A rash of informative but irrelevant signs have gone up in my neighborhood lately, reminding me of the perennial flaw of activism in today's accelerated and alienated world.

Many awareness campaigns begin with the very sincere but unfortunately naïve sentiment, "If only people knew the truth..." Armed with little more than that, they spend millions of dollars on celebrity-endorsed commercials, speaking tours, and marketing campaigns that does little more than leave people disempowe(RED).

That's the sad end to the second half of the sentence that people never finish. "If only people knew the truth, they'd be even more scared than they already are and feel even more powerless than they already do."

I'm not speaking from a high horse. Consider the tragedy going on, as we speak, in Darfur. I'm aware that it's going on, I even have friends intimately involved in the struggle. Throw it into a blender along with the perpetual occupation of Iraq, our Constitution being shredded by an outlaw Executive Branch, corporations scrambling to make money from climate change instead of fight it... hit purée and try to drink that concoction. Anyone who claims to be truly aware of what's going on it our world and not clinically depressed is lying. So I turn away and try to concentrate on the things I have some control over. Let me be clear, awareness-raising efforts on the Darfur issue have made me less inspired to take action.

To eat my own medicine, let me end the ranting about how activism is screwing the proverbial pooch by encouraging blissful ignorance over action and start offering some solutions. Similar to "the only thing we have to fear", solutions are the solution. However, most of the solutions that organizations offer are signing my name to a declaration, spreading the word, and giving money. Of these, giving money is the only action that actually affects an outcome. Sure, spreading the word might indirectly—but only by encouraging more people to give money.

The solutions that get me really excited are the ones that openly share campaign strategy with me. MoveOn.org's emails typically, even when asking for money, lay out a clear plan for how I help. Maybe they want to hire more on-the-ground organizers for an upcoming primary, maybe they want lots of lawyers to email Alberto Gonzalez, either way I can see their strategy and—by taking part—I see how my actions are part of something larger that needs me.

The core of this is that those people enlightened to the point where they feel responsibility for the world and want to take action won't feel satisfied with activism that strips them of that responsibility. Which is a good thing, because "absolution activism" is a false solution anyway.

Back to the signs that have gone up in my neighborhood. They are a clear example of taking the "If only people knew the truth..." to an illogical extreme. Being a big city with nice weather, San Francisco has more than it's share of homeless out on the streets. My neighborhood is not the worst in the city in that regard, but the only that I've noticed to try to address the problem by putting up infographics about what is and is not acceptable behavior.

There's a lot more to say on this topic and, like many of my posts, this one has seemed to get away from me without my feeling like I've reached any sort of clarity. I expect this will not be my last word on the current disempowering nature of activism. Comments are welcome from those who both seek inspiration and to inspire.

Stan is currently in the desert of Nevada and "robo-blogging" while he's gone. He wrote this last week and set it to publish today.