Lenin got that right.I was just saying to the wife they've made Ali an acceptable establishment man,and Bent Dick will eulogize him.
The real Ali died when he got that terrible disease which robbed him of his true persona.
He was the Greatest.

Posted by: dahoit | Jun 6 2016 13:22 utc | 1

thanks, b

Posted by: claudio | Jun 6 2016 13:30 utc | 2

The vietnam quotes by M Ali gives me the chills, its such a spledid statement. Would be something for ignorant black people in the army fighting in foreign countries while the blacks are suppressed at home in the US!

Posted by: Riff | Jun 6 2016 13:42 utc | 3

We Were Not the Savages is a history of the near demise, from a Mi'kmaq perspective, of ancient democratic North American First Nations, caused by the European invasion of the Americas, with special focus on the Mi'kmaq. Although other European Nations, Spain for instance, were in on the slaughter this history relates in detail the actions of only one, Great Britain.

In Great Britain's case it isn't hard to prove culpability because British colonial officials, while representing the Crown, recorded in minute detail the horrors they committed. When reading the records left behind by these individuals one gets the impression that they were proud of the barbarous crimes against humanity that they were committing while they were, using brute force, appropriating the properties of sovereign First Nations Peoples. From my knowledge of what they did I can, without fear of contradiction from men and women of good conscience, use uncivilized savagery to describe it.

The following are some of the methods they used to cleanse the land of its rightful owners: Bounties for human scalps, including women and children, out and out massacres, starvation and germ warfare. These cruel British methods of destruction were so effective that the British came close to realizing their cleansing goal. All North American civilizations under their occupation were badly damaged, many eliminated, and close to 95% of the people exterminated. http://www.danielnpaul.com/WeWereNotTheSavages-Mi'kmaqHistory.html

Posted by: Terry | Jun 6 2016 14:27 utc | 4

>> After their death, attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, canonize them, and surround their names with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping them, while at the same time emasculating and vulgarizing the real essence of their revolutionary theories and blunting their revolutionary edge.

Like when the Roman Empire killed someone with ideas conflicting with the empire's (foisting blame onto one of their local puppet governments -- something empires do in order to maintain the illusion of local rule), then when faced with many of its people converting decided itself to "convert", and then continued doing what empires do.

Is that a proper example? Or am I re-imagining the causality of events thousands of years ago incorrectly based on an understanding of empires in the modern era?

Posted by: dumbass | Jun 6 2016 14:34 utc | 5

"My conscious won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, raped and killed my mother and father. Well, shoot them for what? I am not gonna shoot them. They are little poor black people, little babies and children, women. ... Why don't you just take me to jail."
Muhammad Ali on the Vietnam War (vid)

So beautiful and gripping, straight to the point.

I was just reading other quotes by Muhammad Ali earlier today, he was a very smart guy.

Posted by: Harry | Jun 6 2016 14:50 utc | 6

I suspect the MIC tipped the balance in favor of passing and enforcing -- which took years -- the civil rights acts, to ensure Ali's view wasn't so widely shared as to jeopardize drafting poor black people into fighting the oligarchs' wars or to make other societal models look more appealing.

Same thing this decade with women and the LGBT community -- which offered the opportunity for Oceania to use LGBT rights as a "market differentiator" in "Cold War 2.0". (We know from studying "Cold War 1.0" that "culture" -- like everything else when there's an infinite budget for manipulating it -- is "weaponized".)

Thinking ahead yet again, TPTB has made everyone poor and has made it difficult to get a government job -- the only stable gig available in quantity -- unless you "sign up" years earlier.

Posted by: dumbass | Jun 6 2016 14:57 utc | 7

Thanks b.

Ali, sentenced to jail for "draft evasion" vs GWBush who was never under threat for desertion. Does anyone need better proof that the only part of America that is "exceptional" is white?

Posted by: Bardi | Jun 6 2016 14:59 utc | 8

thanks b, for honouring a good man..

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2016 15:36 utc | 9

Ali's bold and principled statements on the Vietnam War joined those of Martin Luther King, who also presented a principled argument against the war and against the diversion of national resources away from the people to enrich the death industries. King, who was murdered by elements of the US government, has also received the treatment described by Lenin.

Posted by: jayc | Jun 6 2016 16:21 utc | 10

Bravo b and always many thanks for your site itself.

Posted by: Jocelyn Braddell | Jun 6 2016 16:37 utc | 11

I personally avoided the draft and the Nam by enlisting in the USN for four years. Ali had the balls I did not have. He stood up and lost everything for three and a half years. Attacked by a government with no soul. Ali was not just about being black. Ali was about being a human being. Rest in Peace Mohamed. Your gentle grace and compassion will be missed in a world without compassion and without grace. PEACE

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 6 2016 17:15 utc | 12

Ali – Islam – Farrakhan - Gaddafi

In 1974, the legendary American world champion, Muhammad Ali, visited Libya and played a number of spectacle matches with Libyan boxers.

○ The Nation of Islam Welcomes Muammar Gadhafi - 2009
○ Officials to Block Qaddafi Gift to Farrakhan | NY Times – 1996 |

So Bill Clinton gives the eulogy at his burial in Louisville, Kentucky ...

Posted by: Oui | Jun 6 2016 17:18 utc | 13

Turkish President Erdoğan to attend Muhammad Ali’s funeral

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will attend the funeral of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, to be held in Louisville, Kentucky. Erdoğan will depart from Turkey late on June 8, according to information obtained from Turkish Presidency sources.

He will attend the funeral prayer which will be performed by Imam Zaid Shakir on June 9. Erdoğan will also participate in the commemoration and farewell ceremonies and was asked to speak, family spokesman Bob Gunnell said.

○ Erdoğan sparks outrage again after declaring childless women to be ‘deficient’ | Hürriyet Daily News |

Other gems from Erdoğan ...

"Women who refuse maternity are lacking"
"No Muslim family should engage in birth control"

Posted by: Oui | Jun 6 2016 17:34 utc | 14

Interestingly in the year 2016 there is another 'black man' involved in Vietnam ...

"Hanoi, Vietnam (CNN)President Barack Obama announced Monday that the United States is fully lifting a decades-long ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam.
In a joint news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said that the removal of the ban on lethal weapons was part of a deeper defense cooperation with the country and dismissed suggestions it was aimed at countering China's growing strength in the region."

source - http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/23/politics/obama-vietnam-trip/

Two young men who were in my High School graduating class died in NAM. Several childhood friends were seriously f*#ked up, permanently, during their service in NAM and as a direct result died young, their parents still living. All in the name of 'business as usual.'

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 6 2016 17:56 utc | 15

The Clinton's want to cultivate the black vote as much as possible. The Clinton's basically supported the Vietnam war.

Posted by: Edward | Jun 6 2016 18:02 utc | 16

Oui @14 & 15 ...

I realize that b does not allow personal attacks, but, your parroting of US Government and Allied 'bad religion' meme's is quite beyond the pale. Do a google search of the Roman Catholic and US Christians in general re backing of the Vietnam War. If I remember correctly they were wearing USA cheerleading uniforms while covertly counting their stock portfolio gains as the children of the socioeconomic bottom rungs watched their sons being ground to hamburger meat in Nam.Shame on you!

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 6 2016 18:05 utc | 17

Yep, yahoo but there both good.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sad-day-george-foreman-friend-now-gone-234442217--box.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-the--ali-summit--remains-a-transformational-moment-in-u-s--history-180346704.html

#16 I couldn't believe he was there but you're right any shameless thing they can do to finish what bigdog started.

Posted by: jo6pac | Jun 6 2016 18:07 utc | 18

Had more knockouts outside the ring......RIP beautiful man.

Posted by: notlurking | Jun 6 2016 18:12 utc | 19

Ali Bomaye! You have just delivered an excrutiatingly exquisite K.O. of an Obituary worthy of The Greatest. I am deeply moved and grateful to be a follow of this blog. Camagu!

Posted by: Odidi Bulelani Mfenyana | Jun 6 2016 18:19 utc | 20

Cassias Clay was, in his own words, “the greatest”. As a wanna-be boxer and follower of the “sport” I agreed. Even eventually (a “Super Fight” fight in anybody’s book) better than Rocky Marciano. I was the only one of my friends that bet Cassias would defeat Liston.

Sadly at the time I was still severely infected with the propaganda of the USAF, from which I had recently been discharged and turned against Muhammad Ali when he turned against the myth of American exceptionalism. Muhammad obviously has some major influence in curing me of my infection. Thank you Muhammad. May you RIP. You were one of the greatest fighters of all times in many more ways than the ring.

Posted by: juannie | Jun 6 2016 18:25 utc | 21

Ali deserves all the praise he gets today, especially for his stand on Viet Nam and the draft.

Younger readers and non-U.S. readers might get the impression that he was admired as much here in the U.S. back in the day. I was to young to care about these issues in 1968, but - speaking from my mostly white, blue-collar Midwestern urban neighborhood, I have to say that I remember a distinctly different and much more negative opinion of him at the time. He always had his admirers, but I wonder how some kind of vote of popularity would have turned out back then.

I don't bring that up to detract from Ali's memory, but to emphasize how selective and seemingly schizophrenic the collective memory - at least as evidenced by the mainstream media - the U.S. has always been. It's disturbing to read all the praise heaped upon him now knowing what (to me) the average Joe Sixpack thought of his outspoken manner, his conversion to Islam and especially his refusal to be drafted in 1968 America. It's painful to describe it this way, but I would have to say it was a mix of racism and unmitigated loathing at this 'unpatriotic' uppity black man. That's admittedly only an example of one particular segment of American society, but I don't believe it was that uncommon at the time.

It's important to realize when you've been ignorant, have some remorse about it, learn from it and move on. That's decidedly different than selective amnesia and historical whitewashing, followed by making the exact same stupid mistakes over and over again as a society. There'a always hope since America can still occasionally choke out another great human like Muhammad Ali - it's just unfortunate that we seem to be such dimwits at learning anything from them at the time.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Jun 6 2016 18:28 utc | 22

I refuse to remember Cassius Clay by his submission name to Allah. Cassius was the greatest boxer this world has ever produced but he was seduced to a evil and vindictive vision of humanity that threatens the World to this day. If I had less to lose I would be happy to see President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the funeral and give him an eternal gift. There is much evil in the World and it must be fought.

Posted by: Northern Observer | Jun 6 2016 18:39 utc | 23

@22 paveway.. i agree with you and like what you've articulated there... it could be well summed up in edwards observations @ 16.. folks will ride any horse they think serve their own interests, however they have to do it..

i grew up in canada - born in the 50's.. i experienced the vietnam fiasco as a 16, 17 year old meeting draft dodgers in vancouver.. these were good people opposed to a war that made no sense to them.. that was my first exposure to us foreign policy bullshit.. unfortunately it hasn't let up - only taken different forms.. to me ali was a good man back then too.. i admired him for his position.. playing jazz music, i also witnessed a number of prominent jazz musicians convert to islam.. that made sense to me as well.. people need to be allowed to identify however they see it.. i admire anyone who has the balls to take a stand different from the crowd.. as for the clintons - seems like more business as usual, which really pisses me off - and... i don't live in the usa.. erdogan showing up is more of the same bullshit as i see it.. the guy oversees the murder of innocent people in syria and he wants to honour ali? fuck that shit..

@17 alberto.. i think you are off track with your comment to oui and what they post..

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2016 18:46 utc | 24

@23 nq... what are you saying? islam is the problem? that is like saying christianity or religion is the problem... it's way too general..

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2016 18:48 utc | 25

So 'our' Vietnam pivot, as Zbigie and Kerry would phrase it, is all about peace love and beads and not about a back-up opium supply in the case that Afghanistan goes south on us?

PS - Ali stated that he got the idea for his 'The Greatest of All Time' shtick after watching WWE Hall of Fame wrestler Gorgeous George perform his act in Las Vegas. The crowd just ate it up giving Ali the gimmick he needed to help transcend sport.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/books/review-how-pro-wrestler-gorgeous-george-influenced-ali-dylan-brown-and-more/827228

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 6 2016 19:44 utc | 26

Paveway #22,

I totally resonate with your whole post but especially your third paragraph. I was one of your Joe Sixpacks who reveled in the "our way or the highway" attitude. It wasn't just uncommon. It was the whole of the society that I was exposed to. We've come, evolved a long way since then, thank Allah/God/whichever. Perhaps there is still some hope for the flowers.

Posted by: juannie | Jun 6 2016 19:56 utc | 27

@ PavewayIV | Jun 6, 2016 2:28:35 PM | 22

Given memory grows from the aggregate glister of information that reaches our consciousness throughout one's experience, it is little wonder no two memories are ever exactly alike, even in identical twins. One cannot not concur with your third paragraph, but there were reserved sets that those perceptions did not pertain and afforded M. Ali the benefit of agreement with his stance. Those places were few and far between but still there with their contribution to memories; one such fertile ground happened in the early (1964-68ish) anti-Vietnam War set where Ali was a natural moral alliance and the aspersions inflicted did not adhere to his character. Collective memories tend to be herd-like; individual memories tending to follow the speed and direction of the herd at any given moment - much intake of salt is required.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Jun 6 2016 20:50 utc | 28

I never was much interested in boxing and the few notions I had of Ali were "old guy with parkinson"(?) who got too much beaten on his head. Very interesting to read/watch his comments on the vietnam war. Never would I have thought that a boxer guy would issue statements like these. Which, maybe, tells something about what kind of public figure Ali was (made of) after his boxing career.
I can't imagine any prominent sport professional these days making such honest statements. What he says is really all that needs to be said about fighting wars in the interest of those who oppress you.

Posted by: radiator | Jun 6 2016 20:53 utc | 29

1.
I have never been able to find Ali saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.” Maybe he said that, maybe he didn’t. I suspect it is a PC euphemism for his actual statement, which shocked the nation on multiple levels: “They never called me ‘nigger.’ ”

2.
Virtually none of these MSM hacks writing about Ali today were there at the time and they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. For instance, anyone who writes about Ali back in the 60's and 70's and who doesn’t even mention Howard Cosell doesn’t have a freaking clue. Unfortunately, his words when written down don’t come close to conveying what he was expressing on camera.

3.
Harry | Jun 6, 2016 10:50:28 AM | 6 “he was a very smart guy.”

Not according to his IQ, which the Army measured as 78. I could not figure out whether his low IQ contributed to his decision to spend his life in the ring, or whether taking so many punches to the head on the way to the top is what lowered his IQ.

But the fascinating thing is, assuming the Army’s assessment of his low IQ is valid, that Ali was so wise, suggesting that wisdom and intelligence are two different things. And that’s illustrated by the whole Cosell thing. This low IQ black guy would face off with the brilliant, Jewish, lawyer-turned-sportscaster, and would hold his own, not in terms of vocabulary but in terms of repartee that went right to the heart of the matter without 6-syllable vocabulary. You had to see it to understand how powerful it was.

More on their dynamic here

4.
ALberto | Jun 6, 2016 1:15:43 PM | 12 – “I personally avoided the draft and the Nam by enlisting in the USN for four years. Ali had the balls I did not have.”

I enlisted on my 18th b’day, humped a radio in a USMC Force Recon team, and was wounded in action. But I feel exactly like you do, ALberto: Ali had the balls I didn’t have. And he had perspective I didn’t have, what with him being lower class black and me being middle class white. And he certainly had more wisdom than I ever had. If only I had heard what he was saying.

When I got to VN, I said “Where’s all the white guys?” Ali was right – it was a white man’s war fought by poor people of color. It was the black guys I hung with in VN quoting Ali that made me realize how the USG had fucked us all, and was fucking the Vietnamese.

There were no easy choices for young American men back then, and I’m not sure there were any right choices given how little we knew about what was going on. But the ones who honestly stood up to the USG and went to prison, like David Harris, have the most respect from me. They were the real heros.

5.
james | Jun 6, 2016 2:46:14 PM | 24 – “i grew up in canada - born in the 50's.. i experienced the vietnam fiasco as a 16, 17 year old meeting draft dodgers in vancouver..”

I moved to Vancouver a decade ago and I was shocked by how many VN era ex-pats are still here. Guess I shouldn’t have been, given how Jimmy Carter’s amnesty program was pretty much a bust b/c so few ex-pats chose to return to America. I was also impressed by how proud these draft dodgers are at their decision to flee their homes, their families, their country. But almost 60 years later the conversations are still difficult.

Posted by: Denis | Jun 6 2016 21:00 utc | 30

b, you always do the right thing. Thank you.

Posted by: Penelope | Jun 6 2016 21:12 utc | 31

@ALberto

Intent of my post, how can the "people's champ" have eulogies from representatives of leading nations suppressing the individual rights of it's citizens. Gaddafi was the people's champ across Africa to combat the old western colonial powers. See the role played by both Bill Clinton as president and HRC as secretary of state. Her joy at the demise of enemy of the state nr. 1 in 2011. What about Erdogan? Her is a representative of the Muslim Btotherhood and suppresses women's rights. An ideal pair at the funeral of the champ? It's a bad sign when the establishment comforts the family of Muhammad Ali ...

Posted by: Oui | Jun 6 2016 21:30 utc | 32

b makes a super important point from Lenin about co-opting of the memories of popular/populist leaders.

It is worthwhile to note that the neocon theory of governance specifically promotes creating such myths/mis-truths.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jun 6 2016 21:30 utc | 33

Inspiration of the 1960s

The trouble was, in the years before lucrative sponsorship deals, running didn't pay and few would employ him. In the years immediately following his protest, he worked security at a nightclub and as a janitor. At one point he had to chop up his furniture so he could heat his house. The pressure started to bear down on his family. "When there's a lack of money, it brings contempt into the family," he says. Moreover, his wife was facing constant harassment from the press and his children were being told at school that their father was a traitor.

Carlos remains politically engaged. Late last year [2011] he addressed Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York. "It's the same fight as it was 43 years ago. We fought unemployment; for housing, education. It's the same thing as people are fighting for today."

[Source: The man who raised a black power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games]

Posted by: Oui | Jun 6 2016 21:48 utc | 34

President: Oh... listen, I want to thank you back there for saving my life. If there's anything you want... anything at all...

Snake Plissken: Just a moment of your time.

President: Of course... Yes?

Snake Plissken: We did get you out. But a lot of people died in the process. I just wondered how you felt about it.

President: [cocky, distant tone] Well, I... I wanna thank them. This nation appreciates their sacrifice.

[pause]

President: Look, I'm on in... two minutes?

[shaking his head with disgust, Snake walks away]

Posted by: aaaa | Jun 6 2016 21:53 utc | 35

@ 22

Growing up in Britain we were lucky that the great BBC boxing commentator Harry Carpenter was one of the first journalists to recognize the genius of Ali. The two men developed a warm personal rapport which came through in all Harry’s commentaries, interviews and in snapshots of happy times they spent together over twenty years. This documentary gives a fascinating glimpse into that friendship and I thank Harry that he taught me so young to appreciate the great man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mHdGjYuxv8

Posted by: Lochearn | Jun 6 2016 22:21 utc | 36

Muhammad Ali, even when he suffered neurological problems from his boxing , even when they stripped him of his titles, even so he yet retained his own self, especially his moral self. In so doing, I could never see him as a victim, but only a victor.

"I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky, my name not yours. My religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”

Posted by: Penelope | Jun 6 2016 22:53 utc | 37

Its appalling that the Clinton(s) will be allowed to even attend the services, much less give a eulogy...Lenin was right (about most things)

Posted by: tSinilats | Jun 6 2016 23:06 utc | 38

@22 pw

Ya gotta want to learn. America knows what it doesn't want to learn. "We are the Greatest!", instead. Ali threw it right back at us.

He was one of my heros then, and maybe the only one who stood the test of time.

He was hated by 'white America'.

@70 denis

Pay no attention to that racist IQ jive. Who ya gonna believe, the military machine and the psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists on it payroll, all doing their utmost for the criminal war effort, or your own lyin' ears and eyes?

Posted by: jfl | Jun 6 2016 23:21 utc | 39

@30 denis..

yes, i think that is the case - many draft dodgers made it to the bestcoast and spread themselves around much of bc. making a difficult decision to leave your country based on ethics is something they ought to be proud of too! canada can take all the people they find like this to my mind! they could have been cannon fodder for the military machine, but they decided not to be.. i never thought of them as traitors or anything like that.. the 70's were a different time and world then today.

Posted by: james | Jun 6 2016 23:43 utc | 40

Ironic, isn't it, that someone who accepted the military draft but went to some lengths to avoid being called up to go to Vietnam should be giving a eulogy to someone who nearly went to jail, was not allowed to box for three years and was stripped of his world heavyweight boxing for refusing to join the US army in 1967?

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2660318.1464983542!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_1200/alidraft4a-3-web.jpg

Here is an excerpt from Bill Clinton's letter dated 3 December 1969 to Colonel Eugene Holmes, head of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of Arkansas. Clinton was supposed to have returned from Oxford University to enrol full-time in a law degree course at the UoA so he could enter the ROTC to get a draft deferment. The full letter can be read at this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/13/us/1992-campaign-letter-clinton-his-draft-deferment-war-opposed-despised.html

" ... The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has been in recent years (the society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if that is true we are all finished anyway)..."

Posted by: Jen | Jun 6 2016 23:49 utc | 41

@41 jen

The Bill and The Hill had "worked to prepare" themselves "for a political life characterized by ... practical political ability". By their fruits we now know them, and Ali, still.

Predictably, Barack Obama tried to get some of the reality of Ali to rub off on himself, while not even mentioning the word 'Vietnam', in this the sixth year of his 13-year commemoration of that 'glorious' war, which "upheld the highest traditions of our Armed Forces."

Posted by: jfl | Jun 7 2016 0:09 utc | 42

re The JTA article quoting Ali on zionism -- JTA says that a "guerrilla news agency reported" apparently from a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon . . .

I wonder who/what that "guerrilla news agency" was.

In an event at Wilson Center in March 2016, shortly before he resigned, Moshe Ya'alon was asked by a representative of CAMERA what Israel was doing about pesky Palestinian use of internet to get their message out.

Ya'alon said the Israelis were cutting off Palestinian access to internet, but damned if the Palestinians didn't arrange work-arounds. So the Israelis are developing other measures, Ya'alon assured the CAMERA scribe.

nb. Ya'alon was in DC to parley with Ash Carter and others over the size of the next decade's welfare checks from USA taxpayers to Israel.

Posted by: Croesus | Jun 7 2016 0:26 utc | 43

Ali's most significant and heroic display of True Humanity was in unambiguously rejecting the selective righteousness and flexible logic of Christianity.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 7 2016 0:47 utc | 44

@44- baloney, he converted to nation of islam, another bastion of flexible logic and selective righteousness. Not that he had a lot to choose from. And not that it wasn't a courageous act.

But he gave up his prime to take a moral stand. This as a boxer. King of the world.

And you're trying to make it somehow about religion, with Erdogan making an appearance. Fuck all.

Posted by: Nana2007 | Jun 7 2016 0:59 utc | 45

black on nam
*The draft is white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they robbed from the red people.*

Posted by: denk | Jun 7 2016 1:30 utc | 46

Posted by: Nana2007 | Jun 6, 2016 8:59:29 PM | 45

...conveniently forgetting, of course, which Tribe invented Christianity, wrote its Holy Bible, and transcribed the Ten (blokey, materialistic) Commandments passed from Heaven by a vengeful, dictatorial God (of Infinite Wisdom).

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 7 2016 2:21 utc | 47

@47 yeah whatever. I forgot the godforsaken Jews. Too bad Ali never fought in Palestine. Nevertheless I don't remember him subscribing to pantheism or showing up at wounded knee.

You pretty much made him Jesus Christ himself by your statement. Why not put a sock in it.

Posted by: Nana2007 | Jun 7 2016 2:36 utc | 48

It's a mark of the greats to be able to completely change styles and remain on top. RIP to a true Champ

Posted by: Cresty | Jun 7 2016 3:08 utc | 49

Thanks b. It wasn't his boxing that made him a great human being.

Posted by: ben | Jun 7 2016 3:12 utc | 50

'asia pivot' , 1899
when *White American soldiers slaughtered the brown-skinned inhabitants of the Philippines so that American businesses could expand into the Pacific.*
...................
Sen. Albert Beveridge
*We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world,” . “Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Georgraphy answers the question. China is our natural customer....The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East.*

sounds familiar ?

black soldiers in ph
*I was struck by a question a little Filipino boy asked me, which ran about this way: 'Why does the American Negro come...to fight us where we are much a friend to him and have not done anything to him. He is all the same as me and me all the same as you. Why don't you fight those people in America who burn Negroes, that make a beast of you...?*

http://www.countercurrents.org/us-cox240107.htm

Posted by: denk | Jun 7 2016 3:15 utc | 51

46

*The draft is white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they robbed from the red people the interest of war str and the mic.*

Posted by: denk | Jun 7 2016 4:10 utc | 52

@52 denk

I like your @46 quote much better. Sounds like a black preacher, and has the same effect on his audience. Yours @52... not so much.

Presumptuous of you to cross out the original, wasn't it? I know, propaganda calls, stay on message, repetition is what counts.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 7 2016 4:47 utc | 53

Ali showed courage when it would have been easy to get along with the establishment and take care of himself. He gave up his best years, as he was banned from boxing during his prime, for being true to his conscience. Compare that to most contemporary black "leaders" who have sold their people down the river for personal fortune. And they'll be the ones basking in his glory. And compare that to the Clinton's who have talked a good game but have ingratiated themselves with the elites by selling working people back to poverty. Of course they've made hundreds of millions for themselves. And now Bill gets to share in the glory of Ali and Hill gets her greed and ego satiated by being the establishment candidate for President.

There are no Ali's anymore. Everyone's in it for themselves and their fat bank accounts. And the worst are the two-faced black, hispanic and women politicians.

Posted by: ab initio | Jun 7 2016 4:55 utc | 54

And for those who were draft-age in VN, and fought the good fight, resisting, then were despised, beaten, kicked and shot down, excommunicated from urban death society to go struggle in some lord of the flies communal outlands farce, what did Ali accomplish, or any of us that resisted accomplish? Where is the outcome achievement? Zero. Zip. Nada.

Today the Elites openly strip our Treasury, our home equity, our life savings and our set-aside trust fund pensions. The Chosen loot our children with fiat debt created out of thin air, steal $4,000B a year to finance their 1000 foreign overseas military bases, in perpetual war with the greatest arms buildup since the Cold War, MIC-ify and privatize from cradle to grave, born with medical debt, dying in some warehouse, moved by hearse after midnight to the crematorium, not a single penny that you slaved for in life left, that wasn't looted by the 'Makers' (sic).

So what did we accomplish? What did Ali accomplish, other than brief Black Power? If you want to eulogize someone who threw off the yoke, eulogize Ghandi, or Mandela. America has no heroes. We are flayed alive by The Chosen.

Posted by: Norel | Jun 7 2016 6:33 utc | 55

I suspect the MIC tipped the balance in favor of passing and enforcing -- which took years -- the civil rights acts, to ensure Ali's view wasn't so widely shared as to jeopardize drafting poor black people into fighting the oligarchs' wars or to make other societal models look more appealing. -- dumbass @ 7.

Neatly stated. From a more ‘economic’ perspective: anti-racist (and other discrimination ..) legislation, which always appears to be ‘late’ and ‘following popular demands / sentiments’ (in this case .. 1964) was enacted to fit with ‘new-er’ economic models, ex. women to work, the tractor killed the slave trade, etc. rather than any genuine considerations re. equality. (Not that these were completely absent..)

Divide-to-rule, divide to create strife (Shia vs. Sunni, Serbs against Croats ..) is applied in some cases and all-equal-in the boiling-frogs-pot in *others.*

To accomplish the double-pronged strategy it was necessary to shift public discourse away from intrinsic characteristics such as ‘race’, ‘skin color’, ‘natural’ sexual genre/orientiation, outlier physical traits like size, looks, handicaps, aka the old ‘eugenics’ — to nebulous criteria like religion, culture, mind-sets, and that can be anything at all. Lodged sneakily, suspiciously, right in the brain!

Which gives the PTB more Orwellian power… And nobody realises it because, hey, I’m lesbian (say) and now ppl can’t bash me for it. Still be attacked (hate crime in a park) and work for tips only. Not to mention the new slavery prison industry (USA) for blacks.

Thx for the quotes from M. Ali. It was great to see them.

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 7 2016 15:54 utc | 56

Greek tragedy in Louisville

Sultan Erdogan lost his speaking slot at Mohammad Ali's funeral coming Friday (in Muslim rites burial takes place in a day). King Abdullah II of Jordan was uninvited?

The funeral ceremony had been decided by the Greatest himself with all particulars. All was meticulously written down extensively in what family had referred to as The Book. Nevertheless ... last minute changes. Perhaps, Erdogan hasn't behaved as a Muslim leader should have the last few years. ;-)

Posted by: Oui | Jun 7 2016 17:24 utc | 57

Mohamed Ali's refusal to kill and main in the service of government bureaucrats was an illustration of a universal principle that 'religion is deed not word."

Beware the serpent!

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 7 2016 18:39 utc | 58

@57 noirette, 'Which gives the PTB more Orwellian power… And nobody realises it because, hey, I’m lesbian (say) and now ppl can’t bash me for it. Still be attacked (hate crime in a park) and work for tips only. Not to mention the new slavery prison industry (USA) for blacks.'

There's an interesting article by Aviva Chomsky at the libertarian unz.com site ... The Battle for the Soul of American Higher Education

Put another way, the question is: How political is the personal? Political scientist Adolph Reed argues that if class is left out, race politics on campus becomes “the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism.” As he puts it, race-first politics of the sort being pushed today by university administrators promotes a “moral economy… in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people.”

On the MCI and civil rights and Ali's 'temperate' treatment in the face of his 'traitorous' behavior, I think it had something to do with the fact that there were so many armed black Americans in Vietnam who would come home someday - soon - after their one year tours were up.

There was no dealt-in black establishment then, willing to be the face of black America and to look the other way when some George Zimmerman murdered Muhammad Ali, was acquitted by a nearly white jury, and then tried to auction off the gun he used to kill Ali.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 7 2016 20:29 utc | 59

Great set of quotations. The Lenin quotation eliciting the broad historical perspective was a masterstroke.

Posted by: Roger Milbrandt | Jun 7 2016 22:00 utc | 60

@62 rm

Yes, that's true of Ali, Obama couldn't even say 'Vietnam' in his 'eulogy' of Ali, and that's also very true of Martin Luther King Jr. Definitely no mention of Vietnam with respect MLK Jr. around his corporate-sponsored, made-in-China statue in AC/DC ...

Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

Next April 4th will mark 70 years since that speech ...

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

... 70 years later the US is still the greatest purveyor of violence, now of terrorism, in the world today : our own government. But we ain't marchin' anymore.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 7 2016 23:55 utc | 61

ninel @59
No, not even close!

Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 7 2016 23:56 utc | 62

Notes by Michele de Cuneo describing Christian behaviors that occurred during Christopher Columbus' 2nd voyage to the New World ...

"They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house,” de Las Casas wrote. “They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike. They took infants from their mothers’ breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, ‘Boil there, you offspring of the devil!'”

We Homo Sapiens are a genetically dead end species.

Just my opinion

Posted by: ALberto | Jun 8 2016 1:04 utc | 63

Pay no attention to that racist IQ jive. Who ya gonna believe, the military machine and the psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists on it payroll, all doing their utmost for the criminal war effort, or your own lyin' ears and eyes?
Posted by: jfl | Jun 6, 2016 7:21:52 PM | 39

Yep. My understanding of the nature of intelligence is that the ability to use deductive reasoning to sort fact from fiction, and thereby arrive at a verifiable conclusion, is a reliable indicator of high-ish intelligence.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 8 2016 2:11 utc | 64

@64 hoarse

I think we're all about 'ten feet smart', barring serious brain damage during our own personal ontogeny or thereafter, that some of us are nine-foot ten, and others perhaps ten-foot two, but that the difference among us, 'smartwise', is in no way a determining factor in the natural order of things.

As far as the societal order, well that's what the IQ test measures : one's family's, perhaps one's own, integration into the societal order of things. Even there it's more a question of 'bragging rights' than a real measure of anything.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 8 2016 10:03 utc | 65

cosell was an obnoxious loud mouth.

he rode ali's socks to fame and fortune.

i avoided mon night football because of his mouth

he needed ali. ali did not need cosell for anything

Posted by: 5 dancing shlomos | Jun 8 2016 15:14 utc | 66

"Confirming Lenin"... add another one:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has cut short a visit to the United States and will not take part in a second day of ceremonies to commemorate the death of boxer Muhammad Ali, his office said on Friday. Erdogan, who attended a Muslim funeral for Ali on Thursday, had been expected to be among world leaders and fans gathering in Ali’s Kentucky hometown on Friday to bid a final farewell to the boxing great, who died a week ago. Erdogan’s office said in a statement that he had left the United States after a dinner to break the day’s Ramadan fast late on Thursday, without giving any explanation. Broadcaster CNN Turk said that Erdogan had wanted to lay a piece of cloth on Ali’s coffin, and had wanted the head of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate to recite from the Koran, but that his wishes had been refused. An official in Erdogan’s office denied this, saying that after attending Thursday’s funeral and visiting the Muhammad Ali Center, he decided not to stay longer because he had “completed his religious service”.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkeys-erdogan-cuts-short-u-s-trip-muhammad-ali-tribute/ | Al-Masdar News

Posted by: Dean | Jun 11 2016 19:31 utc | 67

I was never very interested in professional boxing but have now seen more boxing on TV in the last few days than during the rest of my life. SBS broadcast an Ali doco on Friday (The Trials of Ali), and ABC.au broadcast 3 back to back on Sunday (We Were Kings, Thrilla In Manila, Facing Ali). Although I was always interested in what he had to say during and after his career, in a Trump-ish kind of way, I never fully appreciated, until now, what a world-wide icon he was.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 13 2016 6:03 utc | 68