Should Cassius Clay now retire from public?

[Sarah Kane]

Why?

 

I assumed you'd be saying the same about professor Stephen Hawkins if he didn't have the computer that speaks his words for him. You do know who Stephen Hawkins is I presume?

 

Id be saying the same as what?

Your off your nut mate. Ive not clue what your dribbling about.

[danot]

What are you on about?

Only the fact that both Mohamad Ali and professor Stephen Hawkins suffer from cruel conditions that effectively paralyze the body yet don't affect how the mind functions. They're both as sharp as they've always been but trapped inside paralyzed bodies.

[pottedplant]

Only the fact that both Mohamad Ali and professor Stephen Hawkins suffer from cruel conditions that effectively paralyze the body yet don't affect how the mind functions. They're both as sharp as they've always been but trapped inside paralyzed bodies.

 

And again -what has that got to do with Paul McCartney.

[Plain Talker]

I doubt we could have won WW2 with that attitude. Vietnam was a mess I agree, but when your country calls on you to serve you do so, no matter what. The Armed services are not a labour union, nor should they be. Too many managed to dodge Vietnam, some of them current major US politicians including Romney and Obama, Bush and Cheney, and Clinton, plus the worst human born since Hitler, Rush Limbaugh.

 

I couldn't disagree with you any more. My country is a piece of land, and can't speak. Politicians can speak, and I sure wouldn't go and fight for a single one of them. Let em send their own children.

 

I agree, Chris... Just because the ministers think a war is "just" does not make it so.

 

Buck, the proportion of people who refuse to fight in a war (conscientious objectors?) is far less than the people who sign up.

 

I don't think Vietnam was a "just" war, in any sense, nor do I think it was a winnable conflict.

[pottedplant]

I agree, Chris... Just because the ministers think a war is "just" does not make it so.

 

Buck, the proportion of people who refuse to fight in a war (conscientious objectors?) is far less than the people who sign up.

 

I don't think Vietnam was a "just" war, in any sense, nor do I think it was a winnable conflict.

 

Agree with all you say. And Ali was a v brave man to take the stance he did and his articulation of why was bang on.

[Plain Talker]

Agree with all you say. And Ali was a v brave man to take the stance he did and his articulation of why was bang on.

 

I was most touched when I read about an incident related about Ali, after he came home to Louisville, from the Rome Olympics in 1960, when he had just won his Olympic Gold medal, aged eighteen.

 

He went to a restaurant to eat, in celebration. The owner refused him admission/ service on the grounds that he was a *****, and the restaurant was a white-only establishment.

 

Ali was so riled about the incident that he flung his Gold Medal off a bridge into the Ohio River.

[Sarah Kane]

Agree with all you say. And Ali was a v brave man to take the stance he did and his articulation of why was bang on.

 

I wouldnt say he was brave or great.

He was a great boxer.

He had a certain witt.

He was handsome.

But he wasnt great. That accolade is for people like Gandhi, Churchill and Bill Gates.

[Harleyman]

I was most touched when I read about an incident related about Ali, after he came home to Louisville, from the Rome Olympics in 1960, when he had just won his Olympic Gold medal, aged eighteen.

 

He went to a restaurant to eat, in celebration. The owner refused him admission/ service on the grounds that he was a *****, and the restaurant was a white-only establishment.

 

Ali was so riled about the incident that he flung his Gold Medal off a bridge into the Ohio River.

 

 

Throwing away a gold medal because some ignoramus refused him service doesnt make much sense to me. He was awarded the medal by the Olympic committee, an organisation that has no place for racial prejudices of any kind.

 

Ali also threw all his money away after he joined a radical black group whose name I dont recall.

 

As for fading away from public view why should he? It's his right to appear in public as long as he wants to and it's something of a privilege to be able to see the greatest boxer that ever was.

[JackLakeland]

Do you feel he was wrong refusing to fight for his country?

 

What was it he said when he justified his reasons for refusing to fight for his so called country?

 

"No vietcong has ever called me 'N*****!"

 

Very apt I thought.

 

That's stupid. He didn't live there and if he did he'd have been called a lot worse. He was a traitor and a coward. He wanted the benefits the country provided but avoided contributing to it.

 

Big chip on his shoulder. He hates white people...He's a racist and a pretty bad one..

[Harleyman]

That's stupid. He didn't live there and if he did he'd have been called a lot worse. He was a traitor and a coward. He wanted the benefits the country provided but avoided contributing to it.

 

Big chip on his shoulder. He hates white people...He's a racist and a pretty bad one..

 

I dont blame him for refusing to fight. If I was denied service in restaurants, forced to sit in the back of a bus, having to drink from a separate water fountain marked "colored" and being called "boy" by every knuckle dragging redneck then I would more than likely feel the same way.

 

A black soldier returning from WW2 could be refused service in any establishment at the whim of the owner yet German and Italian POWS were allowed to eat at those very same restaurants and treated no doubt to flirtatious smiles from the young things serving at the table.

 

I'm certainly not one to support dodging one's obligations to serve one's country but when a citizen of that country is treated as human refuse then there is in that instance every right to do so

 

So good on Ali. The man had guts