Artist And Activist Iraq War Veteran Aaron Hughes Serves Tea; Talks About Afghanistan/Iraq War And Peace, The Power Of Love In War Is Misused By Military Industrial Complex By Twisting It Into Fear And Hatred, So People Will Kill Each Other; How Insane Is War?
I had a dream last night. In this dream, I was an adult, but I was also a child playing games. Any adult also has an inner child. We were playing a game, called war. I was in my home, and a stranger walked into my home with a gun, without being invited. He looked around and took stuff he liked. I asked him what he was doing and why. He said, this is war, and I get to do whatever I want, and I want your stuff. If you get in my way, I get to kill you. That is war. I knew this was a dream and a 'game', but it also had a strange sense of reality to it, where my inner child was teaching me something important.
When kids play the 'war' game, there is lots of fun, pretend shooting, running around, and yelling, but after the war game is over, all the kids go home to their families, alive, well, healthy and happy, in order to get dinner. The next day, the kids go out to play again. The children may ride their bikes, or go to the beach, or they may even play war again, but at night, all of the kids go home to their families and eat a normal dinner. In a real war, none of this happens. Kids don't play war during a real war.
HOW INSANE IS WAR?
I had a dream last night. In this dream, I was an adult, but I was also a child playing games. Any adult also has an inner child. We were playing a game, called war. I was in my home, and a stranger walked into my home with a gun, without being invited. He looked around and took stuff he liked. I asked him what he was doing and why. He said, this is war, and I get to do whatever I want, and I want your stuff. If you get in my way, I get to kill you. That is war. I knew this was a dream and a 'game', but it also had a strange sense of reality to it, where my inner child was teaching me something important. When kids play the 'war' game, there is lots of fun, pretend shooting, running around, and yelling, but after the war game is over, all the kids go home to their families, alive, well, healthy and happy, in order to get dinner. The next day, the kids go out to play again. The children may ride their bikes, or go to the beach, or they may even play war again, but at night, all of the kids go home to their families and eat a normal dinner. In a real war, none of this happens. Kids don't play war during a real war.
What is different about adults? Adults are just kids, in bigger bodies. If kids cannot kill other kids or adults with real guns, why do we allow kids with adult bodies to do this? If kids cannot drop bombs on other kids in real life, why do we allow kids in adults bodies to do this? If kids killed other kids or adults in their 'war' games, they would be locked up and given mental health treatment right away, because that would be a severe mental illness.
Somehow in today's world, when kids in adult bodies kill other kids or drop bombs on kids, that is all fine and perfectly normal. Really? Those people are all quite insane, and the game of 'real' war is completely insane, on both 'sides'.
Why do politicians continue to vote for 'war', when the whole military complex is an exercise in murder, insanity, theft, fraud and deception?
All war is based on an ego desire combined with the emotions of fear plus hatred. What is the difference between ego and soul?
All war is based on an ego desire combined with the emotions of fear plus hatred. What is the difference between ego and soul?
Eckhart Tolle Did The Universe Make A Mistake With The Ego?
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/bImdyQn43s8 9 min
Go deeper
What Are The Three Main Forms Of Global Consciousness In The World? Which Form Of Consciousness Do You Exhibit With Your Life? A Breakthrough, Transformation And Paradigm Shift In Human Consciousness Is Happening Globally
MASS MEDIA AND 18 'INTELLIGENCE' AGENCIES SUPPORT EGO BASED MILITARY INDUSTRIAL CORPORATE MATRIX, AND ENABLE NEVER ENDING WAR FOR PROFIT, VIA FEAR AND HATRED
Are you looking for the positive meaning that is hidden inside of a meaningless, dehumanizing and senseless Catch 22 violence that is part of never ending war?
Are you looking for a shared conversation or deeper sense of meaning within senseless brutality plus cruelty?
Are you looking for catharsis? Are you open to a deeper look into the soul of America and what it really stands for, instead of the fake virtual reality being presented via the corporate controlled mass media?
The first step is to peer into the darkness that is war. Embrace plus understand the dysfuctional fear/hatred based unconscious actions that are the corporations, who pursue profit at any cost, while being supported by 18 US 'intelligence' agencies in their quest for never ending wars all around the world. Currently the US is engaged in 18 wars all around the world. Why doesn't the mass media report on all of these 'wars', which are totally unconstitutional?
Go deeper
PhD Journalist Reports On Operation Mockingbird; How CIA Controls The Mass Media News
When a corporation relies on advertising money for it's success, it has automatically given all of it's power and integrity to the corporation giving it money for advertising. That mass media outlet will not bite the hand that feeds it. No mass media outlet will portray huge corporations or billionaires as anything but noble and virtuous, even if they are guilty of genocide, destruction of the planet and worse, as they have souled out.
Part of the process of 'waking up' from unconscious beliefs and behavior patterns is to be open to change or transformation. This article is about how one veteran stayed open, and was transformed by what was presented to him via the lessons of life, through a civilian in Afghanistan. Truth can come in many shapes, sizes and people from all walks of life. Stay open and flow with whatever is happening, while not resisting, if the desire is to go deeper.
This article is also about the power of artists, a creative spirit, and the link to activism. Learn and go deeper.
DECORATED WAR VETERAN AARON HUGHES RETURNS HIS WAR MEDALS
Why did Aaron return his war medals?
Decorated Iraq War Veteran Aaron Hughes to Return Military Medals at Anti-NATO Protest
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/CejF2yhP3Oo 10 min.
DemocracyNow.org - Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will join thousands of protesters this Sunday at the NATO summit in Chicago. We speak to Iraq Veterans Against the War's Aaron Hughes, who's among a number of Afghanistan and Iraq war vets planning to return their medals of honor to visiting NATO generals. "[Veterans] have to live with the failed policy of the global war on terror on a daily basis," Hughes says. "What have we been doing in this decade-long war?
There is a real moral disconnect between that the idea that our military can build a democracy and the idea that our military is trained and designed to control, dominate and kill people ... Occupations do not build democracies. Occupations do not extend individuals' freedoms. The movements of the Arab Spring, that was building democracy. The movements of Gandhi, of civil rights in this country, people's movements, that's what extends democracy."
To watch the complete daily, independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, and for more information, visit http://www.democracynow.org/
Few people know that 18 US Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are committing suicide daily, and that 60,000 AWOL veterans refused to go to Iraq, choosing instead to break the military code. Why is the death toll from suicides greatly exceeding the death toll from never ending wars?
AARON DRINKS TEA AND SHARES STORIES
The Imaginists; "The Tea Project is an ongoing dialogue that traverses a variety of landscapes from the tea served in the Iraqi countryside, to a cage in Guantanamo Bay, to a family gathering; tea is not only a favored drink but a shared moment that transcends cultural divides and systems of oppression.
Iraq War veteran Aaron Hughes originally developed the Tea Project after a return trip to Iraq, as a civilian, in 2009. It was during this trip he had tea prepared in the Iraqi tradition for the first time. Interlacing this experience with his deployment to Kuwait and Iraq in 2003, and the curious love story of a Guantanamo Detention Camp guard who fell in love with drawings carved by Guantanamo detainees on Styrofoam cups, the Tea Project offers counter-narratives to disrupt the numbing effects of detention, war, and dehumanization.
In 2013, Aaron Hughes began collaborating with Amber Ginsburg to further develop the Tea Project. Focusing on accounts of the detainees drawing flowers on Styrofoam cups, Amber and Aaron created 779 porcelain cast Styrofoam cups, one for each individual detained in Guantanamo. Each of these cups is carved with a design based on the national or native flowers of one of the forty-nine countries that has or had a citizen detainee in Guantanamo. In each design, the number of flowers represents the number of citizens detained from that respective country. Each cup is also detailed with the name of one of the 779 individuals along with their citizenship.
http://theimaginists.org/may-tea-a-performancea-discussion/
WHAT DOES THE INTERNATIONAL TEA CEREMONY SYMBOLIZE AND MEAN ON A DEEPER LEVEL?
What does the tea ceremony in Iraq and other countries symbolize? What does sharing tea mean? Is there something deeper contained in drinking tea with someone and sharing stories that point at a common humanity? Are there deeper lessons that can be learned by sharing tea with someone and talking or telling stories about a common shared humanity?
War is dehumanizing, numbing, brutalizing and creates a social norm of violent genocide, through a top down, hierarchical coercion that pressures soldiers to go along and not make waves. US soldiers keep on serving repeated duty tours, despite 80% of them knowing that war is senseless, useless and creates nothing but problems and divisions.
Love is twisted by the armed forces so that buddies are forced to shoot the 'enemy' in order to prove that they love their comrades in arms, despite not wanting to really kill anyone. Even if a soldier feels deeply that they no longer want to kill anyone, the 'buddy' and team system that all of the armed forces set up on purpose, forces soldiers into 'protecting' their buddy and their team, so they won't let them down. Soldiers kill the enemy in the name of love for their brother and sister soldiers. Even insane orders are followed, because that is the 'way' the generals want it.
THE DEHUMANIZING ELEMENT OF WAR CAN BE COUNTED BY DIVING INTO THE SHARED HUMANITY EVEN IN THE MIDST OF THE WORST CATCH 22 MOMENTS OF WAR
War is about Catch 22. As in Hamburger Hill, where US soldiers died taking the hill, then gave it back to the enemy, only to go up it again, and lose more lives, over and over again. Got Catch 22?
#Vietnam #HamburgerHill; Battle of A Shau Valley, Why Was It Called The #MeatGrinder, #Hill937, What Is It Like To Fight As A Front Line #Marine #Soldier? How The US Military Industrial Complex #MIC, 1 Percent Profit From #Wars, Deny #Veterans Benefits
Aaron shares his story about how war is very dehumanizing for everyone, Aaron shares the common humanity aspect that everyone shares in common, but it is not talked about by the mass media or even most war veterans, because most people are totally unconscious of the actual real and shared existence of something very deep inside every person "humanity". Many war veterans are not aware of what Aaron is pointing at with this presentation of art, stories and shared experience by audience members.
Sharing the darkest and most dehumanizing parts of war, Aaron tells stories to illustrate how there is still hope, despite the dehumanizing effects of war and the military industrial complex. Audience members may experience or get a palpable sense of our shared common humanity, via the tea ceremony. The symbols he and an artist collaborator created around the tea cups and the ceremony of serving tea create palpable EXPERIENCE of this shared humanity and community.
If you can attend one of the presentations put on by Aaron (and everyone is encouraged to do so), be sure to look closely at the bottom of the hand made ceramic cup, and at the sides of the cup, before you are served tea. Each cup is designed to look like it is styrofoam. Be sure to ask about the cup and it's meaning.
Each individual tea cup is unique, different and has great symbolic meaning. As the tea cup is filled and then tea is sipped by 'audience' members, the hope and common thread of a deep sense of common humanity is passed on as well. A participant may even feel a sense of the sacredness of this tea ceremony..
Be sure to ask Aaron how the cups were made, and what meaning they have... You have to attend to hear the 'inside' secret. Attendance is required in order to be part of the inner circle that experiences, and then knows, and then understands and feels the gift that Aaron shares.
THE POWER OF ART, CREATIVITY AND CEREMONY IS IMMENSE, WHEN COMBINED WITH ACTIVISM
The gift Aaron offers comes along with this sacred tea ceremony and his presentation that is both art, healing and story telling. To be sure, the gift Aaron gives is not outside, but inside a place that most people fear to tread; the heart.
THE MILITARY IS THE COMPLETELY WRONG THING TO USE IF YOU WANT TO EXPORT FREEDOM AND BUILD DEMOCRACY, IT ACTUALLY DOES THE OPPOSITE
Aaron Hughes: Live From the Heartland 7-24-10 hosted by Katy Hogan
One in three women are sexually assaulted in the military, a large number of vets have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) and a large percentage of vets suffer from PTSD.
THE OBJECTIVE OF WAR IS TO PROTECT YOUR BUDDY VIA LOVE, BUT THAT MEANS INNOCENT CIVILIANS ARE ALSO THE TARGET; HUGE PROFITS ARE THE REWARD FOR WARMONGERS AND WEAPONS DEALERS WHO MISUSE LOVE AND TWIST IT INTO FEAR/HATE
At the beginning of the Iraq war, only hostile belligerents that were shooting at US troops could be shot at or killed. Not too much longer, the 'allowed' kill zone expanded to anyone who was holding a weapon.
A few years down the road, the kill zone widened to anyone who seemed to present a threat to your buddies, which could be anyone. Helicopter gun ships shot at anything that moved, since out beyond 500 yards, no one could see a weapon anyway, so it was better to be safe than sorry. Anyone carrying anything; cameras, purses, boxes, or whatever were all targets, because those things could be seens as being a weapon.
Civilians were targets of opportunity, and guns were then planted on them to make them look like they were the 'enemy' by at least some of the troops over there, who were looking to prove their manhood to their fellow soldiers in some kind of macho Rambo fantasy land where anything that moves is a legitimate target. Killing innocent civilians was celebrated, as an initiation into manhood, even if they were not presenting a threat or carrying any weapons.
War Always Devolves Into Civilian Genocide, War Crimes; American Secret Iraq War Files; Dispatches Movie - Soldiers Confess War Crimes And Murders Of Civilians That Were Just Ordinary Every Day Actions In Iraq, Documentary Movie
Iraq was a fake war and occupation that was started illegally on made up evidence which the perpetrators knew was fake.
Exposing Trojan Horses, First Strike War Lies, Fraud Plus Faked Intelligence And Organized Deception That Led To Invasion/Occupation Of Iraq Under President Bush, No One Charged Or Jailed, Millions Of Deaths And Refugees
Soldiers asked themselves; what were they there for?
Breaking down doors and hooding all of the men and then hustling them off in the dead of night, while terrorizing the women and children did not create freedom and democracy. Terrorizing villages and shooting civilians did quite the opposite.
Charles Bremer kept the former dictators work 'rules' which did not allow unions in the country. This 'rule' is still there. Does that sound like democracy and freedom to you?
WHEN CORPORATIONS CONTROL THE MIILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THE US GOVERNMENT, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Chris Hedges On Corporate Control Of The World
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/i5X3NRD00FY 1 hr 15 min.
How many boxes did you check off?
WHISTLE BLOWERS EXPOSING CORRUPTION OR ANYONE OPPOSING A FAKE MADE UP WAR ARE PUNISHED THROUGH LOSS OF JOB AND OR JAIL
CIA Asset Susan Lindauer Whistleblower Jailed/Disappeared Via Patriot Act As Terrorist; Reveals Coverup Around 9/11, Iraq War, Etc.
Contractors were making $100,000 a year, living in air conditioned buildings and working out on US imported exercise equipment. The air conditioners, exercise equipment, US military bases and supplies were brought in by US troops, who risked their lives as the private contractors made much more money than they did. Contractors did not have to live up to a military code of honor or rules of war.
Fahrenheit 911 Movie By Michael Moore Exposes Mass Media Complicity And Cheerleading For Fake Iraq War, Bin Laden Connection With Bushes, War For Oil
American Soldiers Are WAKING UP!!
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/WWUQ_N_vHc0 11 min.
SUPPORT TAKING AMERICA BACK!!!
THE INSANITY OF SENSELESS WARS, OCCUPATIONS AND REPEATED DEPLOYMENTS FOR WARMONGERING CORPORATIONS PROFITS, ARE CREATING A LOSE, LOSE PROPOSITION, AND THE SUICIDE RATE CONTINUES TO CLIMB, DESPITE PSYCH DRUGS AND COUNSELING
More than 80% of the soldiers in the field know that the war that they are supposed to wage is senseless, useless and insane. As a result of this knowing and understanding that war is insane, the soldiers serving get depressed and then commit suicide.
US Military Suicide Rate Continues to Rise at Alarming Rate, More Veterans Dying From Suicide Than From Battle
https://www.agreenroadjournal.com/2015/02/us-military-suicide-rate-continues-to.html
https://www.agreenroadjournal.com/2015/02/us-military-suicide-rate-continues-to.html
Over 18 veterans are committing suicide per day. But the wars plus genocide of millions of innocent civilians must go on, because the golden calf that is the military industrial complex must be fed with war profiteering and weapons dealing proceeds, plus an insane amount of taxpayer money via entitlements and corporate welfare. Because the insanity of war must continue anyone trying to stop this insanity must be attacked and/or punished as being UnAmerican. (sarcasm)
ABSOLUTE WEALTH AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY
Corporations and billionaires have what amounts to absolute power, and absolute wealth beyond imagination. What does that wealth result in? Absolute corruption deception, delusions and lies in all directions.
"If you tell the truth, you won't have to remember anything" Mark Twain
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton
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Artist And Activist Iraq War Veteran Aaron Hughes Serves Tea; Talks About Afghanistan/Iraq War And Peace, The Power Of Love In War Is Misused By Military Industrial Complex By Twisting It Into Fear And Hatred, So People Will Kill Each Other; How Insane Is War?