Posted on 06/04/2016 8:42:53 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Joe Bruno on Boxing – Muhammad Ali is Not a Hero.
Muhammad Ali passed away Friday night, June 3, 2016. I wrote the article below around the year 2000.
I got to know him fairly well in the 1980’s, when I was Vice President of the Boxing Writers Association. He was a real friendly man, and we had several nice conversations about what I have written below.
Still, his death doesn’t change what he was, and what he did early in his career.
It is with a sad heart that I stand by what is written below.
It’s just the truth, and a man’s death doesn’t change the truth.
Muhammad Ali Hero?—Not!!!!!!! There’s a new phenomenon taking place in boxing, and in the news media in general, which I’ll gracefully call revisionist history. I’m talking about the way the so-called media portrays one of the most controversial figures of all time – Muhammad Ali.
Former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali may have been great fighter, but he was also a shameless draft dodger, who refused to fight for his country in the Vietnam War.
If you say the United States didn’t belong in Vietnam–I agree. If you say it was a stupid war, a war we couldn’t win — I also agree. I didn’t like the war any more than Ali did, but me and hundreds of thousands of other men like me, black, white, or whatever, went into the United States armed service because it was our duty to our country and to our families.
Ali’s refusal to be inducted wasn’t a black/white thing like he and his people tried to shove down our throats. Hundreds of thousand of white men chickened out and avoided service in Vietnam too.
Ali claimed to be a Muslim minister as his exemption
(Excerpt) Read more at joebrunoonboxing.wordpress.com ...
Joe Bruno
Biography
A Vietnam veteran in the United States Navy, Joseph J. Bruno started out in the newspaper business in the mid 1970’s as a sports columnist for the New York Tribune. During the 70’s and 80’s, Bruno was an associate editor for Boxing Illustrated and monthly contributor to Ring Magazine.In 1986-1987, Bruno wrote a sports column for the Times Herald Record in Middletown, New York.
Bruno’s articles have also appeared in Penthouse Magazine, Razor Magazine, Boxing Today, Boxing World, International Boxing Digest, Referee Magazine and Inside Boxing.
Bruno was elected Vice President of the Boxing Writers of America from 1982-86, and Vice President of the International Boxing Writers from 1980-89.
In 1986, Bruno received an award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism from Ring#8, and in 1987 the Best Boxing Writer Award from the American Association For the Improvement of Boxing.
From 1997-98 Bruno was sports director and host of “In the Know With Jolting Joe” on WQSA 1220 in Sarasota, Florida.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Joebruno999
Sanders Addresses Trump Supporters Who ‘Love’ Muhammad Ali but ‘Hate’ Muslims
“Now tell me... what consequence did Donald Trump (and Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, and on and on and on) pay for THEIR draft dodging? Still haven’t seen you answer that one.
Let me guess..... Trump fan? Going to dodge? Or answer?
“
Just claiming Trump is a draft dodger doesn’t make him one, but it does make you a liar since his records are well known and he never dodged the draft.
“I don’t blame Ali one bit for what he did.”
But, yet, you criticize Trump for doing what you claim is the same thing?
Just another anti-Trump troll.
Nope; not criticizing Trump either. Just pointing out the hypocrisy of criticizing Ali yet giving Trump a free pass.
“Just pointing out the hypocrisy of criticizing Ali yet giving Trump a free pass.”
Trump wasn’t a draft dodger. So, yes, you are trying to drag Trump into something.
Hillary Clinton Invokes Muhammad Ali to Bash Donald Trump
ABC News By Liz Kreutz
OXNARD, California — Jun 4, 2016, 7:51 PM ET
Hillary Clinton invoked Muhammad Ali today as she blasted Donald Trump for his attack on the federal judge assigned to handle one of the suits filed against Trump University.
“Muhammad Ali really was The Greatest — unmatched not just in power and skill, but also in courage and conscience. Think of his family,” she wrote.
abcnews.go.com
***********
Exposing the Marxist/Communist Past of Hillary Clinton
Leon Puissegur — April 16, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton had a Yale professor named Thomas Emerson (known as “Tommy the Commie”), who introduced her to Charles Gary, and this is where it got really interesting, as she got personally involved with the defense of several Black Panthers who tortured an individual with boiling water, mutilated one of their own members, and committed other horrendous acts.
Though evidence of the defendants’ guilt was overwhelming, Hillary — as part of her coursework for Professor Emerson — attended the Panther trials and arranged for shifts of fellow students to likewise monitor court proceedings and report on any civil-rights abuses allegedly suffered by the defendants. (Those abuses could then be used, if the Panthers were to lose their case, as grounds for appeal.) Striving to neutralize what she considered the pervasive racism of the American legal system, “Hillary was,” as Barbara Olson observed in Hell to Pay, “a budding Leninist.”
http://freedomoutpost.com/exposing-the-marxistcommunist-past-of-hillary-clinton/
Oh please. Getting a deferment was the same as dodging the draft. Your country summoned you to serve, and you used some rich-boy excuse to get out of it.
But if you were poor, and had no means to go to college, then “deferment” wasn’t an option.
Trump was a fortunate son.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plj82F4kY7o
His personal life was paradoxical. Ali belonged to a sect that emphasized strong families, a subject on which he lectured, yet he had dalliances as casual as autograph sessions. A brief first marriage to Sonji Roi ended in divorce after she refused to dress and behave as a proper Nation wife. (She died in 2005.) While married to Belinda Boyd, his second wife, Ali traveled openly with Veronica Porche, whom he later married. That marriage, too, ended in divorce.
Ali was politically and socially idiosyncratic as well. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the television interviewer David Frost asked him if he considered Al Qaeda and the Taliban evil. He replied that terrorism was wrong but that he had to “dodge questions like that” because “I have people who love me.” He said he had “businesses around the country” and an image to consider. - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/sports/muhammad-ali-dies.html?action=click&contentCollection=Technology&module=Trending&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
Lots of people should have been hanged for Vietnam.
Muhammad Ali’s complicated relationship with the Jews
Adopting Arab causes after his retirement from the ring, ‘The Greatest’ frequently clashed with the Jewish people, accusing ‘Zionists’ of world domination, even as some notable members of the U.S. Jewish community were his fervent admirers.
By Haaretz Jun 04, 2016
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.723042
His conversion to Islam in 1964 - accompanied by a name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali - and his subsequent sympathy for Arab causes made Jews a frequent target of his silver tongue, even as several Jews were among his long-time supporters and admirers. It made for a complex relationship between the boxer and world Jewry.
Alfred E. Neuman gets a front row seat. How does he do it?
Not to me either. I have never been a fan of his.
Superman: Ali you are the greatest
Ali: No Superman, we are the greatest
Frazier beat him that first fight to teach him a lesson but he lost the second.
In my book Joe Frazier was the better man in every way, Ali was a great fighter buy was sadly lacking in any maturity and class.””
Frazier was definitely a better man as was George Foreman. Many people said Frazier also beat Clay in the second fight as well. Clay was never anything but an obnoxious jackass.
We had it won by about 1970; the North was preparing to pursue a ceasefire.***
It was Walter Cronkite on CBS News who stabbed America in the back.””
Crapkite stabbed us and twisted the knife. He was a sniveling liberal liar ahead of his time.
And if we want to talk about draft dodgers lets start with Ted Nugent, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, and Rush Limbaugh.””
Is there a source for this or is it just a fabrication? Show us a reference worthy of consideration.
His name change is interesting. It was a family name which was taken from an abolitionist who had freed his own slaves. His father had the same name. Then Cassius changed it to the name of a man who was a slave owner and slave trader when he took the name Muhammed. That was the work of a fool.
Ali debased our culture and made it popular to be an arrogant Clymer. He made Islam more acceptable in certain quarters. He did a lot of damage to the black community with these acts. And he was a coward. He would fight for his own self-interest, but not for the freedom of others. Every single punch he threw and every victory he had in the ring was as nothing compared to the deeds of those who went and fought in his place.
It is a sign of a sick culture that he is so lionized. And he played a major role in making that culture sick.””
BEST POST ON THE THREAD.
We have all been subjected to a avalanche of Ali coverage all weekend. Coming off as some great hero, which I don’t believe.
What really gets me is all of these young reporters who know nothing of Ali, his life, and the great controversies of Vietnam and his draft problems.
Where was all this coverage 5 years ago when Joe Frazier died? Frazier had a much more compelling story of coming from nothing to be the World Champ. With out Joe Frazier giving Ali a title shot, would he have ever been the champ again? That answer I don’t know, but I do know Frazier did not have to give him one, ever!
One more thing, I suspect also that without Howard Cosell’s constant reporting and pushing for Ali he might not have gotten that title shot and public rehabilitation he desperately needed.
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