Chalmers Johnson has died

[PuraVidaDreamin]

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/chalmers-johnson/66853/

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/chalmers-johnson/66853/

I have just heard that Chalmers Johnson died a few hours ago, at age 79, at his home near San Diego. He had had a variety of health problems for a long time. (Photo source here.)

Johnson -- "Chal" -- was a penetrating, original, and influential scholar, plus a very gifted literary and conversational stylist. When I first went to Japan nearly 25 years ago, his MITI and the Japanese Miracle was already part of the canon for understanding Asian economic development. Before that, he had made his name as a China scholar; after that, he became more widely known with his books like Blowback, about the perverse effects and strategic unsustainability of America's global military commitments. Throughout those years he was a mentor to generations of students at the UC campuses at Berkeley and San Diego.

Johnson and his wife and lifelong intellectual partner Sheila were generous and patient with me, as I was first trying to understand the world they had studied and analyzed. I vividly remember spending an afternoon in the early 1990s on the sunny patio at their house in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, north of the UCSD campus. I'd moved back from Japan, was working on a book about it, and spent hours writing notes as fast as I could as Johnson described Douglas MacArthur's mistakes and (occasional) successes during the U.S. Occupation of Japan, and why Japan's economy was unlikely to open itself on the Western model, even if U.S. or British economists kept giving lectures about the importance of deregulation. I have never concentrated harder as I tried to be sure to capture his bons mots.

Johnson would have been about 60 at the time. Even then he suffered from a rheumatoid or gout-like condition that caused him swelling and pain. "It all goes so fast," I remember him saying. He made good use of his time. Sympathies to Sheila Johnson and their many friends.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/chalmers-johnson/66853/

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/chalmers-johnson/66853/

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We have lost another great voice of truth and reason. Rest in Peace Mr. Johnson.

[Jefferson23]

1. RIP dear man, our loss. n/t

[wookie72]

34. Blowback was the first book I read after 9/11

I wish more people had, then maybe we'd have saved ourselves a lot of gried.

[Jefferson23]

37. Absolutely, agreed! n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

45. Perfect. A hybrid of greed and grief.

Gried.

Maybe Oxford will give you word of the year.

[wookie72]

46. i call it an opportune typo.

It happens.

[rurallib]

2. Used to watch him on Free Speech and UCal TV

Can't remember just exactly how he said it but a few years ago I remember him saying something like
"if a person were smart they would buy a house in Vancouver with a porch to sit on where they could watch the United States destroy itself."

[EFerrari]

16. CSPAN video library has a number of his presentation:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/search-results.php?keywords=chalmers+johnson

[BrklynLiberal]

23. wow.....

[immoderate]

3. Johnson will be missed. He was very smart.

For me, he was up there with Chomsky as a thinker and analyst.

--imm

[pnorman]

4. Here's his Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson

Of note is that he had started as a "Cold War Warrior", and evolved into a staunch critic of neo-lib doctrines about Japan and the far east. I had first encountered his thinking many years ago, in his book "Conspiracy At Matsukawa" (about a railway "sabotage" in early post war Japan, that was used to frame railway union leaders) That was probably his first book that signaled his change of thinking.

I have his "Blowback Trilogy, as well as "Dismantling The Empire" in Audible.com format. In his honor, I'll be listening to them again very soon.

[FlyByNight]

5. Nemesis and The Sorrows Of Empire are...

...terrific and should be required reading.

[Odin2005]

6. Shit! That sucks!

RIP. :-(

[Time for change]

7. One of the greatest, most independent thinkers of our time

"The Last Days of the American Republic"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1047116

[justinaforjustice]

13. A Great Thinker & a Great Writer, So Sad To Lose Him.

His passing is truly a loss to well-researched, honest, intellectual thought and excellent writing.

[Ishoutandscream2]

17. TMC, I just got finished reading your post from 2007

Looks like some reading for me on the Christmas break. Nice reviews, by the way. Looks like I will learn about this great man after his death. Pity that.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

22. I missed that post.

Thank you for reposting. Maybe you should update it as a tribute.
It's that important.

[BrklynLiberal]

24. Wow! What a great post! Thanks for posting the link..

[indepat]

36. Hear! Hear!

[jwirr]

8. This is a great lose - he has defined much of our thinking about the

military in these last years.

[U4ikLefty]

9. Awww man!!! I met & conversed with him in May of 2005.

He gave a talk at our university & sat at the table AFTER the book-signing talking with us for about 45 minutes...awesome!!!

I feel lucky to have glimpsed into the mind of such a great man.

Just looked to my bookshelf at my autographed copy of "Blowback" and a tear started to form.

RIP Chalmers Johnson.

[Octafish]

10. A great man who truly loved the United States of America.

He hated what it has become and did all he could to right the nation to what it is meant to be.

[EFerrari]

11. A tremendous loss.

[soryang]

12. Nemesis, The Last Days of the American Republic

I just finished reading it last night, a great book and a prophetic warning to the American people about their runaway militaristic empire. He was an important voice, too bad he is gone. Rest in peace.

[swilton]

14. A GREAT, GREAT LOSS

of one of the true GIANTS of intellectual thought. Rest in peace!

[mahina]

15. What an amazing intellect, heart and mind.

He spoke here at the East West Center several years ago, when it seemed there was still a chance to avert another war.

I'll reread his books. He was a fine person and he left his mark. What would it take for someone so articulate and informed to actually be heard by the powers that be?

Aloha Mr. Johnson, a hui hou.

[JDPriestly]

18. This is an enormous loss to our country.

I loved his Dismantling the Empire. Heard him speak a few years ago and was deeply moved by his knowledge, his understanding and his sincere humility.

My condolences to his family and all who loved him.

[femrap]

19. What an intellect....RIP.

My sympathies to his wife.

Damn.

[democracy1st]

20. RIP

[BrklynLiberal]

21. Sad News. I have Blowback and Sorrows of the Empire. Whenever I saw him or heard him speak

I stopped to listen carefully. His was a voice of reason in a time of chaos. How very, very sad. Condolences to his family.

[20score]

25. Damn!

[Dappleganger]

26. What a great loss.

[mckara]

27. I Enjoyed Reading His Books

I didn't always agree with him, but his work was always thought provoking.
My condolences to his family and friends.

[many a good man]

28. RIP

His Blowback trilogy will be read 1000 years from now, if we make it that long.

[somone]

29. A great American and a great thinker

R.I.P.

[hfojvt]

30. "Sleepwalking through History" seemed like an excellent book

although I found it too depressing to read.

[RainDog]

31. He left a great body of work n/t

[Senator]

32. K&+R

[Quantess]

33. a "conversational stylist"? How effete sounding.

He contributed a lot more than "conversational style", whatever that means. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear it.

[WizardLeft62]

35. Thanks but I am Sad now

Rest in Peace Mr. Johnson.....I will miss your fine insights....Thanks for all your wisdom and knowledge....I hope to put it to good use in the future....

You were a great man!!!

[mmonk]

38. He was a great truth teller. I have his empire trilogy and will miss his wisdom.

[tnlefty]

39. Stunned, and yes, we have lost a voice of truth and reason.

Sympathies to his family and friends, and to those like me who enjoyed his writings and being challenged to just think a bit, and to think so much more.

Bon voyage mon ami.

[lordsummerisle]

40. A Great Writer

What a loss...his books are highly recommended.

[Hissyspit]

41. Tom Dispatch's Eulogy:

Note for TomDispatch Readers: I’m sad to report that Chalmers Johnson died on Saturday. He was a stalwart of this site, writing for it regularly from its early moments. Without the slightest doubt, he was one of the most remarkable authors I’ve had the pleasure to edit, no less be friends with.

He saw our devolving American world with striking clarity and prescience. He wrote about it with precision, passion, and courage. He never softened a thought or cut a corner. I dedicated my new book to him, writing that he was “the most astute observer of the American way of war I know. He broke the ground and made the difference.” I wouldn’t change a word.

He was a man on a journey from Depression-era Arizona through the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and deep into a world in which the foundations of the American empire, too, began to shudder. A scholar of Japan, one-time Cold Warrior, and CIA consultant, in the twenty-first century, he became the most trenchant critic of American militarism around. I first read a book of his -- on Communist peasants in North China facing the Japanese “kill-all, burn-all, loot-all” campaigns of the late 1930s -- when I was 20. I last read him this week at age 66. I benefited from every word he wrote. His Blowback Trilogy ( Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.) will be with us for decades to come.

His final work, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope, is a testament to his enduring power, even as his body was failing him. To my mind, his final question was this: What would the “sole superpower” look like as a bankrupt country? He asked that question. Nobody, I suspect, has the answer. We may find out. “Adios,” he invariably said as he signed off on the phone. Adios, Chal. Tom

[zeos3]

42. RIP

The Sorrows of Empire was the first book of his I read. He was a brilliant man.

[raccoon]

43. Sorry to hear that. He wrote some really good stuff. nt

[myrna minx]

44. RIP.

:-(

[pnorman]

47. Telling the People’s Story: A Tribute to Chalmers Johnson

In February 1996, I broke a major story on U.S. foreign policy, reporting for the first time how the United States government and the Carter administration had secretly backed the South Korean government in its 1980 crackdown on a nation-wide movement to end military rule. The May 1980 coup led directly to the massacre of hundreds of activists by South Korean Special Forces in the Korean city of Kwangju. My stories appeared on the first day of the trial in Seoul of the two generals and former presidents who had led the coup; both were later convicted for murder and treason. The stories were a sensation in South Korea. But, to my shock, they were virtually ignored by the U.S. media, including both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which had covered the 1980 events in detail. I concluded that nobody here really cared, and went back to my regular beat, covering trade and transportation for the Journal of Commerce.

About 10 days after my stories appeared, a three-page, single-spaced fax came in for me from somewhere in San Diego. It was from Chalmers Johnson, a former professor of Asian Studies at the University of California who I knew by reputation as an excellent writer and commentator on Japan, Asia and U.S. foreign policy. In the fax, Chalmers praised my stories and said they had confirmed what he suspected about the U.S. role in South Korea during the Cold War, which he was then investigating for a book that he would later publish under the title of BLOWBACK: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. To make sure that my work received broader coverage, he invited me to speak at a conference he was organizing on the legacy of the Cold War in Asia later that year in San Francisco. There, I met Chal, as I came to know him, and presented my findings on Kwangju. I also met many of Chal’s friends and colleagues, including Steve Clemons, who had lived in Japan as well and is now the vice president of the New America Foundation in Washington. That conference was a turning point in my writing career, lifting me out of journalist obscurity and putting me in touch with many other writers and analysts who I’d long admired from afar.
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http://timshorrock.com/?p=990