36% against ground-troops invasion

[Andrew_Sawtelle at brown.edu]

> From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> Date: 2002/08/13 Tue PM 12:36:26 EDT
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: 36% against ground-troops invasion
> 
> Carl Remick wrote:
> > 
> > A 57% majority is enough to overwhelm me at least.  This particular actually
> > existing democracy really stinks.
> 
> If you actually hope for any change (as opposed to merely feeling
> superior to those fools) you (a) have to respect that 57% and (b)
> realize that 36% passive opposition is plenty if one can only recruit
> around 5%+ ACTIVE opposition.
> 
> It will never get any better, so sneering at that 57% is tantamount to
> turning the whole future of the world over to the capitalist classes of
> the leading nations.
> 
> Carrol

Similar to Mike Albert's rule of thirds. If you have one third of the population that actively wants something, they can convince another third to go along with them. After that, what ultimately happens depends on the reaction of the final third.

/andrew