News & Politics

Fox Analyst Joins Fight For Russia

by Mick Zano • April 19, 2022

New York, NY—After news broke of an MSNBC employee’s decision to join Ukrainian forces to fight Russian aggression, Fox News went into scramble mode. The minutes of yesterday’s executive meeting revealed a series of initiatives the Fox network floated to discredit, Malcolm Nance, the heroic foreign affairs analyst turned Ukraine freedom fighter. The Discord has procured a copy of these minutes, and the document reveals a frantic 24-hour period wherein Fox & Friends pursued several tactics to counter the news piece of a gutsy black liberal doing manly things. At first efforts were directed at inventing some trans-related gender scandal, after all, his name is Nance. They then explored Nance’s connection to an overdue library book in 1992, but it was decided that the majority of Fox News viewers would not find the story of a literate black person credible. To Fox’s credit, they dismissed the notion Nance was a type of cyborg transformer who actually doubled as Hunter Biden’s laptop. There are limits. Near the end of the meeting two primary strategies surfaced, either label the entire affair black-on-Black Russian violence, or somehow link Nance to the death of four Americans during the Benghazi embassy attacks. When all leads seemed a bit of a stretch, even by Fox News standards, an analyst from their Audience Engagement Department suddenly “volunteered” to fight for the Kremlin. The Fox employee is being deployed along with a Russian BGT battalion to the Donbas region of Ukraine sometime Thursday. The as yet unnamed rightwing counterpart released a statement that he does identify as a man and is in no way connected to the horrible atrocities that occurred in Benghazi under Hillay Clinton’s watch in 2012.

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by Mick Zano • March 24, 2022

Stolen History is a 3-part series available on Youtube for no cover charge. This compelling documentary initially focuses on a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories: missing history, the existence of giants, the Akashic record, and morphic resonance, just to name a few. The series then shifts to western civilization’s impetus and determination to trample our myths, traditions, and spiritual heritage. These are all fascinating subjects, but the overarching premise here is how recent history was mysteriously and systematically obliterated. This isn’t a new theme, how moguls conspired to pull spirituality and history up by its roots in an effort to shift the world’s attention to technological advancements in the hopes of creating a more consumer-driven society. Ironically, this movement kicked into gear when they first started making gears, at the onset of the industrial revolution. Yes, this marks the triumphant return of the Hapsburgs, the Fed, the Free Masons, the robber barons, and everything else on the Illuminati buffet. Still, this is the best series of its kind. It does paint a dismal view of recent human activity and the collective brainfart called modernity. Another piece of the puzzle is how ancient buildings were systematically demolished to make way for the series of World Fairs that started in the early 1800s. In preparation for these events, designed to introduce the globe to our gadget-filled future, each city leveled key historic structures, often accruing huge monetary loses for their efforts. They go country by country, building by building, covering this odd behavior that does paint a baffling picture. I was also taken aback by how much the British colonization acted to crystalize the caste system in India. I always wondered how people with such a rich spiritual history got so caught up in this caste business. How do you go from the Upanishads to the untouchables? From unity consciousness to Ukraine unconsciousness, from Mahatma Gandhi to Narendra Modi, from Maharishi to Mumbai-queasy, from Vedic to pathetic, from Brahman to …I’m being told to stop.

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by Mick Zano • March 13, 2022

I just wanted to chime in on this comment, one that our former president had the temerity to utter outload yesterday, presumably on purpose. Putin has a ‘lot of love’ for making ‘his country larger.’ Hmmm. Trump is the grift that keeps on grifting, isn’t he? Germany called this need for some national space, lebensraum, and the notion factored into their involvement in both world wars. Nice segue to WWIII, don’t ya think? Germans today, and probably most of the rest of the free world outside of Fox News, would call Trump another German word for uttering that statement; sheisskopf comes to mind. And I, too, say that with a lot of love.

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by Mick Zano • March 4, 2022

Those who read the Zano can already read the Ukrainian tea leaves. I don’t post much anymore, but you got this, gang! You’ve been handed the algorithm. Most of us are concerned about the advent of WWIII, and with good reason. Are we all going to die in a flamy Putinesque wall of fire? I actual don’t know, but when Nikki Haley and The Donald, two prominent republicans, admonished Biden’s approach to Moscow last week, we were handed a pretty big clue. Specifically, Nikki Haley felt that Biden was failing to deliver in a “major leadership moment,” and Trump said sanctions won’t work. The rightwing media, true to form, quickly followed suit with: Western sanctions don’t harm Putin — they strengthen him | TheHill. Putin eats sanctions for breakfast and shits non-binding UN resolutions after his nooner. That moment of R-unity is when the rest of us can take a collective deep breath and crack open a brewsky in preparation for that Super Game. Wait. I’m being told that’s over …and it’s not called the Super Game. Anyway, when the GOP speaks in a single voice, we are handed that compass—the one pointing due south. It’s that moment when we can, preferably in a presidential hushed tone, whisper: “It’s going to be okay.” 72-hours after the rightwing Biden blitzscheiss, we find out just how wrong the wrong brigade got this one. What was nice about this is how, well, usually it takes a year or more before we find out how badly they muffed it, and by then no one cares. This one played out faster than the Flash chugging a case of Red Bull. Biden orchestrated this shit in the time it took our former president to take one. In Mr. Trump’s defense, he was apparently doing other things in there.

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by Mick Zano • February 15, 2022

Netflix’s Midnight Mass is a fascinating miniseries, but not for the reasons you might think. The tale perfectly captures what I call the scheissgeist of our time. The story is set on Crockett Island, a fictional town resting off the coast of the Pacific Northwest—a place that, despite its location, somehow managed to miss the whole craft beer movement thing. Poignant. Otherwise, this island-nation becomes the perfect metaphor for the States. It’s even nicknamed ‘the crockpot’ for its melting-pot levels of diversity. You can take it, try to leave it, or burn it to the ground, aka the same problem we all face today. The acting and the special effects are a strength, and I particularly appreciated the attention to atmospheric detail. The series is steeped in Christian symbolism and Mary Magdalen makes an appearance as well, but never mind all that, let’s get Pruitt! Our story starts with the return of not one, but two prodigal sons, who represent not one but two separate levels of consciousness. The island is ‘graced’ with the return of their old priest, Father Pruitt, played by Hamish Linklater, who the congregation believes is a temp sent by the diocese, yet in reality (spoiler alert) he’s a younger vampiric version of himself. Pruitt, now traveling under the name Paul Hill, was restored during his own spiritual journey through the holy land by a more ancient evil. The priest represents the mythic-fundamentalist mindset, and he is content to propagate his new species, thus interpreting the eternal aspect of the undead dealio as a gift from God. In this way Christianity itself becomes the contagion, a new twist on the MAGA-variant joke. He’s trying to make lemonade out of the lemons that the dark angel gave him, or, in this case, bloody marys. The second prodigal son, equally damaged, is Riley Flynn played by Zach Gilford. After a felony DUI that resulted in the death of a young woman, Riley returns home after his jail stint, still haunted by the ordeal. He represents the rational-modern level of consciousness, struggling for meaning and purpose. His girlfriend, Erin Greene played by Kate Siegel, represents the liberal level of consciousness (Green level, or, in this case, Greene). See how this works? In the end, she does grasp the perennial philosophy as she lies bleeding out in the final sequence amidst a pantheistic soliloquy reminiscent of Sagan and Dawkins jerking off to Spinoza. Oh, sorry, that’s the other spoiler alert. Spinoza was a pantheist.

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by Mick Zano • February 7, 2022

The R-meme-rebound is a real thing. You come up with an idea or that ‘aha’ moment emerges, in witty form, so you share your well-crafted meme on social media. Then you can set your watch to see how long it takes that same, yet opposite sentiment to swing back around the political horn. This occurs after its lovingly repackaged by MAGA trolls, of course …you know, those same folks who think Grammarly is a communist plot to overthrow sentence structure. Typically, they just switch the Rs to Ds or Trumps to Bidens and then publish. Good work if you can get it. And it’s not just memes, this trend also occurs amidst rightwing journalism, or what’s left of it. On my ride down to Tucson last weekend, I caught some lovely AM radio and was struck by the ongoing conservative tendency to pay it backward. This isn’t some new tactic but, seeing as how I don’t watch Fox anymore, it’s great to take the pulse of our brain-activityless brethren once in a while. Somewhere south of Nacho Grande I was amazed to hear the phrase Biden crime family bandied about. The Biden crime family? Roll that one around in your mouth for a while. I was among the first to go with a Trump crime family theme here on The Discord, but only because Trump was already a well-established mob boss with a crime family in tow. In a related move, all politicians excel at naming bills after the diametrical opposite of their intent; the Patriot Act comes to mind, or a Save America Rally, or Right to Work, which translates as: here comes the HR guy with the box for your stuff. Yikes. On that note, I lost so many jobs recently I believe it’s inversely impacting Biden’s jobless numbers. Just say’n.

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by Mick Zano • January 21, 2022

I know what you’re thinking, how could you find the least insightful MAGA meme on the internet? How could such a thing reliably even be measured? Don’t overthink this one, folks, because this is a story about non-thinking beings. I do believe this social media gem is worth reviewing, as it packs more Foxal matter, per syllable, than should be humanly possible; it’s also a further indicator of the extreme damage to the MAGA mindset. But a warning comes with this one: this contains about 20% less insight than most republican statements, which could break mathematics as we know it. And I still need that sometimes, like deciding when I should stop doing illicit substances prior to scheduled drug screenings, and the like. The sentiments embedded in this tweet are also part of the reason Biden’s approval ratings are tanking. I am not defending Biden in this piece so much as pointing out the mountain of false assumptions that passes for conservative thought these days, aka the usual.

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by Mick Zano • January 7, 2022

It isn’t really just the republicans, is it? I mean, sure they are the main cause of our woes, at least in my adult lifetime, but what is the deal with the liberal response to this cogent threat? Then I thought, hell, even most of the media seems oblivious to our current plight. Some journalists are honing-in on the appropriate level of dystopic hysterics, but the centerpiece of today’s news headlines should be some binary variation of either: Democracy Is In Peril!, or Mother Earth Is Going Tits Up! As things heat up (literally), I’m growing weary of the other distractions, right or left. Today, I found two related articles from the New York Times: Republicans Are Succeeding Because We No Longer Live In A Democracy, and Imagine It’s 2024, And Republicans Are Declaring Trump President. Nice. But on this, the 4th day of January, I find myself already at my 2022 NYTs article-limit so please let me know what you think about those *Cough*. I then switched to The Atlantic, typically a Zano Nation safe space, but today I read The Myth of Tribalism : Beware of the false notion that group solidarity leads inevitably to conflict. Dear Atlantic, can I call a Mulligan and get an additional free article this month? What’s your exchange policy?

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by Mick Zano • December 25, 2021

It’s all beginning to make sense.

by Mick Zano • December 15, 2021

The mounting threats to our nation are endless, yet it’s easy to get mesmerized by the garden snake variety and ignore the cobras in the room. Republicans can’t even see the cobras at all, without the aid of a mirror. For this piece, let’s adopt a Deafcon system, because you’re all kind of deaf (the 12 Discord readers excluded, of course). R thinks we’re on the verge of communism and D believes we’re slipping toward a dictatorship. First off, the threat of becoming a communist nation is about a 1 on our Likert (1-5 threat scale). Mounting CRT concerns or no, there’s no clear path from Bernie to Stalin, unless you think Finland is about to annex Norway. From the progressive perspective, we are a social democracy striving to be a more functional one—social safety nets over failed military campaigns, a desire to direct our tax dollars to people over corporations, and other crazy stuff like that. On the fascism or despotism side of the equation, however, we are currently at DeafCon 3, and we will shift to Deafcon 4 in and around 2024. The next elections will not be pleasant and the possibility of a peaceful transition of power is waning. Again, this will look nothing like 1864, but the fallout could prove equally devastating. This is why, today, I am turning to both Christ and church, aka I’m moving to Christchurch, New Zealand.

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