My Weird Correspondence with Noam Chomsky

4 August 2002

Michael Albert sysop@zmag.org

Hi there from Italy! Would you be interested in reading my article Why the DisUnited States of America and the DisUnited Kingdom Are Loathed the Length and Breadth of This Planet? I would like to send my article to Noam Chomsky. Would you be so kind as to send me an address of his? Thank you. Cordially... Professor Anthony St. John

4 August 2002

Anthony St. John

Mike Albert forwarded your letter. Article sounds intriguing. I'd like to read it, but can't promise anything, particularly in the short term. Am utterly swamped. Noam Chomsky

5 August 2002

Professor Noam Chomsky Massachusetts Institute of Technology chomsky2@mit.edu

Thank you for your Sunday 4 August 2002 email. I am indeed honored/honoured to hear from you personally. And it was very nice, too! I am attaching my article Why the DisUnited States of America and the DisUnited Kingdom Are Loathed the Length and Breadth of This Planet. If it is your policy not to open attachments, please supply me with a snail mail address; if so, I will send my article pronto to you. I know you are extremely busy. I have been waiting decades for someone to pay attention to my writings. I can wait forever more, I swear! By the way, when you will have finally read the attached, Why the..., I will be happy to then send you my Why I Sat Under an Olive Tree in Calenzano, Italy, 27 March 1994, Set to Flames My United States' Passport, Dried My Eyes, and then Returned Home to Write a Letter Renouncing My United States' Citizenship: A Testing of the Value of Democratic Principles in the United States of America. How's that for a mouthful! Professor Chomsky, you have always been a beacon of hope for me, and I wish that my articles turn out to be the same for you! Cordially... Tony Anthony St. John

25 August 2002

Hi there from Italy, Noam Chomsky & Michael Albert! I respectfully submit to you both my article Southamerican Generals and Uniforms and Sunglasses and Tailored Italian Suits: Trying to Make Squares out of Circles which I think will give you both some extra insight into Venezuela andnaturallythe ways and means of the United States' Department of State as it operates, often, abroad. I am waiting anxiously to hear something not only about this article, but also concerning the other article (Why the DisUnited States of America and the DisUnited Kingdom Are Loathed the Length and Breadth of This Planet) I sent to you, Professor Chomsky, and the articles I sent to you, Professor Albert. Believe me, I value very much your opinions. I wish to tender this idea: Is there anything whatever I may do to help The Cause from here in Italy? (Perhaps you might want me to stop sending articles to you to read!) From my A Book of Aphorisms and Quotations by Anthony St. John (an idea I took from Norman Mailer's Advertisements for Myself) I offer this quote: 21. Yes, silence can be golden. But, it also might serve as the refuge of censors, bureaucrats and twerps. Cordially... Tony Anthony St. John

25 August 2002

Anthony St. John Got the earlier article, but no time yet for more than a quick skim. Am utterly deluged. Will be back when I can, but it may be a while.

You can't imagine what the crush is like right now. What can be done in Italy? A lot. Just take Znet. Lots of people from around the world contribute. Either things they happen to know about because of their own work and experiences, or reports from parts of the world about which little is known here (which means just about every part of the world, including Europe). Noam At this point in time, I initiated (thanks to Professor Albert) a parallel correspondence with historian Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University and author of the world-famous A People's History of the United States: 1492Present. The Mighty Zinn and I continued to write to each other up until 1 September 2009 when he wrote this email to me regarding my article, Why the Central Stupidity Agency is So Stupid!: Anthony, this is brilliantI love your writing and wish there was some way we could distribute more widely all the stuff you've written.... He died 27 January 2010. He was one of the best friends I had ever had in my whole life, and I keep the autographed copy (For Tony in friendship, Howard 2002) of his bestseller, which he snailmailed to me, on the night table next to my bed along with W R Robinson's Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poetry of the Act and other books I cherish for what they have taught me. I had the pleasure to meet The Mighty Zinn and his wife, Roz, in the summer of MMV in Rome, Italy. His gait was distinguished and humble. Howard Zinn went all out to help me get published. He wrote on my behalf to Dan Simon, the editors of The Nation and The Progressive, Norman Mailer, the editors of Le Monde Diplomatique, and who knows who else. He knew very well that what I had said about the Vietnam War would probably keep me from being publishedin all likelihood foreverin the DisUnited States of America. So what? He kept trying. I keep trying! It is a joy to have a hero to look up to. I have a collection of them. The Mighty Zinn and W R Robinson were two academic paladins I had the opportunity to meet face to face. Many others are on the night stand next to my sleeping place, and every night I thank them for all that they have contributed to me throughout the years. The Mighty Zinn was special. We wrote to each other for years, and I begged him to let me know if I was pestering him. No, Tony! He oozed an unimportance about himself that should be an example for all university professors. His history of the DisUnited States is a classic of scholarship and intellectual honesty. This tome must be read by all in the world to understand the

genuine meaning of The United States of America.

1 September 2002

Hi there, Noam Professor Chomsky & Howard Professor Zinn! I hope you are well. Do you both believe the word professor is a dirty title? Here is a little story about Authority... When I was being briefed by another artillery forward observer, on his way home, just before being helicoptered to my first combat assignment (Fourth Division, Pleiku, South Vietnam)--perhaps the most dreary day in my lifethe FO stopped me in my tracks as I went to leave, and with an extremely sadistic laugh, asked me this: How many first aid packs do you have? One, I replied. He then tossed me three, one by one, and with an enormous smile cautioned me: A bullet that goes in, might go out. I was off to the helicopter pad and then to the jungles of the Central Highlands (The Snowflake Division) adjacent to the borders of Laos and Cambodia. I wasn't in the field, on my first combat assignment, more than five minutes when a grunt (infantry private) introduced himself this way: What's your name, lieutenant? Here in the boonies we're on a first name basis. This 19-year-old had no respect for me, for his army, for his country, for himself. He was in Vietnam to get out. And our little infantry company was for him a family that must protect him for a year so that he could go home. He had no military mission. His mission was to save himself and his friends. He could care less if his leaders were killed, and he even hoped they would be. He had no officer to look up to. No general. No president. I had to fight with him and my recon sergeant and my RTO to keep their 5-meter distances, to stop laughing and making noises in the silence of the night. Professors are leaders, too. They lead on the battlefield of the University. When we arrive on that battlefield, we want someone we can look up to, to respect, to admire, to feel good with. We do not want a friend. We want an adviser. My faculty adviser at the University of Florida was Professor W R Robinson. On the night table next to my bed, I have his classic work (autographed) of literary criticism, Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poetry of the Act. I

have read it four or five times, and I make frequent visits to passages I have underlined in it. It would be really hard for me to call WRR Bill! I wrote to him some time ago addressing him WRR! With this email you will find another consideration of the word Authority. My article, The Entrancingbut PerilousWilliam F Buckley, Jr: Intimate Glimpses of a Dogmatic Timocrat and His Family, will give you another insight into what is a bad sense of the meaning of the word Authority. I am sure you will find it interesting. By the way, I am very frequently called professore here in Italy, and I am not associated with any institute of learning. I have spent hours telling people not to call me professore but Tony! Even Maria Luisa sometimes calls me professorewhen she is not calling me stronzo (little shit!). Relax. Walk long distances. Cordially... Tony ASJ Anthony St. John Professore Anthony St. John

2 September 2002

Anthony St. John

Only my enemies call me Prof. You saw we want to look up to someone... I think you are generalizing too far. You may want to, but others don't. I don't. When I was in college, the faculty I respected and learned from mostly ended up on first-name basis. Or began that way. In my own graduate department, nothing else would be thinkable. I think there are good reasons for that. Education is a cooperative

enterprise. However, there's reason to legislate for others. If others are more comfortable with hierarchic arrangements, that's their choice. Life can tolerate plenty of healthy diversity. Noam

8 September 2002

Hi there, Professor Chomsky and Professor Zinn! I hope you two old coots are taking long walks and your Geritol tablets! I am especially jovial today because for the first time one of my articles was published on the Internet!...I am so happy that my article can reach out to millions and millions of people without having to chop down even one tree! To celebrate I had a big dish of pasta and opened a bottle of Est! Est!! Est!!! from Montefiascone (Bigi). A great inexpensive wine. My Jewish friends in Brooklyn and Hollywood, Florida were not big drinkers, for sure. Especially the professionals. But you two should indulge a bit. Wineespecially good, rich red wineis good for your circulation. Professor Chomsky, I am stunningly interested to know why you could say this: Only my enemies call me Prof. You surely would be a tough nut to crack! Is not that a generalization? I generalize all day long! I particularize all day long! When I confuse Inductive reasoning with Deductive reasoning, I think PIGInductive Particular to the General! Has not some little old lady come up to you and said: Why, Professor Chomsky, I think you are a wonderful linguistic analyst! Please understand that I, too, would probably call you Noam if I studied at MIT and everyone around me was on a first name basis. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or, perhaps, if we were sitting together on a trans-Atlantic flight and we got to know each other personally, would I not wind up calling you Noam? (That is if you were a nice guy!) Are you a nice guy, Professor Chomsky? How can I know. I have never met you.) What is Professor Chomsky like? I must also say that after living in Europe since 1 May 1983, I feel I would prefer to refer to all my professors by their

titles and not their first names. And I'm really not an old fart. Some have called me provocateur. I like to think of myself as a Constructively Positive Stimulus! Do you blow up easily? Before I type the next sentence (a question) please take a deep breathor your pills! Do you, Professor Chomsky, call your Massachusetts Institute of Technology colleagues at the United States Armyendowed MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology by their first names? For you, education is a cooperative enterprise. And you are right. But.... Healthy diversity? Yet, be careful..... If someone calls you Prof and does not do so out of respect, then that person is a false person. And perhaps even one without any courage. If I thought you were an asshole, Professor Chomsky, I would call you that! Professor Chomsky there, I said it again!--there is no way you might count me as one of your enemies. I have no reason to be opposed to you. Since I first learned about you at the University of Miami in a general linguistics course in the 1970s, I have been alert to the contribution (more so to yours political, I may add) you have offered to all of us. (I cannot buy your books in English here in Italy, and if they are translated into Italian, I would not want to read them for fear the translation would dilute their authenticityjust as I would not read John Keats or David Hume in Italian.) Earlier this year, Le Monde Diplomatique lauded you for your heroism and presented you as a great freedom fighter for all the world to emulate. Bernard Cassen and Ignacio Ramonet are two of the best journalists in the world. And I am not a fan of journalists! (From my A Book of Aphorisms & Quotations by Anthony St. John: Journalism is an exaggeration of an exaggeration.) I have a rather good impression of youwithout knowing you personally! So, I hold off. And, so do you! In the emails you have sent me, you, Professor Chomsky, have never once addressed me! Not as Tony or Anthony or Mr St. John or Mr Anthony St John. Why? I am puzzled. Professor Zinn, what do you think? I assume, Professor Chomsky, that We Want to Look Up to Someone is a movie. Is it? I have not been to the movies for more than ten years. And not because I don't want to go. Soon, a 16-theatre cinema will open near my home, and I intend to take advantage of it. I watch Northamerican movies dubbed into Italian on Italian television. I may have seen the movie you are referring to, but I cannot be sure. In Italy, the titles of movies are changed unless, of course, they are titled TERMINATOR XXVI or TITANTIC.

So, I may have seen that movie but I cannot recognize it by the name you have mentioned. (Interestingly, in Italy many Northamerican movies are ones of violence or police types. Why? Because in these films there is less dialogue during a police chase or a gun battle and this drops the cost of expensive dubbing. I am sure that we are in agreement on one thing: 90% of the stuff printed on celluloid is rubbish! No? Is it not vulgar that every year The Academy votes to give itself awards! Crazy! I studied literary criticism and film criticism at the University of Florida.) Come on, Professor Chomsky, in Vietnam it would have been good for all of us if the officer corps had been respected. You cannot kid around in a battle zone. A sense of formality keeps the troops alert. Being alert saves lives. Attached to this email is another article of mine, ([Between the Pulpous Pith of Parentheses]). This is an appeal to people to learn another language. I hope you like it. (If you have too much to do and find no time to read it, ask one of your family members to do so for me, please. Thank you.) Professor Zinn, I did not mean to exclude you. I have not heard from you and have nothing to respond to you about. I am waiting to receive your book, A People's History of the United States. Cordially... Tony 9 September 2002

Anthony St. John

Dear Tony or Anthony or Mr St John or St John or Mr Anthony St John Don't know which I've used, if any. With 100 odd e-mails a day all sorts of things happen. Glad to hear about the publicationand thanks, incidentally, for the poetry (Extracts from A Book of Poetry about the Vietnam War), which I picked up the other day.

I can't remember when I've last heard one faculty member address an other as profbut then, I rarely have contacts with faculty outside the informal occasions. Noam

15 September 2002

Hi there, Professors Chomsky & Zinn! I hope you both are well. On 1 January 2002 I sent a letter to the editor of The Nation asking if The Nation would like to see the rest (I had included only three pages of my unfinished manuscript) of my article, Why the DisUnited States of America and the DisUnited Kingdom Are Loathed the Length and Breadth of This Planet when it had been completed. On 7 January 2002, I received the following letter (snail mail) from the editor, herself, of The Nation: Dear Anthony St. John, Thank you for the New Year's letter. Please keep in touch. Sincerely, Katrina vanden Heuvel. Needless to say, I was encouraged, and as soon as Why the DisUnited States... was finished, she was the first to whom I sent off the piece. I never received an answer, a word, from Ms vanden Heuvel. I have written to her asking why, I have forwarded other articles, FAXes, emails, etc. NOT A WORD! The same nightmarishly complex, bizarre and illogical (Kafkaesque) treatment from Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive. Professor Zinn, you once spoke with me about individuals who have left the United States in disgustbeing fed-up, them, with life in the United States. I left the United States to be free not because I could not take it any longer. Professor Chomsky, I cannot tell you what you should call me when you direct an email to my attention. However, I must admit even stronzo would be better than nothing! (The telegram I received 8 May 1967 ordering me to Vietnam was more tender than nothing!) I am attaching my article The Jewish Franciscan Father (an obituary for CNN's Larry King) which I am sure you both will enjoy.

As they say on 800 toll-free numbersbut really meaning it!--I leave you with this: HAVE A NICE DAY! Cordially... Tony

15 Sepember 2002

Anthony St. John

I gather from your letter that I wrote to you without a name. I write perhaps 100 responses a day to e-mail, and often do that. Seems simpler, but if you find it offensive, will try to remember not to keep to that practice. On the Nation, you should feel privileged that you received at least an acknowledgment. Better than my personal experience. I am leaving the country for talks, and won't be receiving e-mail for several weeks. Noam

Anthony St. John

16 September 2002

Dear Sir, Please take Prof Chomsky off your mailing list, as his schedule doesn't allow him to read all of the hundreds of e-mails each week that he receives. Thank you, and apologies for the possible tone of this request. Take care, Bev Stohl Assistant to Noam Chomsky

Anthony St. John www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior