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August 28, 2009
How Is That Boycott Coming?
It seems that some folks are unhappy with Glenn Beck and want advertisers to boycott his show. An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator's viewership has grown.Isn't that interesting? And Sarah Palin's Facebook Page on Beck? Short and sweet. FOX News' Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House.At last count Sarah had 800,000 Facebook fans. Which kind of leads me into a topic I have been meaning to discuss. Leaderless political warfare. I'd like to start with a comment I found at Oath Keepers. #87 bruce Says:I think he is wrong. The last thing the opposition needs is a leader. The left will go after a leader with all their power. Best for now to keep it diffuse. Small unit actions suited to local conditions. Which brings up a couple of novels by Gordon R. Dickson. The first is a book that includes the story of Amanda Morgan: I'm not going to go into a long dissertation. The essence is that old men and children defeated a large well armed and well paid army by having a general order and then adapting tactics to local circumstances with minimal central direction. If you are into reading novels for entertainment as well as education (the following novel was once on the US Military reading list) you might want to read this one first as it also covers the events in Amanda Morgan. I reviewed the novel at The Tactics Of Mistake. So what is our general order? Simple really. General enough for you? Now how about another analogy? I have one: In many ways the Republicans are like the Spanish in their dust up with Napoleon. The Spanish Army (The Republican Party Machine) is totally ineffective against Napoleon's Regulars (The Democrat Party Machine). However, the partisans redeem the war. Which brings up a a post by Wretchard called 5G. Somebody believes the left is losing the public policy debate because they've got all the flagship institutions. And that's a liability. Umair Haque, writing in a Harvard Business Publishing article, argues that the right, like al-Qaeda has mastered the art of "5th generation warfare" and is swarming all over the left. He notices that liberals have been losing the debate lately and tries to analyze why. The problem with the left, he seems to think, is that they are responding from a center, sending talking points out to a periphery, whereas the right has discovered how to attack swiftly, from a plethora of directions and in depth. The right is inside their OODA loop and Haque realizes that if this goes on long enough, the left will lose.And how has the right got inside the left's OODA loop? Not by being faster. It is hard to get much speed advantage in an internet age. The right is doing it by giving the left more events than it can handle. Tea Parties are breaking out all over with no Central Command. There will be a march on Washington on 12 September starting at 11:30 AM at Pennsylvania Ave. [map] opposite the White House going to the Capitol. And what do you know? Glenn Beck has mentioned the march on Washington on his show. Now back to Wretchard. Wretchard discusses some of Haque's advice on how to counter a distributed movement. And then has this to say. I think Haque's advice will ultimately fail because it fails to recognize the fundamental difference between 'fake' 5th generation warfare and the real thing. The real thing is bottom up; the fake thing is astroturfed. The genuine article aggregates the wisdom of crowds; the counterfeit hires crowds. The real thing genuinely takes into account the experience of the many and values it. It accepts that "norms" are actually driven by the normal and not pronounced on from above. This distinction in source of initiative is crucial. His "10 rules for fighting a 5G war" will come to nothing without recognizing rule number 1: the people can act directly in public policy. The result of applying this principle is 5th generation warfare. The opposite principle is that an enlightned elite, led by a One are leading the world to change. Applying this principle may result in a slick advertising campaign, but it will never be 5th generation warfare.Which fits in rather well with my diagnosis of the current Republican vs. Democrat struggle. Republicans (the politicians) are losing. And Wretchard is absolutely right. The masses are absolutely disdainful of their leaders. The leaders on the right are as inept as the Spanish Army was it its struggle with Napoleon. It probably doesn't matter for now. When the time is right some one will step to the front of the parade. And may I suggest the comments at Wretchard's 5G? They are absolutely first rate. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 08.28.09 at 07:39 AM
Comments
Loren, Thanks for the heads up! M. Simon · August 28, 2009 06:16 PM FYI: Glenn Beck got 3 Million viewers on Wednesday. MetaThought · August 28, 2009 11:15 PM Post a comment
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