Today, we read that more than 26.4 million people around the world sent text messages in support of the LIVE 8 campaign to cancel the debts of poor African countries.

OK, that's nice. Now let's just say that the G-8 industrialized nations, leaders of whom are meeting this week, decide on this gesture.

What happens?

Nothing.

The very nations that owe the most money are, for the most part, plagued by endemic corruption and disease. Economies freed up by debt relief to appear more attractive to job-creating investment will find factories owned by those who are already in, or who have access to power. Workers will be paid less than sustinence wages. The very top people will still live in mansions and have Swiss bank accounts. And AIDS will continue to ravage the cities and countryside.

Now, if those same text-messagers, well, text-messaged or emailed the heads of the giant drug companies who refuse to mark down the cost of AIDS drugs for poor nations, and text-messaged the heads of evil tobacco companies that flood impoverished countries with their cancer sticks, then we might get somewhere.