If you believe Dr.Johnson, I’m a Blockhead. But I think I’m in good company. I’m generally inclined to believe Johnson. He noted that the Americans most vocal in the cause of “Liberty” were slaveholders. More than two centuries later his observation is still true. The people of Indonesia and the Philippines, for instance have been sacrificed to the American run World Bank. John Pilger has described the price paid by Indonesians, and Tadhg Kennelly, in a memoir, the price paid by the Filipinos and Filipinas.
But Johnson also held that only a Blockhead wrote Pro Bono Publico. I don’t think money is Pilger’s motivator, and it can hardly be that of Tadhg Kennelly, who went to the Phillipines as a Columban Father, and after the World Bank took control found himself giving the Last Rites of the Church to young children dying from the effects of their impoverishment. Tadhg left the priesthood, politically radicalised. He wrote his memoir* in Irish – not a road to riches. No fumbling in the greasy till.
You’ll probably recall that phrase. Its author, when told that he’d won the Nobel Prize for Literature (the first of three Irishmen to win it) had but two words to say: “HOW MUCH?”.
* ” Casta: O Eirinn go dti na Filippinigh agus ar ais.”
Sorry! That Title should be
“BOTHAR CASTA: O Eirinn go dti na Filippinigh agus ar ais.”