News Release July 18, 2024
Contact: Glen Milner (206) 365-7865
Mary Gleysteen (360) 265-1589
Helen Jaccard, Golden Rule coordinator (206) 992-6364
Day of the event (206) 979-8319
Local activists will stage a water-based nonviolent protest against the glorification of weapons of war at the Seattle Seafair festival. Peace activists will meet the U.S. Navy fleet in Elliott Bay. The entire Seafair Fleet Week, featuring militarism and weapons of war, is sponsored by the Boeing Company, the second largest military contractor in the U.S.
This year the Peace Fleet will be joined with the original peace ship, the Golden Rule, that set sail in 1958 to the South Pacific to stop nuclear testing in the atmosphere, and which inspired the many peace makers and peace ships that followed. See http://www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org. See photo of the Golden Rule below.
Other peace activists will meet on the Seattle waterfront, at Pier 62, and/or on the rooftop of the Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66, at the same time for a nonviolent demonstration against weapons of war and against environmental harm caused by the U.S. military during Seafair.
What: Peace activists at Seafair. This is the twenty-third year for this demonstration.
When: Tuesday, July 30, Noon, Peace Fleet in Elliott Bay. Demonstration on land at 1 PM
The Golden Rule, a ketch that sails to advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons, passes the Golden Gate Bridge while en route from Sausalito, Calif., to Berkeley on Thursday, June 3, 2021.
Where: Elliott Bay, near Pier 66. Demonstration on land at Pier 62 and/or on the rooftop of the Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal at Pier 66.
For the twenty-third year, peace activists will address the public display of warships and warplanes in our community. The Golden Rule will be open to the public in Bell Harbor Marina from July 29-31.
Why would we demonstrate for peace at a Seattle maritime festival? Because the celebration of warships in our harbor helps bring about the normalcy of modern war.
The fleet arrival at Seafair is a public relations and recruiting event for the U.S. Navy.
Previous years have brought Trident nuclear submarines complete with nuclear warheads and Navy warships used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles in the first and second Wars on Iraq and the War on Afghanistan. The fleet is displayed for four days in downtown Seattle at tremendous cost to taxpayers while crucial social services in education, health care, and transportation are being cut for lack of funds.
The Peace Fleet is an incarnation of earlier waterborne demonstrations: the People’s Blockade of U.S. Navy vessels carrying munitions during the Vietnam War; and the Peace Blockade near Hood Canal, demonstrating against the arrival of the first Trident submarine, the USS Ohio, at the Trident submarine base at Bangor in 1982.
The Peace Fleet began on August 2, 2000 when the Trident submarine, USS Alabama, arrived in downtown Seattle for Seafair, complete with up to 192 nuclear warheads. Since 2000, the Coast Guard, Navy and oftentimes the Port of Seattle, have been involved with spying, unlawful regulations, improper enforcement of existing regulations, false criminal charges, endangering kayakers, and intimidation against nonviolent peace activists.
In 2023, the Coast Guard established an unlawful and expanded temporary no-protest zone prohibiting all peace vessels within 100 yards in front of Pier 62 and Pier 66 and blocking peace vessels from leaving Bell Harbor Marina. Inquiries by U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal likely influenced the Coast Guard’s decision to allow peace vessels to pass through the zone on the day of the event.
Below is a Coast Guard drawing showing the permanent no-protest zone, first implemented by the Coast Guard in 2011 and last revised in 2018 as 33 CFR § 165.1333. This no-protest zone is unlike any other Coast Guard “safety” zone in the United States—unique only to Elliott Bay with the sole intention of unlawfully preventing the movement of peace demonstrators on the water.
On December 14, 2023 Congress approved an $886 billion defense bill for FY 2024. Of the 10 Washington State representatives, only Rep. Pamalia Jayapal voted against the defense bill.
Both Senators Murray and Cantwell voted for the defense bill.
The Peace Fleet this year, as in past years, will require no public funds or public resources.
The next Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action event is August 3-5 at the Ground Zero Center in Poulsbo, and at the Bangor submarine base, in commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
