Artist defines victims of war
4/24/09 | 11 comments

Artist defines victims of war


Collateral damage has face, identity
By Jessica Bloch
BDN Staff

ORONO, Maine — Robert Shetterly has earned a national reputation in part on the basis of his portraits of Americans who have made a difference and who, according to him, have spoken the truth about an issue. Some are known around the globe. Some are national heroes. Others are local crusaders.

Shetterly, however, was more interested Wednesday afternoon in discussing his portraits of people who were unfamous and unknown — and how and why they’ve suffered during war.

Shetterly, an artist and anti-war activist, spoke about “The Ethic of Collateral Damage,” as the annual Rezendes Ethics Lecture at the Donald P. Corbett Building at the University of Maine.

Shetterly is serving this year as the John M. Rezendes Visiting Scholar in Ethics for the university’s Honors College, which sponsors the lecture.

A Brooksville resident, Shetterly has spoken around the country about “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” a book and series of 135 paintings of activists, authors, politicians and others.

He is also active in local anti-war demonstrations.

“Robert doesn’t just talk the talk,” said Doug Allen, who teaches philosophy at UM and who introduced Shetterly. “He’s an artist and he’s also an artist-activist who puts his art into practice in ways consistent with the portraits he does, the people who have inspired him.”

During his lecture, Shetterly discussed the collateral damage of war, including civilians, targeted and untargeted, who die as a result. At the same time he was painting the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series, Shetterly said, he also was working on a series of smaller paintings he called “Collaterals.”

“One rarely sees the face or knows the identity of a collateral,” he said. “It’s a visual and abstract category in which the victim is never a real person, a kind of discarded ghost.”

Collateral damage is the result, Shetterly said, of our belief that we must be willing to inflict damage in order to preserve the inalienable rights to which we feel entitled and also to keep driving forward the market.

“It should be obvious that when a government has lied to its people about the reason for taking them to war … then you should realize that unalienable rights as a term is a smokescreen, a mass narcotic that induces denial and hypocrisy, and a term which is viciously defended not because it’s a point of truth, but because it masks a lie.”

Shetterly questioned the definition of collateral damage. If we consider the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda a genocide, he said, why not nearly 3 million Iraqis who have died in the war and because of sanctions as genocide victims as well?

In the end, he said, collateral damage can lead to a breakdown of nature.

“By placing economic expansion before sustainability, which is the rhythm of the earth, we become our own collateral damage …

“If we live by power, and violence and exploitation, by disrespect for other people’s lives, it will come back to haunt us. The state will bite its own tail.”

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Comments
11 comments on this item
On 4/23/09 at 9:58 PM, captainandy wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

3 million Iraqis????

I think it's 2 or 3 hundred thousand. Not a small number but why lose credibility by grossly overinflating the figures?

Why? Because Shetterly is an America bashing creep. To make the grade as an "American Who Tells the Truth” you also have to kneel at the far left alter and drink the sacred Kool Aid.

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On 4/24/09 at 8:05 AM, crazy_gurl wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Um...if you had gone to http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portrait_thumbs.html and had seen even a slight selection of his portraits you would have realized that Rob is not an "American bashing creep". I think if he was he wouldn't have painted figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, or various other important figures of today and of our history.

I commend Rob on his portraits and have been a fan of his for about as long as I can remember. This series of portraits that he's done (and still working on) is amazing and I wish him the best. I was there for a good deal of his speech this past Wednesday and he did a great job.

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On 4/24/09 at 8:12 AM, testing1232 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Has he painted portraits of any of the victims of 9/11?? Seems that would keep him busy for a very long time.

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On 4/24/09 at 8:17 AM, jaguarsky wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I believe the "official" number af Iraqi civilians who have died as a direct consequence of the war number about a million. (A number that has been censored from our media.) While this number is unforgivable it does not take into account those who have died from hunger and disease as a result of trying to survive in a war zone and that is truly a disgrace to our nation. I think the three million mark may be somewhat inflated, but it makes no difference. Innocent men, women and children die everyday in a country that we were supposed to liberate. I think we dropped the ball.

Mr Shetterly believes he is doing a good thing and at the very least, he is speaking out; something rare in our society. He raises questions and creates discussion, something we need much more of.

And BTW, "kool aid" is so yesterday. Find a different facist radio show host to quote from now on.

OK, let the flaming begin...

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On 4/24/09 at 8:26 AM, anne_of_mdi wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

It's difficult to find an official Iraqi civilian death toll number because the Iraqi government won't release the information for political reasons. But for anyone with an interest, Wikipedia provides an overview of three surveys estimating the Iraqi civilian death toll, ranging from 151,000 to 1,033,000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Latest updated figures are from Jan. 2008.

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On 4/24/09 at 9:25 AM, Bandbox wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

What Shetterly does is propaganda art, like Soviet heroic realism and the art of the Third Reich. Though fairly competent, he's not as skillful as those painters were.

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On 4/24/09 at 11:59 AM, outlaw wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

ok no one else has said it so i will BUSH should be put in prison for what he did he lied about weapons of mass destruction and so many other things some day the real truth will come out about haliburtin nuff said peace

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On 4/24/09 at 12:37 PM, captainandy wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Take out Bobby Kennedy, Lincoln, King and you have Cindy Sheehan, Amy Goodman, Jim Hightower, Molly Ivins and a bunch of other America self-loathing, haters. Who is next in the series, Michael Moore, Al Gore or Castro?

Kool Aid drinkers is still the best description of the tool bags that consider this "art".

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On 4/24/09 at 1:30 PM, bxr3main wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

it is more than war. There are others equally damaged and damaging as "discarded ghosts". In fact, this is more painful to believe, even the author of this article focused on WAR. Blind as a bat....is never the "discarded ghost."

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On 4/24/09 at 5:33 PM, boogyman wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Scumbag.

A Brooksville resident, Shetterly has spoken around the country about “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” a book and series of 135 paintings of activists, authors, politicians and others.

He ain't one of them. 3 million civilian casualties is so overstated, I challange you to back that figure up Shetterly you moonbat waco.

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On 4/24/09 at 8:28 PM, captainandy wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

jaguarsky writes, "...at the very least, he is speaking out; something rare in our society."

I totally disagree! Everyone is "speaking out" about something! "Speaking out" is more common than tatoos! There's so much of it, it's boring. The smart people are too busy working and producing something of value. It's become a full time alternative occupation for the lazy, stupid and directionless people in our society.

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