Caring about Sudan

Jim Moore and friends are putting weblogs through their paces in the name of global political activism, with a focus on human rights violations in Sudan. 
One particularly interesting aspect of this conversation: Jim’s
thinking about and using the metrics of the blogs-space to
determine the effectiveness of our collective activism.  It
relates, too, to Ethan Zuckerman’s inquiry into the Global Attention Profile.  (Ethan links to an article
at allAfrica.com that refers to the conflict in Darfur as the
“world’s worst humitarian crisis.”)  And to Lawrence Lessig‘s
statement at iLaw that we should all aspire to become “just
bloggers.”  Let’s presume that nothing “happens” (i.e., no change
in policy on the ground, or at the State Department in the US,
etc.) as a result of a cluster of bloggers paying attention to
this atrocious problem.   How much does it matter that we
just talk about a problem half a world away?  Jim, Halley, Ethan,
Larry all seem to say it matters a great deal.