In politics today, trolls live in the sewers of think-tanks, communications firms, corporate media, old-line political parties and government ministry offices. They provide material to fill the airwaves and pages of the press with absurdities. So-called professional journalists, reduced to purveyors of gossip, participating in what they know to be theatre, blithely report pseudo-events as real.

Citizens’ opinions are monitored through polls and focus groups, not because the opinions matter, but because political hacks know that by parroting back our own points of view, they can survive without the bother and risk of standing for principle.

Commentators on the public stage proclaim that voters must elect governments that favour the business and political establishment, or the economy will be destroyed and our futures made destitute. Right wing foundations overtly make war on the public sector, social programs, human rights and principles of equality and universality. They want no obstacle to impede the march of the corporate state.

The above is inspired by words of Chris Hedges at Truthdig, “The Election March of the Trolls.” He also wrote:

The trolls have gamed the system. There is no economic, political or environmental reform, from campaign finance to environmental controls, that can be implemented to impede the march of the corporate state. The rot and corruption at the top levels of our financial and political systems, coupled with the increasing deprivation felt by tens of millions of Americans, are volatile tinder for revolt. And the trolls are prepared for this too. They have put in place draconian state controls, including widespread internal surveillance, to silence our anemic left.

They know how to direct the rage of the right wing toward the last pockets of the cultural, social and political establishment that cling to traditional liberal values, as well as toward the most vulnerable among us including Muslims, undocumented workers and homosexuals. They will make sure we consume ourselves.

All conventional forms of dissent, from electoral politics to open debates, have been denied us. We cannot rely on the institutions that once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible. The only route left is to disconnect as thoroughly as possible from the consumer society and engage in acts of civil disobedience and obstruction. …

Most important, we must stop being afraid. ..We have to defy all formal systems of power. We have to listen closely to the moral voices in our society… and ignore feckless liberals who have been one of the most effective tools of our disempowerment. We have to create monastic enclaves where we can retain and nurture the values being rapidly destroyed by the wider corporate culture and build the mechanisms of self-sufficiency that will allow us to survive. The corporate coup is over. We have lost. The trolls have won. We have to face our banishment.