. That’s the right side of history in Peter’s book? What an asshole.
Someone should invent a virus that kills everyone who falsely claims to have been at Woodstock. That should rid us of almost all of these losers.
24 comments:
Vietnam was before my time, but in terms of the difference between the two sides, it comes across as being six of one, half a dozen of the other. Despite that, under the domino theory for a long time American convinced itself that it had a dog in the fight so when Vietnam's French overlords packed it up and went home, America filled the void and as the local army/government crumbled, we increased our support even further. The other side was getting a lot of external support too, though their backers were paying less of a blood price.
As for notion of South Vietnam being independent, its government consistently rejected independence (though neither side was big on the notion of a divided country) and was willing to pull numbers out of its ass (it claimed more supporters than there were citizens) to support its position.
Granted, there was a lot of human suffering caused by ending military support for Vietnam and letting Vietnam do what most of its people seemed to want to do, but part of freedom is the freedom to be stupid. Without such freedom, wisdom acquired by bitter experience never comes.
It would have been great if Vietnam hadn't taken its bloody detour into communism and Soviet serfdom, but how much more blood and treasure would we have expended to save Vietnam from itself?
Last but not least, Vietnam becoming a rift between China and Russia was a brilliant bit of maneuvering by Nixon/Kissinger.
I liked watching Ali fight, so did my racist dad, who had been a boxer himself. Ali was a good boxer and very interesting. He once said after a trip to West Africa that he was glad his great-great-grand-pappy couldn't run fast...Ali was very disappointed by what he saw in Africa and was very happy to be an American. I was born in 1954, my dad's people were a split family during the War of Northern Aggression, my mother's people were wealthy landowners in Corinth and Oxford, MS. They lost everything but their pride. My dad's people rolled with the punches and survived. I don't harbor any guilt feelings about slavery. I had no connection to those Muslim African chieftains who sold their people to the English, Portuguese, Dutch and French slave traders. There was no USA or Americans then, we were English citizens. OTOH, I'm forever in debt to his Royal Britannic Majesty King George II for transporting one of my ancestors to the colonies, otherwise my DNA would kicking around in some poor Irish slob in Ulster. Regarding hippies; hippie chicks were fun, lot's of fun, and they didn't seem to dislike us servicemen, we had money and treated them nice. We had North Vietnam on their knees with our B-52s, they came to the table out of fear that we would destroy them. But, once Nixon was gone, they sensed that the Democrats had no backbone, and they were right, so they invaded South Vietnam again. Vietnam was not a civil war, the commies signed the 1954 Accords in Paris just like the South Vietnamese did. BTW, we bled the Russians dry in Vietnam, Afghanistan and a few other places, they had to spend money and material they didn't have. Nixon and Kissinger were brilliant.
The floatin' butterfly draft-dodger could have really turned a corner in my eyes when asked for his opinion after the 9/11 attacks, but he instead chose to put his hand over his mouth. Yup, right side of history alright.
Re. the damn dirty hippies, send in Cartman. That is all.
re the Vietnam War: LINK
I think the footage, especially in the first 2 minutes, speaks for itself.
"Regarding hippies; hippie chicks were fun, lot's of fun, and they didn't seem to dislike us servicemen, we had money and treated them nice."
Congrats.
Ali was a great boxer.
My primary memories of him are loosing to Michael Sphinx and his Saturday morning cartoon. I think he punched a train.
Howdy everyone! Sorry I'm late. I've been in Denver all day and am running kids everywhere. I saw Denver Bronco Aqib Talib in an elevator today. LOL! That was cool.
Mohammed -- May I call you Mo?
https://youtu.be/tbqSoRaNicw
Anthony, It's not really the end of Vietnam that causes the issue with me, it's this "right side of history" crap that people like King love so much. There is no right side of history. There is the winner and the loser, and that's it. And sometimes one morphs into the other over time. It doesn't make either right, it just makes them the current winner. Hitler 1941 is the right side of history. Hitler 1946 is the wrong side of history. Hitler 2080 might be the right side again for all we know.
Even morality isn't constant. It waxes and wanes and depends on where you are.
What's more, just because something turned out one way doesn't mean it was right. Stalin won the war, but communism wasn't right.
This is sloppy thinking which allows assholes like King to give their own beliefs a smug sense of moral validity.
And lets be clear, he will always be on "the right side of history" whether his side wins or not. It's something he says to try to endorse his own views. It's like fundamentalists claiming that they heard the voice of God telling them they are right.
Critch, Ali was after my time. I knew him mainly through interviews and the Wild World of Sports. He seemed charismatic and entertaining. I definitely had nothing against him. I didn't see him as much more than a boxer though.
I've always heard that hippie chicks were nice, but their modern version are a pain in the ass.
Eric, I haven't heard about his 9/11 views, but unfortunately there seem to be a lot of celebrities who fall for conspiracy theories. Pathetic.
But Kit, why would anyone want to flee a communist paradise?
Jonah Goldberg's 5 and a half minute video on the "Right Side of History":
LINK
Koshcat, I mainly remember interviews with him and Howard Cosell.
Kit, Goldberg is a smart man. I would say though that he misses the smugness with which this line is used by liberals. It's a way of claiming divine approval without mentioning God.
I'm been searching Muhammed Ali and 9/11 and I didn't find any evidence of conspiracy theories. He just offered the standard Muslim line the violent jihadists weren't true Muslims.
He didn't say much, but even back then he was deep into Parkinson's so extended public speaking probably wasn't the picnic for him it used to be.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/muhammad-ali-believed-religions-good-article-1.2664875
In a televised statement days after the attacks Ali said, “I think all the people should know the truth and come to recognize the truth because Islam is peace. I’m against murder and the terrorists and the people doing it in the name of Islam are wrong, and if I had a chance, I’d so something about it.”
One of Ali’s last fights was to defend his faith and speak out against the Islamophobia that’s been a focal point in the presidential election, highlighted by Republican nominee Donald Trump plans to ban all Muslims from entering the country. Ali issued a statement to NBC news in December 2015 titled, “Presidential Candidates Proposing to Ban Muslim immigration to the United States.”
“I am a Muslim,” Ali wrote, “and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.”
I don't remember directly, but I was alive way back then. What makes Muhammed Ali is that he did not run away from the Vietnam fight. He didn't go flee to Canada. He said "No, I won't go" and accepted that he would have to go to prison for it. And that won him respect.
Bev: Exactly! And thankyou. He did not dodge the draft. A draft dodger was someone who took some action to avoid service in in the Vietnam era AND avoid the legal penalty for doing so. Ali did not dodge the draft. He refused induction. He was denied the ability to practice his trade for 3 years in his prime (precious time for an athlete) and understood that he could go to prison. He fought out his case in the legal system of this country and was supported by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision.
It is anyone's right to disagree with his opinion, his position on the war or his actions, but get it straight. He did not dodge the draft.
Andrew, you're right, liberal babyboomers are obnoxious.
And Critch, you're a brave man. It's my understanding that hippie chicks were, uh, notoriously unclean. :)
GypsyTyger
Thanks for the draft-dodging correction! Still doesn't change his irresponsible hand over mouth after 9/11, nor the fiction-spreading of "Islam is a religion of peace."
If it's conspiracy theories you want, try this one:
Was Ali's career started by the mob?
-A long-standing rumor is that Ali's fights with Sony Liston in 1964 and 1965 were fixed. Allegedly, several of Liston's trainers were degenerate gamblers in debt to mafia-connected loan sharks. Upon hearing this, mob boss Tommy Lucchese (of the namesake New York family), decided to work the books. He used his influence to increase the odds against Ali, who was already an underdog. Part 2 involved getting the message to Liston by way of his trainers that if he didn't throw the fight, (and make a lot of money for the mob), his trainers would die. (There are other variations of this scenario, I should note.)
According to the interviews I've seen, boxing experts are divided- almost evenly- on the issue. Some say Liston fought well and that he was soundly beaten. Others claim he clearly didn't try and just threw himself down.
With almost all those from the time period involved now dead, this question may never be cleared up.
Also...was Ali a coward?
-Okay, everyone's seen and/or heard of the rope-a-dope maneuver Ali used to beat George Foreman in the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle." He leaned back, didn't take the hits, and let Foreman get tired from over-punching. Commentators called the move genius. But I guess it's a generational thing...
In the ancient Greek Olympics- the birth of boxing as we know it- this technique would be illegal. The Greeks weren't as bloodthirsty as the Romans, but they demanded tough guys. If a boxer at the games tried to avoid punches by backing out, the ref would 'bring in the sticks.' Eight guys with four sticks would form a square around the boxers and move in, forcing them to close in on each other. And if the guy still leaned back, the ref would poke him in the spine with his own stick. (His fate with the judges was already sealed; this was just to give the wuss the humiliation he deserved.)
Either throw punches and win, or take your hits and leave with whatever shred of honor you had left.
Long story short, if Ali tried rope-a-dope in the old days (or a variant, as there were no ropes or rounds), he would've branded an honorless coward and shunned by his hometown for the rest of his life.
Like I said, it's your right to disagree with his positions and it's your right to dislike him. As for me, I remember how much fun he was to watch and what a good time he always seemed to have living in his own skin. I remember how he toured the world for UNICEF, how he signed countless autographs for people who came up to him on the street. I remember how the morning after the Foreman fight a writer for Sports Illustrated went to interview him and found him in the hotel lobby doing magic tricks for kids. Most of all I remember him finishing the first Norton fight with a broken jaw rather than quit, how he reached down in the 13th in the heat and humidity of Manila against Frazier to find what he needed. I remember the enjoyment that he gave me when I was allowed to stay up past bedtime to sit on the couch with my dad and watch him fight.
I couldn't care less who he prayed to.
He was one of my heroes.
RIP
GypsyTyger
Rustbelt: He had blood in his urine for about a week after the Foreman fight. Allowing the bigger, 7 years younger Foreman to beat on him until he punched himself out and Ali found his opportunity doesn't exactly strike me as cowardly. Finishing the first Norton fight with a broken jaw and then signing to fight the same man two more times doesn't strike me as cowardly. Getting up every time he was knocked down doesn't strike me as cowardly. Taking the title from Sonny Liston,who was regarded as a monster in his day, doesn't strike me as cowardly. Ruling the heavyweight division during it's toughest era ever, when the contenders would have been champions and the journeymen would have been contenders in any other era doesn't strike me as cowardly. Come to think of it, professional boxing doesn't strike me as cowardly. And risking prison and being stripped of his title and barred from his livelihood because he stood up for his principles doesn't strike me as cowardly. Let's leave the last word to Eddie Futch, Joe Frazier's trainer, who had no love lost for Ali - "His chin and HEART are superb." Pre Christian Greek boxing rules had no relevance to Ali's career. I guess we could question the courage of all modern fighters because they wear gloves.
GypsyTyger
It's funny that many of my generation who were in the service during Vietnam don't hold anything against people for using legal means to avoid the draft. I was a volunteer...now I do have issues with the ones who went to Canada,,but people like Ali stayed and fought it,,,most hippie chicks, especially in SoCal, Denver and boulder weren't really the Haight-Ashberry types anyways, they were often upper middle class and liked to go slumming...Speaking of going to Canadia,,,I had a roommate in the Air Force who was from Alberta, he joined the American Air Force to fight the commies and he got his chance when he was sent to Phan Rang. There's a monument to the Canadians who died in Vietnam fighting for us. Rick Rescorla, was born in Cornwall, England, but ended up fighting in the American Army in the Ia Drang Valley (We Were Soldiers). he died on Sept 11, 2001 after making several trips up one of the towers to get people out. he hated the Communists. I guess my point is that we weren't alone in fighting them. When we look back at Vietnam, we have a lot more to be proud of than the Communists do.
Ali, most certainly a man to be commended for his many charitable acts, as well as his positive interactions with fans, had the opportunity to cast a new light on Islam at a pivotal moment in our nation's history, a chance to lead the death cult towards a desperately needed Reformation. Instead, he chose silence, which still speaks volumes to me.
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