Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

23 July 2014

4and20blackbirds evicted from Flathead Memo’s blogroll

Well, I’ve had it with 4and20blackbirds. It used to be Missoula’s best blog, and one of Montana’s best. But the people who made it the best are no longer blogging on a regular basis — maybe not even blogging on an irregular basis — and the prime replacement, William Skink, who writes under the nom de plume Lizard, while prolific, and passionate about his beliefs, doesn’t begin to fill their shoes.

For me, the last straw is the set of posts and comments on the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the separatist held Ukrainian areas that abut Russia. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Boeing 777 was brought down by a surface-to-air missile, very little to no reasonable doubt that the launch button was pushed by the separatists, possible with Russian help, and every reason to believe that the shootdown was an accident (but still a war crime).

Lizard and JC disagree, which is their right — and a right that I’ll defend. But their arguments verge on hysteria. They don’t trust the mainstream media, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Guardian. They seem to see a conspiracy behind every sunflower. They hate the United States and its government with a black bile that corrodes their judgment. Today, for example, JC actually tried to link Secretary of State John Kerry to paramilitary forces near Donetsk:

What I know is that paramilitary forces in the area around Donetsk are controlled by one of Ukraine’s richest men, Igor Kolomoiskyi, the same corrupt oligarch that brought Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and fmr. Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski (of CIA Black Site rendition/torture prisons in Poland infamy) to the board of Burisma, which is part of Kolomoisky’s Privat Group — one of the largest business empires in Ukraine. And Kolomoisky is the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

Devon Archer brings his relationships with the ex deputy-CIA Director Stephan Kappes, who he sits on the board of DiamondBack Tactical with, a supplier of mercenary armaments. Devon Archer also is a buddy of John Kerry and his rich wife, having been one of his biggest bundlers in Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.

This is absolutely nuts. John Kerry is a decorated Viet Nam veteran with a long and distinguished record of public service; a patriot through and through who’s trying to put out the fires consuming the Ukraine. He’s not in cahoots with Ukrainian scoundrels. Neither is his wife. And the United States is in no way complicit in the shootdown of Flight 17.

4and20blackbirds has become an alternate reality blog, a realm of conspiracy theories and rants by angry leftists driven by hatred of their nation and soured on humanity. Once an oasis of fact and reason, it’s now a well poisoned by fury and anti-Americanism. I can no longer in good conscience keep it on Flathead Memo’s blogroll.