The historic Golden Rule peace boat, lovingly restored by Veterans For Peace over the past five years, arrived in Marina del Rey on August 30, on a voyage from San Diego to its homeport Eureka on California’s northern coast.
The 30-foot ketch and its Quaker crew ignited an international movement to stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in 1958, when they attempted to sail into a nuclear bomb test zone in the Marshall Islands. The Golden Rule is now sailing again to promote a nuclear free world.
“Nuclear weapons are still with us and the threat of nuclear war is very real,” said the Golden Rule’s Captain Ron Kohl of San Diego. “We are dismayed that the U.S. government plans to invest One Trillion Dollars into upgrading its nuclear arsenal, instead of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons, as called for in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.”
The Golden Rule Project is calling for an end to nuclear energy as well as nuclear weapons.
“The ongoing nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, Japan reminds us of the dangers of radiation poisoning posed by nuclear power plants,” said Golden Rule crew member Helen Jaccard. “Nuclear power is the flip side of nuclear weapons, and we don’t need either of them,” said Jaccard.
The first voyage of the renewed Golden Rule sailboat began in Eureka on July 23. The Golden Rule and her four-person crew arrived in San Diego in early August in time for the Veterans For Peace national convention. Nearly 400 participants joined together with Japanese Americans to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 200,000 people. The convention theme was “Peace and Reconciliation in the Pacific.”
The Golden Rule will remain in Marina del Rey for several days of events being organized by the local chapter of Veterans For Peace Los Angeles.
