With due respect to Chris, I think John Walker makes some very valid points below.
Interjections:
>>> "J.WALKER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12/15/99 07:17AM >>>
Good morning Chris,
What I objected to and what completely mystifies me is (other than a
sort of chaos theory of everything inevitable linking to everything
else) how the minor event (and miniscule political implication of
that event) of Mohammad Ali being sports personality of the century
leads in any meaningful way toward revolution.
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CB: The connection of this bourgeois media event to revolution is extremely tenuous to
non-existent.
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What is the 'wider sense' in which the votes were symbolic of more
than boxing? Surely those who voted for him because of his political
stand on a war long since gone are not made any more revolutionary by
the action of voting in such a media event than they already must
have been. Who in the world is going to be influenced in a
revolutionary direction by the knowledge that the centuries greatest
sporting personality went to prison?
If anything the whole thing is merely a strengthening of reaction.
The idea that voting for someone has any real effect is mere
bolstering of the parliamentary democracy which uses the same system.
The idea of personality of the century strenthen the bourgeois
ideology of the importance of the individual. The Carlylian
hero-worship, the ideology that it is great men who make history not
humanity as a whole.
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Charles: Yes, it is "celebrityism". "Stars"
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And what was the so-called 'sport' that this
man excelled in (as well as the sports personality of the year) but
boxing!!!!. Do you have a theory of the revolutionary potential of
the activity of boxing? Perhaps as a means of building up class
fighters who can go out and punch the bourgeoisie into submission!
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Charles: Yes, that sounds like a good one !
By the way, lets ditch American football too, where people are smashing each other all
the time as an object of the game.
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IMO boxing is one of the great distraction which the bourgeoisie
supports in order to distract the working class from what should
be the real target of their agression. They idea of two working class
people punching each other until one of the collapses (and the health
problems they sustain in later life) must be sheer delight to the
bourgeoisie and especially that section which takes millions of
pounds from the working class through gambling on such fights (aided
by their ability to 'fix' fights). If anything Ali victory is a
victory for the bourgeoisie and its constant aim to prevent militancy
against them.
One could even argue that boxing (like gambling and drinking) is the
opiate of the masses.
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Charles: I'd say spectator sports in general are one of the new opiates of the working
class male masses. If we could get people to actually participate in sports that
would be something different. But sitting around watching it on television is
anti-activist, passivity, vicariousness.
Charles Brown
Detroit
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