Propaganda by Numbers

What follows below is a modest list
of things that you  — as an empire
                     whether budding or built —
must do without guilt or remorse
                     in the war-waging course
                                   of running your grift;

is a bluntly straightforward list
of empire-inspired state-sponsored tricks
most  as old and clinically cold-blooded
as the sick soul's lust for power at all costs:


1.    Throw unprovoked jabs at your targets
with false accusations of having just done

the sort of dirt that can't help but come
from the filthy black ops   false flag artists
the likes of yourself are well known to run.

2.    Transmute your brazen lies
              into indisputable truths
              in the masses' minds and eyes

through the naturally foolproof alchemy
of persistent repetition  repetition repetition.

3.    Always     in all matters optical
when composing your quarries' portraits
       cast them in the worst light possible.

4.    Pay special inverting attention
       to paint  the blatant self-protection
       practiced by your impudent victims
              as patently flagrant aggression

all while depicting
your thinly-veiled rapacious invasions
as strictly defensive
— in defense     needless to mention
              of unassailable “higher ideals”.

5.    Impede any meme or account
              that dares run counter to yours
by declaring its source a definitive fount
              of profoundly pernicious disinfo.

6.    Either redact  or flat-out ignore
       the actual facts and factual score

in keeping with a sweeping policy
       of rigorous  meticulous omission
whenever these facts and scores conflict
with your monolithic  hegemonic vision.

7.    Come what may never stray
       from your fanatically blinkered script;
from your agenda's straitjacket narrative;
              from its fiercely unflinching drift.

8.    Should any of the headline lies
       your puppet media parrot on cue
              ever be shown to be wholly
                     or even only partly untrue
refuse to acknowledge this vexing fact

but if heavily pressed to make amends
and somehow forced to correct or retract
       always go with the ol'
       squarely-buried  weekend-pretend
       unfailingly-vague  good-for-a-laugh
              high-speed-drive-by apology act.