How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! (Mark Twain)
Tomato Guy and the Meaning of Life
My participation troophyTomato Guy and I had it out yesterday and last night. Read at your own peril.
Tomato Guy: Shrill, man. You’re getting shrill.
MT: I hear ya. It gets frustrating. Lincoln talked about only being able to fool some of the people all of the time, but these Americans are walking wounded. They are barely aware of anything.
Tomato Guy: That’s really harsh. Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t mean they are wrong.
MT: There are things that we can disagree on – it’s a very complicated world. I don’t have any answers on running an economy or a massive organization like the government. We try our best and accept failure and success and try to learn as we go. I’m talking about matters of water bring wet – we cannot disagree on hard evidence.
Tomato Guy: Such as?
MT: Neoclassical economics. It’s not a science. It has no predictive value. It has led us into a huge mess.
Tomato Guy: Your answer? Is it over there in the corner by your Nobel prize?
MT: That’s a participation trophy for a bowling tournament where they didn’t keep score so we wouldn’t have low self-esteem. We all got one. But no, I’m only saying that if something does not work, stop doing it. But people get paid to be wrong, and economists never have to have any consequences for being wrong. As JFK said, “They just move on to new advice.” But it’s the same advice, and it will fail again.
Tomato Guy: Jon Tester – why so hard on the guy?
MT: People are so easy to fool. He doesn’t even have to try. He merely says he favors this or that, and does nothing, or even works in the opposite direction. There’s no accountability. Politics is personal validation. Democrats are happy that Tester got elected, don’t care what he does, eat up everything he says he wants to do … I should look into that.
Tomato Guy: That’s politics, buddy! Most people don’t even vote, and those who do aren’t paying attention. You yourself said that the public is ill-informed and all of that. And here you are complaining about it. It is what it is!
MT: Yeah. You’re right. But still, it’s hard to watch the con man and the mark – I always sympathize with the mark.
Tomato Guy: That’s no way to go through life. You should just deal with the smart ones, and let the rest go their merry way. They don’t matter, never have.
MT: All right. And I am getting older – I’m 62, and I know our attitudes get crusty and memories worse as we age. But during Vietnam, and I’m sure during the Spanish American War and the Cuban invasion at the turn of the 20th century, there was strong opposition. It’s been written out of history, but people questioned the blowing up of the Maine just like 9/11. Lincoln knew that the Mexican war was brought about by a false flag operation. During Vietnam there were reporters over there who wrote honestly about what they experienced, and even though their editors did not like it, they did not censor them.
Tomato Guy: I can’t speak to the Spanish American War or the Maine, but you’re forgetting that American news reporting during Vietnam was every bit as bad as now.
MT: But there were voices – Halberstam, Arnett, Sheehan – these guys won Pulitzers and were not cowed by power. Arnett covered the First Gulf War and annoyed the military. I don’t think there is anyone worth mentioning now.
Tomato Guy: Budgets, embedding – and the wars are everywhere. And like you say, you can find it on the Internet if you look for it.
MT: Yeah, it’s out there. But I have to say, the American public was changed by 9/11. Ellul made this point …
Tomato Guy: Him again …
MT: He said that agitation propaganda destroys the intellect. When fear is at the basis of our thinking, we cannot think straight. You know this. Have you ever tried to start your car when you think someone is coming after you? Or think what to do when you hear noises in your house at night? Fear is debilitating, and constant fear, as Americans have lived under since 9/11, permanently destroys the ability to think rationally. The people who did 9/11 knew this. They are very, very good, and are still running things. It was coup d’état. As bad as we were before 9/11, after, our country even stopped pretending to have noble ideals.
Tomato Guy: It was a scary time, no doubt, but people have settled down again.
MT: No they haven’t. They are still scared, and that fear clouds their judgment so that a big and very in-your-face lie like the supposed killing of Osama goes down without even a yelp of protest.
Tomato Guy: Do you ever think you’re wrong on that one?
MT: Check to see if I have a tail? Yeah, being in a minority is hard, especially one where virtually everyone is bought in. But no, I’m pretty sure on that one, and have evidence to support me. No one else has that. All they have is received wisdom. If the man says it’s so, then it is so.
Tomato Guy: Oh, the burdens. You must be weary.
MT: Ettu TG? I’ll tell you what bothers me most: Some very stupid people get to ridicule people like me who see with our own eyes rather than through the lens of power. We have to endure these stupid people saying that we are crackpots and even mental.
Tomato Guy: All right, I’ll be frank. You are aware of your ideas and that others don’t buy into them. You examine those ideas. You don’t have delusions of grandeur – you know your limitations, even admit you can be wrong. So I’ll grant that you are not insane. Insane people never question their own sanity. But you’re still wrong about all of that stuff.
MT: Ours is an evidence-free culture. People believe what they are told to believe. But the worst part is that I’m not alone, only alone in speaking up. Most people who suspect, like I do, that we are living a huge lie, are afraid to say anything. I doubt when the Maine blew up that people who were skeptical were treated this way or were afraid to even speak. Books were written about Tonkin and the government eventually owned up to that lie. But no more. This is an oppressive culture.
Tomato Guy: What’s the point? You can’t win.
MT: Who said anything about winning? I just want to live and breathe free, have an honest existence, and not bow down before opinion masters in fear.
Tomato Guy: Whoop-de-doo. So do we all, but life is not like that. We don’t get to be as free as we want.
MT: Oh, it’s worse than that. We don’t even know freedom because we don’t experience it. I mean, I do, but I got lucky. Americans sing about freedom and take their hats off and salute that stupid flag and think that slavery is freedom. Who said that?
Tomato Guy: You got Orwell on the brain. He was talking about Russia.
MT: Animal Farm was about Stalinist Russia England. 1984 was set in England. And anyway, the principles are universal. Here’s what I don’t know – is it worse now than before? Is it like this in other places too? I imagine that people who live in countries without all of the agitprop we have to endure have an easier existence. But I don’t know. Maybe they just fret about other stuff. People like to fret. The important thing to me is to stand tall on principle no matter the nattering fools who only know what others think for them. So this blog, which you say is shrill, will go on as before.
12 thoughts on “Tomato Guy and the Meaning of Life”
You are old enough to remember that black and white movie about an eccentric man whose best friend was a giant invisible rabbit. It appears your rabbit is named Tomato Guy. Is this healthy??????
Slam! Nasty business you’re dealing in there. I’m not familiar with the movie, and explained to origins of the name TG, which I use to protect the identity, in the first TG post.
But I do advise you that if you like facts and evidence, continue coming here, and if you are more into being downstream and receiving your opinions from upstream sources, as virtually all Americans are, then go to MT Cowgirl or ID.
Mark, do you remember Elwood P. Dowd? He said: “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.” You seem to be making that victory declaration at whatever blog you visit.
Here, it takes creating a sock puppet, Tomato Guy, to have another go at it. Ain’t healthy. Unless you have an eidetic memory, there is no way you can relay a long conversation verbatim in sequence without letting the toys in your attic run wild and just sorta make stuff up to suit the moment.
I transcribe, TG approves. Of course I cannot remember every exchange. But I catch the gist and am pretty good at writing things down. Ever read a transcript of a real conversation? People interrupt, don’t speak in complete sentences, retract, backtrack, restate. It’s not good reading.
Who was it said
… it’s a very complicated world. I don’t have any answers on running an economy or a massive organization like the government. We try our best and accept failure and success and try to learn as we go. I’m talking about matters of water bring wet – we cannot disagree on hard evidence.
Oh yeah, me. Right up above. Don’t have answers. All I ever look for is unassailable facts, and build on them. Take neoclassical economics – it has failed. It’s right in front of our eyes. Or 9/11 – buildings do not absorb airliners, which cannot fly at that speed at low altitude anyway.
Those are unassailable facts. So tell me, Craig, who out there deals in such matters? If something is impossible, there is another explanation.
Is it complicated? Is it a “victory declaration?” Not hardly, because even though I know what cannot be true, I do not know what is true.
That’s reality. I’ve been dealing with it for 25 years. I suggest you start today.
Mark, it’s been my experience in watching you is that you don’t start with facts, but opinion. From there you grasp at straws to build a flimsy house of rhetoric.
Aye carumbra! This is exactly what I am talking about, why I bring TG in. I just presented you with two unassailable facts, and also said that knowing what is not true does not mean I know what is true.
In light of that, read what you just wrote. What you just did is a dodge, and an attempt to avoid dealing in facts by attacking me with … rhetoric.
Attacking you? I thought you invented TG for some self flagellation purification ceremony because you were unworthy of the high esteem you hold yourself in. This might just work if TG, your invisible rabbit, develops a personality and displays some humor.
So then, you avoid factual exchange and instead engage in personal attacks and I am supposed to what? Learn something from you? I gave you two unassailable facts. You are deliberately ignoring them and simply attacking me. What good are you? Give me one good reason why I should listen to you?
Those weren’t facts. As to listening to me or anyone else, you stopped long ago. Now you are left with conversing with an imaginary rabbit, like Jimmy Stewart did.
Honest, Craig, you have got to do better than “Those weren’t facts.” The economy did indeed collapse as the Fed was headed by a disciple of Ayn Rand whose philosophy, neoclassical economics, said that debt did not matter because for every dollar owed, another person was owed a dollar. He was wrong, neoclassical economics was wrong, as we can see with the housing bubble and collapse. Fact is that when debt is not repaid, it is a huge problem. Fact. Dispute it.
A jet airliner cannot travel at 500+ mph at low altitude because the air is too thick. They only fly that fast at 35000 feet. It is not physically possible, but that is what we are told happened. Further, the airliner supposedly traveling at that speed supposedly hit a massive steel structure. Newton’s second law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or in this case, that it does not matter what was moving and what was stationary. The result would be the same if the building hit the plane at that speed. The object with the greater mass will prevail and inflict more damage than that with lesser mass. So an aluminum aircraft with a light nose, hitting a steel sturcture with an aluminum shell, will do some damage to the building, but by far the greatest damage is to the aircraft. It will disntigrate into millions of pieces which will fall to the ground below. The building will endure some damage, but the aircraft cannot penetrate the building. It is too light and the building too heavy. What we saw happen is not possible, therefore did not happen. This is Newton’s law, and it is not up for vote. Fact.
I get 300 hits per day, rain or shine, and have about 40 subscribers. I don’t know who they are. Most people who comment here are OK, but are unwilling to engage me, just as you have been. So I invented an alter ego, Tomato Guy, and privately told regular followers that he was not real, so as not to have a joke or make them look foolish by arguing with a phantom. I use him because I find writing in that back and forth style very easy. Alter egos are a common literary device. I’m no Royko and TG is no Slats Grobnik, but the idea is the same.
Now, deal with the facts or go away, and if you go away, don’t you dare say it is some failing on my part. I laid it out there for you.
Why you think his pronouncement is definitive? Many people in the aviation fields disagree with his assessment, and his speeds do not even agree with the 911 Commission, not that I trust that body. I also have a problem going to what I suspect to be the source of the crime to get details. MIT would not be there if there were no Pentagon. The fact that someone works there means he’s probalby involved in DOD research, so he’s not the final word, as he has a conflict of interest. This does not automatically discredit his testimony, but does introduce the concept of “grain of salt.”
I’ve seen you do this with climate change too – you go find one person, brand that person your pet expert, and say that the case is closed based on one guy! That is not useful or enlightening.
There’s a whole debate going on on this subject, and the conclusions from people in aviation and engineering are that the supposed speeds of the aircraft that day are unsustainable at low altitude. I suggest you look into it, and do more than just go to a debunking site.
And, of course, you did not address Newton’s Third Law, apparently suspended that day? In addition, Pilots for 911 Truth has tracked radar that day and finds that the airliners that supposedly hit the twin towers were still in air after the event, flying over western Pennsylvania. The two other planes never left the ground, according to airline records. They were not scheduled to fly. Add to that the absence of purported hijackers on the flight manifests, and you’ve got a conundrum.
Here’s what I suggest you do: Go get evidence, and not expert testimony, or an appeal to authority, and bring it back here. Don’t say that you have found “proof,” and also don’t insult me by saying you have “burst my bubble.” Say “Here is some evidence I found. Let’s look at it and see if it withstands scrutiny.” This would initiate a long process where we both look objectively at the evidence and draw conclusions. I’ve been at it for months, but am a patient man. I’ll watch as you proceed ad keep my keyboard still. If you are a genuinely thoughtful and inquisitive man, you’ll need no help from me.
And again, I merely stated unassailable facts – the painful apparent failure of neoclassical economics, and of a plane hitting a structure a being sucked in without any deceleration. Those are facts, and having them in hand, I look to reconstruct events building on those facts. I don’t say that 767’s cannot fly at the speeds they say they did, only that pilots and engineers say it is not possible, and that the subject is not settled. But this I know: Since it is impossible for a jet to do what Flight 175 supposedly did that day, that is ground zero for me. I know one thing that is true – that plane did not hit that building. That is merely a starting point for further inquiry.
Piece of Mindful 
You are old enough to remember that black and white movie about an eccentric man whose best friend was a giant invisible rabbit. It appears your rabbit is named Tomato Guy. Is this healthy??????
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Slam! Nasty business you’re dealing in there. I’m not familiar with the movie, and explained to origins of the name TG, which I use to protect the identity, in the first TG post.
But I do advise you that if you like facts and evidence, continue coming here, and if you are more into being downstream and receiving your opinions from upstream sources, as virtually all Americans are, then go to MT Cowgirl or ID.
LikeLike
Mark, do you remember Elwood P. Dowd? He said: “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.” You seem to be making that victory declaration at whatever blog you visit.
Here, it takes creating a sock puppet, Tomato Guy, to have another go at it. Ain’t healthy. Unless you have an eidetic memory, there is no way you can relay a long conversation verbatim in sequence without letting the toys in your attic run wild and just sorta make stuff up to suit the moment.
LikeLike
I transcribe, TG approves. Of course I cannot remember every exchange. But I catch the gist and am pretty good at writing things down. Ever read a transcript of a real conversation? People interrupt, don’t speak in complete sentences, retract, backtrack, restate. It’s not good reading.
Who was it said
Oh yeah, me. Right up above. Don’t have answers. All I ever look for is unassailable facts, and build on them. Take neoclassical economics – it has failed. It’s right in front of our eyes. Or 9/11 – buildings do not absorb airliners, which cannot fly at that speed at low altitude anyway.
Those are unassailable facts. So tell me, Craig, who out there deals in such matters? If something is impossible, there is another explanation.
Is it complicated? Is it a “victory declaration?” Not hardly, because even though I know what cannot be true, I do not know what is true.
That’s reality. I’ve been dealing with it for 25 years. I suggest you start today.
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Mark, it’s been my experience in watching you is that you don’t start with facts, but opinion. From there you grasp at straws to build a flimsy house of rhetoric.
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Aye carumbra! This is exactly what I am talking about, why I bring TG in. I just presented you with two unassailable facts, and also said that knowing what is not true does not mean I know what is true.
In light of that, read what you just wrote. What you just did is a dodge, and an attempt to avoid dealing in facts by attacking me with … rhetoric.
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Attacking you? I thought you invented TG for some self flagellation purification ceremony because you were unworthy of the high esteem you hold yourself in. This might just work if TG, your invisible rabbit, develops a personality and displays some humor.
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So then, you avoid factual exchange and instead engage in personal attacks and I am supposed to what? Learn something from you? I gave you two unassailable facts. You are deliberately ignoring them and simply attacking me. What good are you? Give me one good reason why I should listen to you?
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Those weren’t facts. As to listening to me or anyone else, you stopped long ago. Now you are left with conversing with an imaginary rabbit, like Jimmy Stewart did.
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Honest, Craig, you have got to do better than “Those weren’t facts.” The economy did indeed collapse as the Fed was headed by a disciple of Ayn Rand whose philosophy, neoclassical economics, said that debt did not matter because for every dollar owed, another person was owed a dollar. He was wrong, neoclassical economics was wrong, as we can see with the housing bubble and collapse. Fact is that when debt is not repaid, it is a huge problem. Fact. Dispute it.
A jet airliner cannot travel at 500+ mph at low altitude because the air is too thick. They only fly that fast at 35000 feet. It is not physically possible, but that is what we are told happened. Further, the airliner supposedly traveling at that speed supposedly hit a massive steel structure. Newton’s second law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or in this case, that it does not matter what was moving and what was stationary. The result would be the same if the building hit the plane at that speed. The object with the greater mass will prevail and inflict more damage than that with lesser mass. So an aluminum aircraft with a light nose, hitting a steel sturcture with an aluminum shell, will do some damage to the building, but by far the greatest damage is to the aircraft. It will disntigrate into millions of pieces which will fall to the ground below. The building will endure some damage, but the aircraft cannot penetrate the building. It is too light and the building too heavy. What we saw happen is not possible, therefore did not happen. This is Newton’s law, and it is not up for vote. Fact.
I get 300 hits per day, rain or shine, and have about 40 subscribers. I don’t know who they are. Most people who comment here are OK, but are unwilling to engage me, just as you have been. So I invented an alter ego, Tomato Guy, and privately told regular followers that he was not real, so as not to have a joke or make them look foolish by arguing with a phantom. I use him because I find writing in that back and forth style very easy. Alter egos are a common literary device. I’m no Royko and TG is no Slats Grobnik, but the idea is the same.
Now, deal with the facts or go away, and if you go away, don’t you dare say it is some failing on my part. I laid it out there for you.
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Sorry to burst your bubble. http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20III%20Aircraft%20speed.pdf
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Why you think his pronouncement is definitive? Many people in the aviation fields disagree with his assessment, and his speeds do not even agree with the 911 Commission, not that I trust that body. I also have a problem going to what I suspect to be the source of the crime to get details. MIT would not be there if there were no Pentagon. The fact that someone works there means he’s probalby involved in DOD research, so he’s not the final word, as he has a conflict of interest. This does not automatically discredit his testimony, but does introduce the concept of “grain of salt.”
I’ve seen you do this with climate change too – you go find one person, brand that person your pet expert, and say that the case is closed based on one guy! That is not useful or enlightening.
There’s a whole debate going on on this subject, and the conclusions from people in aviation and engineering are that the supposed speeds of the aircraft that day are unsustainable at low altitude. I suggest you look into it, and do more than just go to a debunking site.
And, of course, you did not address Newton’s Third Law, apparently suspended that day? In addition, Pilots for 911 Truth has tracked radar that day and finds that the airliners that supposedly hit the twin towers were still in air after the event, flying over western Pennsylvania. The two other planes never left the ground, according to airline records. They were not scheduled to fly. Add to that the absence of purported hijackers on the flight manifests, and you’ve got a conundrum.
Here’s what I suggest you do: Go get evidence, and not expert testimony, or an appeal to authority, and bring it back here. Don’t say that you have found “proof,” and also don’t insult me by saying you have “burst my bubble.” Say “Here is some evidence I found. Let’s look at it and see if it withstands scrutiny.” This would initiate a long process where we both look objectively at the evidence and draw conclusions. I’ve been at it for months, but am a patient man. I’ll watch as you proceed ad keep my keyboard still. If you are a genuinely thoughtful and inquisitive man, you’ll need no help from me.
And again, I merely stated unassailable facts – the painful apparent failure of neoclassical economics, and of a plane hitting a structure a being sucked in without any deceleration. Those are facts, and having them in hand, I look to reconstruct events building on those facts. I don’t say that 767’s cannot fly at the speeds they say they did, only that pilots and engineers say it is not possible, and that the subject is not settled. But this I know: Since it is impossible for a jet to do what Flight 175 supposedly did that day, that is ground zero for me. I know one thing that is true – that plane did not hit that building. That is merely a starting point for further inquiry.
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