Now in Finland

• Dave Webb (UK Chair of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and I arrived in Helsinki, Finland at 10:00 am this morning after an all night ferry ride from Stockholm.  The seas were fairly calm so the ride was quite nice.  

• Two members of the Finnish Peace Committee escorted us on the journey.  We speak early this evening in Helsinki and then move back to Sweden tomorrow for talks in Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Malmo and then Copenhagen, Denmark before heading home on Feb. 13.

• I had my DNA tested some months ago and learned that I am 1% Finnish so it is a bit of a homecoming for me....ha, ha, ha.

• I saw today that Trump told a Fox News host Bill O’Reilly the following:

O’Reilly then said about Putin: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.”

Trump responded: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”

When O’Reilly says he doesn’t know any government leaders who are killers, Trump says “take a look at what we’ve done, too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes” and references the Iraq War.

• A so-called 'liberal Democrat (Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn) then trashed Trump in response.  Lately the Democrats are sounding like major league Cold War Hawks.  They seem unable to acknowledge when Trump does or says anything positive.  I mean for God sakes - give the man some credit for not wanting a war with Russia!  At the least for now he is saying something good on this one issue.

• It's pretty bad when I've noticed some peace activists cheering on Sen. John McCain when he trashes Trump about his position on Russia.  McCain wants war with Russia so bad it is making him crazy.  People here in the US need to develop the ability to see that when Trump does anything good (like dumping the TPP or his position on calm relations with Moscow) we must be able to say something like this:  "OK, good Trump.  Thank you - now let's see some more sensible policies on other issues."  
• In the end this little bit of sanity about getting along with Russia might not last long in a Trump White House.  The neo-cons are pushing back hard against him and we know he can shift his positions quicker than you can say 'Trump Towers'.  But it certainly won't hurt to encourage him when he does something correctly.

• A South Korean newspaper is reporting that the US Navy's new Zumwalt 'stealth' destroyer will be visiting that country very soon.  People in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island have already made a banner saying 'No to Zumwalt'.  When we were arrested last June at the Bath Iron Works 'christening' for the destroyer we read a statement from village activists expressing their solidarity during the rally before our blocking of the street in front of the shipyard.

Bruce