If I Were…

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

From “Sympathy For The Devil”

The Rolling Stones

If I were the Devil:

• I would focus on the most powerful nations and find ways to undermine the citizens.
• I would create chaos in one nation by making it possible for corruption so the citizens did my bidding and overturned the government and tore down walls.
• I would sell that nation on the idea that the "free will" of other nations was the path to follow so they would become one of "them".
• In the other most powerful nation I would start with the peaceful beliefs of the majority and begin to undermine those beliefs by pitting groups against other groups.
• I would whisper in the ears of men and women of all ages that society takes a back seat to the individual.
• I would whisper some more about the quest for money and use whatever mass media is available to make everyone believe that wealth and things and property and having more stuff solves everything.
• I would start to get organized from here by convincing authors and artists and film makers that creating works which have little substance, greater graphic detail and more debased human condition would be more appealing to a wider audience thereby making more socially important works seem dull, insipid and uninteresting.
• I would fill televisions and theaters with more and more and more violence, sexuality, adult situations, cursing and killing until the nation became numb to all death and destruction.
• I would soon have people believing that those in the capitol or city hall are responsible for all of their troubles.
• I would ensure their was enough bureaucracy and red tape that nothing would be completed in a timely manner. I would undermine trust by creating more red tape. 
• I would convince marketers that whatever may be detrimental just needs to be sold harder until whatever will create unhealthy people is sold continuously without interruption.
• I would ensure laws were enacted for alcohol to remain cheap and freely available so I could keep the masses anesthetized and unable to focus on what was important.
• I would ensure where alcohol did not work, I would push illegal drugs into every corner I could manage then "legally" drug the rest with prescription pills under the guise of saving them from themselves.
• I would undermine trust by ensuring morally corrupt leaders were elected.
• I would create sprawling toxic environments where nature is pushed out. 
• I would soon have families at war with themselves… neighbourhoods at war with themselves… security forces at war with themselves… nations at war with themselves... individuals at war with themselves.
• I would lie and create falsified, irrelevant, invisible divisions between sexes, races, colours, sexual preferences… and provide the weapons, drugs, alcohol and low self-esteem perfect for creating wars between my created factions.
• When the wars take place, I would have mesmerizing, unrelenting media continuously fanning the flames so the citizens would become numb to horror and I could recreate the cycle over and over.
• In schools I would focus solely on the intellect of young children completely disregarding their emotional well being so they could be drugged and demoralized and more easily led down a path of self destruction and societal uselessness.
• In no time at all I would have prisons over flowing, destitute city neighbourhoods growing larger, homeless people filling the streets, everyone barring their doors and windows, court systems clogged with petty grievances, a gun in every home for intruders.
• Soon everyone will be either angered or frightened by someone or some thing.
• I would continue to convince citizens that things and money were the only thing that would make them happy and in their inebriated, drugged, numb, low self-esteem state of being they would follow like lemmings to the slaughter.
• I would ensure the gap between the have’s and the have-not’s grows wider by the minute.
• I would sell hope to the poor by opening government sanctified gambling houses and lottery outlets until the poor were spending all of their money on hope and the rich watched as they raked in the money.
• I would convince the young that what they see on TV and in theaters was the only way to be happy.
• Then I would create mass media that crawls into homes and creeps into lives until it takes over. This media would provide everything TV and movies and lewd music do except it is there all the time at the bidding of the user. It would be mesmerizing causing rifts in families, friendships and community. It would take over most lives and I would be sure it was an indoor activity so healthy, life giving outdoor activity and nature would be forgotten.
• I would finally have all of you alone, locked behind doors in dimly lit rooms without anyone to help you where I can perform my final flourish at my leisure.

If I were the devil, I would attack your mind by making you believe what was bad for you was good and important and exciting… and what was good was boring and passé. I would hard sell the crap and forget about the healthy.

Because... once I have your mind and convince you you need whatever fix you're on, you will sell me your soul for the next hit.

Namaste

(Paraphrased from Paul Harvey 1965)