What can one person do?

To start with, one person is the only one who can do anything, ever. So get over it.

This one person is getting toward the end of reading Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (pdf) by Huerta de Soto.

This book cannot be recommended too highly. For what it's worth, reading this enables one to understand the exact manner in which the financial elite, the state, and their pet money-crank academic economists are entirely responsible for manufacturing economic crises, including the current particularly disastrous one.

They should know better because the economic theories driving current policy in the banking industry have been refuted either decades or centuries ago, depending on the particular issue. It is special interests which have the big stake in maintaining popular falsehoods for their own benefit.

Understanding is the first step in change. If all you can do is understand, do start by doing that please. It's not that hard anymore. Just turn off that non-sense machine, the media, and start reading a decent book.

Admittedly, an easier introduction to start with would be The Mystery of Banking (pdf), but it is also really worth it to take the whole 812-page ride with the Man from Madrid if you can manage it. Another brand new book in this field is The Ethics of Money Production (pdf). Although I have not had the opportunity to get too far into it yet, I'm venturing a guess that it will be going onto my recommended list after I do.