Pacific Peace Maker 1982...
[ posted by willem eickholdt, november 2005 ]
Until 1982 I was pretty much a political
moron. Too busy making a living, raising a familly and drifting along with
mainstream howling along with the mobs.
Then an Australian flagged ketch parked in our marina at Lake Union in Seattle
and changed everything.
The name of the vessel was Pacific Peacemaker and she had a crew of Australian
Unionists, Aborigines, Maories from new Zealand and other Pacific Islanders.
Since they smelled bad, were filthy, were parked without our permission and
drew quite a crowd, I was ready to get them moved out when the skipper came
to my office,introduced himself and asked permission to dock his boat until
he could find another location.
He then told me of the mission of the boat and the voyage they had just completed
from Australia, via New Zealand, French Polynesia , Hawaii and the US Westcoast.
I was deeply moved. The boat had been financed with small contributions of
about $250.00 by hundreds of Australian union members, churches, sympathizers
with the idea of sending a boat into the Pacific to demonstrate against the
militarisation, the suppression of Independence movements in the Islands,
the testing of nuclear devices by both French and US governments and finally
to blockade the arrival of the nuclear submarine Ohio, the finest killing
machine ever invented . That was about to happen in the approaches to Puget
Sound and that is why they had made a landfall in Seattle.
Of course there is a little more to the story, but my time is limited.so I'll
conclude this short story addressing your question: Am I a progessive? And
the answer is YES,
ever since the arrival of the Pacific Peacemaker back in 1982!!!