Muhammad Ali is the Father of Boxing

Burt, I can well understand the US decision to join in the Vietnam war. The rationale was essentially the same as for the Korean war, and it's probably safe to say that we're all grateful that South Korea today is a democracy and not part of the aggressive totalitarian regime (perhaps the worst in history) of North Korea.

With that said, you can't really compare the relative obscure and geo-politically complicated conflict in Vietnam in 1965 with the very straight forward case of the US having been attacked by fascist Japan in 1941 and Nazi Germany then declaring war as well.

In the case of WW2, the US was mainly being reactive in the face of a military assault, but in 1965 the US took a much more proactive stance in a much more remote and smaller conflict without having been attacked in such manner (Tonkin Bay does not qualify as another Pearl Harbour, to put it mildly).

 

Interesting how a certain person blames "bleeding heart liberals" for opposing our government's decision to engage in Vietnam when after all it was a Democratic president who kept sending 18-25 year old men over there to die for the better part of a decade. So what's the real position here? That Lyndon Johnson was a "right winged" Democrat who did the right thing while taking a conservative stance, contrary to his libertarian views?

 

But the communists and communist-led unions (America's "enemy" within) did a lot for the black civil rights movement.
Going back to the 1930s and '40s.
I the commies were actually at the fore front of fighting for blacks rights.
When the Democrats and Republicans didn't do a thing.
It may have been written out of history ...

I'm saying, there was little reason for a black person to regard "WORLD COMMUNISM" as a bigger enemy than "WHITE AMERICA" (or the BRITISH EMPIRE, for that matter) - looking at it objectively - other than the fact that they were born in a country that SAID communism was the enemy.

I'm not saying Communism is good. Just stating the fact that for the oppressed races of the world in the 20th century, communism had real merit.

 

Might explain why the USA hasn't use conscription since (as far as I know), in spite of the number of times it has gone to war.

 

I'm sure it plays a part.

 

I thought James Figg was the father of boxing.

 

Funny how Conservatives, ALWAYS BLAME LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, for running away of from Wars, and being weak on National Security, when LBJ perpetuated Nam, and refused to pull US troops out when it was obvious that it was a losing cause, very similar to Iraq 30 years later a total abomination...

Conservative Republicans like Mccain always scream about BIG GOVERNMENT and their hatred of taxes, and spending, yet have never met a war they didn't like, and don't mind blowing trillions of hard earned tax payer money, for unwinnable and BS wars that drag on forever like Iraq, and Afghanistan, I don't wanna help pay for that fukkin sh!t, that money should be kept here in this country for education, healthcare, and to create jobs, and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure..

The Goper party is all for the 1 Percenter's like Mitt Romney, tax cuts for the rich, corporations, War, and the Koch Bros, Phuck all that..

I'm glad Ali told the Government to P!ss off if he went over there to fight that white mans war he probably would have came back in a box..

 

Yeah I kinda touched upon some of this above.. I have no particular devotion to either party myself. I have voted both ways in the past. It seems hypocritical to me that the left calls the right " war mongers" when it was the left who was calling the shots in Vietnam - a fact that seems to have been conveniently forgotten. I seriously doubt that Muhammad Ali would have seen action had he enlisted. Joe Louis served in world war two and he basically fought in exhibitions and visited soldier camps but to my knowledge never fought. Elvis Presley served in Vietnam and basically entertained. The same would have likely been for Ali. The only crime that Ali was guilty of in my eyes was "breaking the law." But I don't hold his anti-war views against him.

 

Furthermore I think the right was the most "isolationist" during the 30's and early WW2 before Pearl Harbour, i e they didn't see any reason to participate in other countries' conflicts and wanted no part of WW2 until they themselves were attacked.

Actully, Bush jr was known as leaning toward the isolationist republican tradition when first elected, if I remember correctly, but then of course 9/11 changed everything. And he wasn't too eager to fight in Vietnam either, right? Personally, that is.

 

I think golf war #2 was poorly handled. We were supposed to be looking for Al Quaida terrorists and found ourselves battling the Taliban in Afghanistan and searching for weapons of "mass destruction" in Iraq.. I am both American and lived through those times and yet still I'm confused as to what happened there. But what do I know?

 

Silver Skull, so why not move to a communist country, and sing the Internationale, and post pictures of Marx, Stalin, Ali, Sharpton, Jackson, Obama etc. I did not start this political war on ESB, BUT I am too damn old to let some lefties destroy what was once a great country...And Silver skull, Capitalism creates JOBS , invents things like the very computer you spout
your vitriol on, whilst socialism, communism, takes away liberty, motivation to succeed, and freedom to express your foolishness
as you do on this subject...So sir, take your Stalinistic, Castro tye socialism, while I will take my beloved country I grew up in
during the pre-war years, and after. The WHITE MAN"S WAR...
What a bunch of malarkey, the product of radical lefty professors of the 1950s. This to you SS. GOD BLESS AMERICA, with all it's faults, the greatest country along with the England of Churchill's era...Sayanara...:hi:

 

Yes U,in the short run the communist philosophy was enticing to
American blacks during the late 1930s-early 1940s, but in the long run Communism proved to be a failure as proven in Russia,
Cuba, North Korea, where liberty and motivation is squashed.
Tell me U whom I respect, how many people you know from the USA or Britain FLEES to Russia, Cuba, North Korea, to live a BETTER prosperous life ? We all no the ANSWER? ZERO.
Doesn't that tell us something. Bless the USA and Britain I say...

 

Bok, of course we can't compare our entering WW2 after Pearl Harbor with entering our conflict in Vietnam. Pearl Harbor we were brutally attacked and our very survival was threatened, as opposed to the Vietnam conflict when I recall vividly Russian
Communism was trying to make inroads in Asia in a devious way.
The USA tried to prevent this from happening so we entered the fray for good motives and not for land or rice paddies...Did this
far away battle turn out as we would have liked it to ? Most likely NO, but we did it NOT for PROFIT or LAND but to try to halt the
spread of a Russian type of Communism, and only if you had lived through those perilous times as I and others did, can you today sense the valid fear of Russian expansion... We tried for
unselfish reasons, but as General Sherman once said, "WAR IS HELL AND YOU CANNOT REFINE IT "...Peace B...

 

I'm not saying fear for Russian expansion wasn't valid, just as fear for German expansion in the 30's was valid. Yet there was no major opinion in support for going to war with Germany before the US was dragged into the war by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's subsequent declaration of war.

Nothing like the attack on Pearl Harbor or Germany's declaration of war happened in the case of the Vietnam war, so of course there's a major difference.

 

The rationale for going to war with Iraq was logically flawed in apparent ways.

I, and many with me, actually thought Iraq had WMDCs and there were intelligence suggesting it, so I won't go too hard on Bush for this just because everything is 20-20 in hindsight. But it was known for a fact that both Iran and Syria had chemical weapons and that ****stan, whose powerful military and security service were and are riddled with Al Qaeda sympathizers, had nuclear weapons. In fact, a ****stani nuclear scientists was caught shortly after 9/11 trying to give Al Qaeda blue prints of nuclear weapons.

So therefore it seemed like faulty reasoning to single out Iraq. Not that Saddam didn't pose a threat at all, just no more of a threat than several others in the region. Rather the focus should have stayed on Afganistan and the ****stani borderlands, with a very watchful eye on the ****stani administration.

The talk of Iraq being democratized as soon as Saddam was removed from power seemed so naive to me that I couldn't believe Bush & co believed it themselves, but it soon became apparent that they did.

Is it just me, or have this thread veered from topic (whatever that were) a tiny bit.