When Reality Is Ugly, Should The Call to Action Be Sanitized?

We face difficult, harsh times in America today.  Over the course of the past thirty or forty years, Congress and occupants of the White House have promoted or been lobbied to implement a series of business, regulatory and trade policies that have had an adverse impact upon our nation.  Unfortunately, we now reap the unfortunate consequence of what those policies have sown.

With the convergence of a collapse in housing values, stagnation and possibly wide-ranging deflation, freezing of credit markets and the loss of over three million jobs during President Bush's reign (with many more on the precipice of extinction), for the first time in most American's lives, we face the prospect of reliving the Great Depression.  During 2008, I've lost count of the number of people I have encountered this year who have lost their business, their job, their financial security and worry openly about where our country is headed and whether they can stave off foreclosure.  Increasingly, Congressional members, media spokespersons, and concerned citizens are using the term depression to describe their angst.  In a recent program aired on Public Television, intriguing parallels between the Great Depression of the Twentieth Century, the concentration of wealth at the top and double digit unemployment were made between then and now.

I personally know those who have lost their home to foreclosure, have lost their business, lost their jobs and their families are under immense stress.  Despite living a privileged life myself, I cannot close my eyes to the need and suffering of others.   Others of privilege are somehow uncomfortable with daily exposure to the reality of those facing such obstacles, their hope diminished, faith faltering.  I recognize that the image of a single mother losing her job and her home is unattractive; and that a family splitting up because of a loss of job, home and self-respect caused retreat into depression, alcohol or drug abuse.  Desperation and a loss of human dignity is disquieting, particularly during the holiday season. 

Which brings me to a question that I pose to all of you:  When reality is ugly, should the call to social activism be sanitized, so as to make the affluent comfortable?  Would elimination of negative images and references to the stark reality of those living in desperation, make those living a privileged life more likely to contribute?  Conversely, would a sterilized message merely dilute the urgency to act, resulting in inaction?  What do you think?