Understanding | Kevin Barrett's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Understanding’

Are You Talkin’ To Me?

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Complaints, Hearing, Listening, Philosophy, Quotes, Soren Kierkegaard, Understanding on June 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.

— Soren Kierkegaard

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Click here (1 June) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Riddle Me This…

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Lessons, Life, Philosophy, Quotes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Riddles, Understanding on March 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Click here (10 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Why Even The Good Should Also Be Careful

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Albert Camus, Evil, Good Intentions, Harm, Ignorance, Philosophy, Quotes, Understanding, World on March 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

— Albert Camus

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Click here (2 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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No War With Iran!!

Posted in General Comments, History, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged #47:DonTheConvictedFelon, #47:DonTheIncompetent, Albert Einstein, American Politics, California, Iran, Iraq, Pandora's Box, Peace, Philosophy, Population, Quotes, Texas, Understanding, War on February 20, 2026| 3 Comments »

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

— Albert Einstein

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

— Albert Einstein

Let me be clear… Moving additional U.S. military forces to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean is an attempt to goad Iran into a situation where they attack (or “appear” to attack) our forces so the President can compel Congress into declaring war with / on Iran.

#47 and his Administration (Republican Party) want to do this in order to:
— raise the “support the troops” and “back the flag” issues for voters before the mid-term elections where he appears on course to take a shellacking;
— distract his supporters from their demands for open transparency for the Epstein Files;
— distract the American people from the slumping economy which is sliding into a complete collapse under his Administration;
— use a declared “war” or Congressionally approved military action to justify the suspension of the mid-term elections and promote his path to dictatorship; and,
— promote the short-term interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia by destabilizing the Iranian government.

In June 2025 the Trump Administration bombed the Iran nuclear “weapons” facilities and then claimed the attack had done significant damage to the the Iranian program. Now, it turns out the damage was “not so much and we need to be able to do it again”. Further, we want to give the Iranians a deadline of two to three weeks to complete a negotiation on nuclear weapons and missiles or we will do “something” to force them to conclude a deal.

Again, let me be clear… I have NO doubt the United States military could defeat the Iranian military in a relatively short (a few weeks) span of time. But, as the invasion of Iraq demonstrated, that is not the same as accomplishing a permanent regime change or pacifying a population the size of Iran’s in a nation the size of Iran.

Iran is larger than Texas and has a population greater than California and Texas put together (over 88 million). Using the standard / historical basis for pacification, the US would have to devote around two million troops (in country) to pacification. This is almost the size of ALL of the combined military forces of the United States (roughly 2.2 million). By comparison, we tried to do this in Iraq with 170,000 (surge level) and failed. Again, we could (and did) defeat Iraq’s military in short order, but we were never able to impose a permanent government or fully suppress the insurgents. And it is unlikely we will be able to do so in Iran…

This action (a major attack or an invasion of Iran) would further damage our international reputation and is unlikely to receive ANY real support from our NATO allies…

This President is a KNOWN and proven liar – nationally and internationally. Even if his Administration were somehow able to demonstrate that Iran attacked US forces first, it is unlikely he would gain ANY ally support for anything more than an “appropriate” level response.

The problem with offending over half of your own population and all of your allies is that when something goes wrong and you need a unified country and allies support – it’s just not going to be there. AKA: …Chickens coming home to roost.

Another failed international policy proposal / threat by a man (and Administration) with a long history of failure and losing…

Well America, we FA; now we FO. Please tell your political representatives (House and Senate): Do NOT open Pandora’s Box!! NO WAR!!!

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Click here (20 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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The Problem Is Travel Is Only In One Direction

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Philosophy, Quotes, Stephen Hawking, Understanding, Importance, Impossibility, Time Travel on January 20, 2026| 8 Comments »

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it’s impossible.

— Stephen Hawking

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Click here (20 January) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Let’s Pry Some Insights

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Built-In Biases, Carl Sagan, Insights, Nature, Philosophy, Preconceptions, Quotes, Science, The Universe, Understanding on September 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves — without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster. We cannot begin with an entirely clean slate, since we arrive at this problem with predispositions of hereditary and environmental origin; but, after understanding such built-in biases, is it not possible to pry insights from nature?

— Carl Sagan

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Click here (26 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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We Have A Long Way To Go

Posted in Education, Environment, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Biodiversity, E. O. Wilson, Education, Environment, Humanity, Philosophy, Preservation, Priceless, Quotes, Science, Understanding on September 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

— E. O. Wilson

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Click here (19 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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My Imagination Fails Me

Posted in Faith, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Failure, Faith, God, God's Creation, Indifference, Intelligence, Life, Man, Philosophy, Quotes, Saint Augustine, The Universe, Understanding on July 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.

— Saint Augustine

[Man is so small and limited an individual and the universe is so vast that it is the height of ego to think any of us could possibly comprehend or imagine to comprehend any being able to create it all. Even more so to believe that such a “being” would look or act anything like us. It remains to be seen if “LIFE” and the intelligence of man can overcome the indifference of this vast universe we have labeled “God’s creation”. — kmab]

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Click here (20 July) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Certainty Eludes Us

Posted in History, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Absolute Certainty, Carl Sagan, History Of Science, Humans, Improvement, Mistakes, Philosophy, Quotes, Understanding, Universe on July 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

— Carl Sagan

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Click here (2 July) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Fractals Perception

Posted in Guitar, Music, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Complexity, Guitar, Jamey Andreas, Music, Perception, Philosophy, Quotes, Seeing, Simplicity, The Principles of Correct Practice For Guitar, Understanding on February 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

When you see the complexity of what you think is simple, then you will see the simplicity of what you think is complex.

— Jamey Andreas
From her book: “The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar“

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Click here (22 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Why some MAGA Can Be Well Educated And Still Stupid

Posted in Education, General Comments, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged #47DonTheFelon, American Politics, Distinctions, Education, Facts, General Comments, Ignorance, John C. Holt, Philosophy, Quotes, Salary, Schools, Social Paradigm, Stupidity, Understanding, Upton Sinclair on February 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Someone asked the other day, “Why do we go to school?” Pat, with vigor unusual in her, said, “So when we grow up we won’t be stupid.” These children equate stupidity with ignorance. Is this what they mean when they call themselves stupid? Is this one of the reasons why they are so ashamed of not knowing something? If so, have we, perhaps unknowingly, taught them to feel this way? We should clear up this distinction, show them that it is possible to know very few facts, but make very good use of them.

Conversely, one can know many facts and still act stupidly. The learned fool is by no means rare in this country.

― John C. Holt
From his book: “How Children Fail“

[Ignorance can come from what you are taught incorrectly and as well as what you are not taught at all. In particular, ignorance can come from frequent and prolonged exposure to the intentional skewing of limited facts to promote ideology over truth. Finally, to quote Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” In our polarized political times, we have to substitute “social paradigm” for “salary”. If you are willing to punish the same people they dislike / hate, then some folks don’t really care if you are also a liar, a convicted criminal and consistently working to undermine their economic well being. — kmab]

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Click here (15 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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I Still Don’t Understand How #47 Got Re-elected

Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, tagged #47DonTheCon, #DonTheFelon, American Politics, Baruch Spinoza, Human Actions, Laughter, Philosophy, Quotes, Tears, Understanding on January 19, 2025| 3 Comments »

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

— Baruch Spinoza

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Click here (19 January) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Mirrors

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Leo Tolstoy, Philosophy, Quotes, Seeing Others, Understanding on December 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

We can only really understand ourselves when we can see ourselves in everyone else.

— Leo Tolstoy

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Click here (30 December) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Election Day +2

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Charles Bukowski, Education, Intelligence, Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, Philosophy, Quotes, Sadness, Understanding on November 7, 2024| 2 Comments »

I have watched education become more a privilege of the rich than the basic necessity that it must be if civilized society is to survive. I have watched as convenience, profit, and inertia excused greater and more dangerous environmental degradation. I have watched poverty, hunger, and disease become inevitable for more and more people.

― Octavia E. Butler
From: “Parable of the Talents“

Sadness is caused by intelligence. The more you understand certain things, the more you wish you didn’t understand them.

― Charles Bukowski

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Click here (7 November) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Helping Universal Understanding

Posted in Other Blogs, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Aretha Franklin, I Didn't Have My Glasses On, Music, Other Blogs, People, Philosophy, Quotes, Transporting, Understanding, Universal on August 1, 2024| 4 Comments »

In terms of helping people understand and know each other a little better, music is universal — universal and transporting.

— Aretha Franklin

The above quote is available at multiple locations on the web, but I originally found it at one of the blogs I follow daily…
That web blog / site is: I didn’t have my glasses on…. (ididnthavemyglasseson.com)
The specific post is located at: soul. \| I didn’t have my glasses on…. (ididnthavemyglasseson.com)

Please visit the original site if you have some free time. — kmab

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Click here (1 August) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.