Making Waves: Rebirth of the Golden Rule

After four decades of peace activism one thing has really stood out for me: the participation, voice and leadership of war veterans in the peace movement, always bringing new depth to peace actions and opening hearts that may otherwise have been closed. There is authority in their ideas and memories that cannot be easily dismissed.

For this reason, when I was approached by producer Wendy Rogan with the possibility of making a film for Veterans for Peace I jumped at the chance. Not only had I marched many miles beside the Veterans for Peace flag but their new project, the restoration and launching of an historic peace sailboat was a fascinating one, full of visual and dramatic potential. The Golden Rule had sailed to the Marshall Islands in 1958, the year I was born, an early and risky attempt to draw the world's attention to nuclear testing and the nuclear arms race. The subsequent sinking of the vessel and resurrection by Veterans for Peace for a new and equally exciting mission was a story I wanted to tell.

Spending a few days on the sailboat, protesting the annual San Diego air and sea war show, gave me an opportunity to meet several veterans and collect some of those stories that have broken my heart and inspired me all these years. Hopefully those stories serve to communicate how appropriate it is that this ship of peace is piloted by the former military of the United States.

It is an exciting time for anti-nuclear activism. The passing of last year’s Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty in the United Nations has taken the world to a new level of intolerance for the threat those weapons pose to the world. How the nuclear countries respond to that ban will in many ways be up to us, to the commitment and consistency we bring to our protest.