The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Chalmers Johnson: 1931-2010

    By we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:01am |

                                 

    This author and educator has done as much to make us aware of the destructive dangers of American Empire and hegemony as any single individual has.  He has authored and co-authored over a dozen books, including a look at the last days of the American Republic, and shone a bright light on the more than a thousand US bases in existence world-wide. 

    He died yesterday at his home near San Diego at age 79; his health had been failing.  His suffering is over, but many of us grieve his loss, and wish him, his wife Sheila, and the rest of his family Godspeed.

    A former CIA Cold Warrior, he came to know American global domination personally.  His last book, Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope, was published in August 2010.   He was a frequent contributor to Tomdispatch.com; here is an interview he did on MIC.

    I feel strangely saddened and dislocated by the death of this man I never knew.

    Chalmers Ashby Johnson:  August 6, 1931-November 20, 2010.  Thank you, Mr. Johnson; and rest in peace.

     

    Comments

    Thanks Stardust.  You know, I didn't even know who he was... and was surprised to learn today that he realized decades ago that state-controlled economies were going to give "free market" economies a run for the world's money.  Everything you see now about China is Chalmers inspired whether the author makes the acknowledgment or not.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:29am

    Say more about China?  I have brain-lock right now.  More should be being written about it since Bernanke called them out for their undervaluing the yuan being causative to our economic woes.  Bullshit, but there isn't much pushback so far.  In the above interview, he's asked about 'Keyensian military spending.'

    Nick Turse is following in his steps, as are others, but Johnson was the man, as far as I'm concerned. 

    Here he is in Part I of a 2007 conversation with Amy Goodman; Part II won't play for me, but it's on the right side of the page:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMAYR9MXgQ&feature=related   

     


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:43am

    Steve Clemmons did this write-up that you probably already saw at TPM.  In it, he uses Chalmers' work on Japan's economic growth as kind of a model for future China studies.  Coincidentally, I find if you read Robert Reich's "The Work Of Nations" and replace Japan with China whenever you see a Japanr reference that it leads to some interesting conclusions (some settling some unsettling) about what things might look like between the U.S. and China in 10 or 20 years.


    by Michael Maiello on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:48am

    Thanks, Destor; I just saw Clemons' piece at the Cafe.  Hit the link for 'Developmental State'.  I get it now.  What a brilliant man Chalmers was; we need more like him, if for nothing else than to kick Tom Friedman's royal ass.   Laughing 

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


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 11:59am

    A great loss for our country and for humankind.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 12:36pm

    A body-blow, somehow, AD.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 1:17pm

    Thanks, Stardust, for acknowledging the passing of a good man. We have to hope that Chalmers Johnson wasn't the last Chalmers Johnson. He saw things before they became obvious and now, years later, so many people are still blind to what he saw even though it is in front of their face.
     Rest in peace, Mr. Johnson.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 12:56pm

    More tears, and a tribute: 


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 1:52pm

    This is terrible... these people like Chalmers Johnson and Edward Said are dying off and nobody is taking their place.... Long life to Noam Chomsky!


    by David Seaton on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 2:42pm

    And Zinn...confess I did not know Said, but I googled.  Long and healthy life to all who defend human rights, economic justice, and peace.

     


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 2:57pm

    Zinn too of course.... all goneCry


    by David Seaton on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 3:02pm

    I cross-posted at FDL (sorry I forgot to say it here) and welshTerrier2 quoted the final two graphs of Sorrows of Empires:

    “There is plenty in the world to occupy our military radicals and empire enthusiasts for the time being. But there can be no doubt that the course on which we are launched will lead us into new versions of the Bay of Pigs and updated, speeded-up replays of Vietnam War scenarios. When such disasters occur, as they – or as-yet-unknown versions of them – certainly will, a world disgusted by the betrayal of the idealism associated with the United States will welcome them, just as most people did when the former USSR came apart. Like other empires of the past century, the United States has chosen to live not prudently, in peace and prosperity, but as a massive military power athwart an angry, resistant globe.

    There is one development that could conceivably stop this process of overreaching: the people could retake control of the Congress, reform it along with the corrupted elections laws that have made it into a forum for special interests, turn it into a genuine assembly of democratic representatives, and cut off the supply of money to the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies. We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.”

    Echoes of MLK. 


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 3:20pm

    "When such disasters occur, as they – or as-yet-unknown versions of them – certainly will, a world disgusted by the betrayal of the idealism associated with the United States will welcome them, just as most people did when the former USSR came apart. Like other empires of the past century, the United States has chosen to live not prudently, in peace and prosperity, but as a massive military power athwart an angry, resistant globe."

    Well, apparently John Yoo says he "was only kidding!"

    Thanks for this, stardust! Chalmers was indeed prescient, and will be sadly missed. I think these twq paragraphs profoundly state the dilemma we face as a nation/empire more succinctly than anything else I've ever read. Great choice! I look forward to reviewing his works again although, unfortunately, with even less faith than ever before in our ability to arrest our meeting with Destiny (or Nemesis).

    Rest in peace, Chalmers Johnson. We hardly knew ye, and that is our loss and our shortcoming.


    by SleepinJeezus on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 5:34pm

    We pretend to learn from history; Oy.  Hard to see how this will ever unwind.  It's as though the MICC has a life of its own, like some say of Fire.  It is bleeding the nation and us.  If somehow the spark of resistance could come...

     

    Thanks, Jeezus.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 11/22/2010 - 6:17pm

    I read a substantial amount of Sorrows of Empire (I wasn't as quick a reader then as I am now) and liked alot of it. As it says in the bio of him, Johnson's expertise was East Asia, so his observations about military overstretch and the rise of the economies of Asia - China and India especially - remain prescient. Once unleashed, I'm not sure that there is any way that those two juggernauts can be competed with by anyone in the world.

    Alot of very smart writers who knew the area - like Christopher Hitchens - supported interventions in the Middle East based alot on the fact that the Middle East needs to be shaken up (something that I still maintain hope will happen through people who want better in life). As much as I love him, Hitchens made his mistake in coming from his own personal approach of an expatriated Briton with significant Mediterranean ties and not understanding the capacities of the United States or looking into what protracted involvement in the Middle East does to countries. (Just look at the Soviet Union in Afghanistan!)

    Reading the works of Khaled Hosseini will pang anyone's heart who doesn't want to see Afghanistan left to the wolves once again. However, such works must be balanced with those of people like Chalmers Johnson, who realize that the United States cannot sustainably be the imperial hegemon of the world.


    by Orion on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 6:33pm

    I would argue that we are not in Afghanistan to 'save them from the wolves', though.  That notion came later, 'the women and their daughters'. 

    I hadn't read his grand theories of state-sponsored economics.  It sounds as though he was indomitable in defense of them against great odds in the academic world.  What a human being.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 6:40pm

    Well, I was thinking more of Iraq when I was writing about Hitchens. He had written an extensive piece on the Kurds for National Geographic long before George W. Bush was president.

    You're right about Afghanistan. There was always some misgivings about what was going on under the Taliban - the destruction of the Buddhist statues, using UN paid stadiums for executions, etc. but it was not the justification for a foreign occupation. Intellectual arguments on humanitarian grounds, like this one, came later. 


    by Orion on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 6:59pm

    Susie Linfield got it right, IMO.  Iraq: many people polled say conditions were better under Saddam.  Things are terrible there now, though it's hard to find any news other than the coaltions building, then falling apart, with al Malaki, al Allawi, Al Sadr, et.al.  I fear it was another war of choice in which we were pretty clueless as to the unintended consequences, especially concerning Iran.  

    Our foreign policy is incoherent.  Taking tanks to Afghanistan while allegdly trying to 'win hearts and minds' and get some (loosely defined) 'Taliban' to negotiate a peace.  We are a strange nation of war-loving idiots who seem to always find buyers for the debts we incur to fund the wars that make us less safe.  Incomprehensible to me.  


    by we are stardust on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 7:18pm

    You're right. It makes absolutely no sense. That's why Linfield finds herself with no solution on the matter. 

    A couple years ago, my sister used to say that the United States was going the way of the Soviet Union. I dismissed it at the time. With our power retracting and the abandonment of Afghanistan looming ahead of us, that argument seems too strong.


    by Orion on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 7:47pm

    Empires die.  But first: the citizens of the Empires crash and burn.  We are burning.  Wake up America! 

    To quote one of my favorite bloggers:  'The world is watching [you] in love and concern.'  I fear we will disappoint him; and ourselves.  We are now out of time.  My regret is monumental.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 8:00pm

    ntellectual arguments on humanitarian grounds, like this one, came later.

    I disagree. I recall a lot of awareness of the "humanitarian" issues regarding the Taliban and Afghan women, before 9/11, and yes, including in pop culture.

    For one example:

    Mavis Leno

    ...She has been the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan since 1997.[2] In 1999, she and her husband, Jay Leno, donated $100,000 to the organization, to further the cause of educating the public about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban.[6]....

    The Buddha Statues were blown up in March, 2001.

    Time Magazine did a cover story on Afghan women a month after 9/11  but had been covering the topic  in the World Section for quite some time, including Mavis Leno's campaign in April, 1999,  as did the New York Times, in depth.

    In 1997, Christiane Amanpour won several awards for her CNN special "Battle for Afghanistan," including a George Polk, it covered the plight of women there quite a bit, and CNN reran it often. It was the same year that Peter Bergen got his interview with Osama bin Laden in a cave near Tora Bora which was also done working for CNN (the only cable news channel most cable subscribers had at the time.)

    Not that anyone was calling for us to invade, but there was a strong movement ala "do something about this, dammit."' I myself donated to RAWA in 1997.

    Just because you might not have been paying attention doesn't mean many of us weren't. The first WTC bombing was in 1993; if you were a New Yorker, chances are good you followed stories about Islamic terrorism thereafter. And the story followed Osama from Sudan to Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, whereafter we all heard tell of the troglodytes welcoming him.

    Our two African embassies were bombed Aug. 7, 1998:

    Before August 1998 was over,

    About 75 cruise missiles were fired by the US into the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at four Afghan training camps, Al Farouq training camp, Muawai camp run by the Pakistani Harkat-ul-Mujahideen to train militants to fight Indian troops in Kashmir, not Americans.[9][10] and another in the Jarawah area near Khost, as well as Zhawar Kili al-Badr which was directed by bin Laden, and known to be a meeting place for leaders.[11][12]

    The attack was made partly in an attempt to assassinate bin Laden and other leaders. [13]

    Wikipedia has a good list of world reaction to those strikes on that page, mostly supportive.

    I really wouldn't call 75 cruise missiles nothing much. If I recall correctly, at the time the Republicans in Congress were bitching about Clinton using up our stockpile...Taliban, Saddam, Milosevic, etc.

     

     


    by artappraiser on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 8:33pm

    I think he was speaking, as I was, of reasons to stay in Afghanistan longer, when it was becoming clear that we were losing. 

    Were you a fan of Sarha Chayes then?  She made the case twice on Bill Moyers that we needed to stay and escalate the war for 'her Afghan women'.  Matronizing (to perhaps coin a word) attitude, I thought.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 11/24/2010 - 10:53pm

    Don't give up yet, stardust. I understand that we are negotiating with some guy named "Borat" who is Supreme Emperor of the "Taliban Command and Christmas Savings Club." It's taking some deft negotiating (and a whole lotta' money, too!) but these talks are promising. Looks like we can win a negotiated settlement here, and all will be well.

    Friedman says we should give it six months, and then we can see where to go from there.

    {{end of snark}}

    "‎"It's not him, and we gave him a lot of money."

    After nine years, this is where we are at. You just can't make this shit up.


    by SleepinJeezus on Thu, 11/25/2010 - 9:23am

    LOL!  thanks, Tom Joad.  That headline almost compelled me to start a blog on headlines that wrote their own jokes; I swear. 

    But the New Report on Afghanistan doesn't make things sound like they are going all that swimmingly...though that's either ca case for staying, or leaving, depending who you are...  ;o)

    http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/11/24/pentagon-report-bleak-on-afghanistan/


    by we are stardust on Thu, 11/25/2010 - 9:39am