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.

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

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.

Monday night he asked us to invite one friend to watch; tonight I invite all my friends to watch.

-Sarah Palin

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:
August 27th, 2009 at 9:50 am

There are many of us who believe in supporting the constitution the way it was intended: to HELP us as a country. Our unamerican president sees it only as a nuisance and roadblock to his goals. Unfortunatley, their machine (smoke & mirrors, bag of tricks, etc.) is well oiled and has considerable momentum.

Those who support this site/cause, and others like it, have a common obstacle: We have no central unification. There are numerous organizations & militias, some of them just nut jobs who actually hurt our credibility, but I think to be an effective force, we need to come together somehow under a central figure or organization.

Which brings up a couple of novels by Gordon R. Dickson. The first is a book that includes the story of Amanda Morgan:

The Spirit of Dorsai

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.

Tactics of Mistake

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 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.

This is the crucial realization. The Republican leadership was in fact the first victim of the revolt from below. Only after the "5th generation" war had ripped through the comfortable assumptions of business as usual did it break out to face the left. To think that the current unrest is the creation of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would be to make a fundamental mistake. Those figures are simply its beneficiaries -- and its beneficiaries by accident.

And may I suggest the comments at Wretchard's 5G? They are absolutely first rate.

Cross Posted at Power and Control