Flying Metaphors

To bail, or not to bail .. . that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous press releases,
Or to take arms against a sea of financial idiocies,
And by opposing end them?
When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is, Stop Digging.
Well, when you see a few ships that look to be capsizing, you don’t drain the entire ocean (swamp??) to save those ships.
The metaphors are a’ flying all over the land.
And our Congresspersons, the ones we elect ritually to bring the bacon back to our part of the Nation, while decrying the pork going to all other parts, are engaged. They are on the case . . . of metaphorizing the issue—you do remember the issue, don’t you? The collapse of much of our financial house of cards, as our President put it so eloquently recently.
As citizens, what are we to do?
The question that keeps floating to the forefront of my limited brain is, how would I know whether the most recent bailout proposal is good, or bad? My wife and I are retired, so it matters a lot to us whether we will have any money next month. Should I send an e-mail, call my Congressman, rally the troops for a march on Washington?
Mainly, I just keep wishing that our Congresspersons would stop treating us as idiots, even if, in this instance, we are. It’s really hard to trust someone who keeps up this endless stream of idiotic metaphors, or, even worse, blaming the other side of the aisle. Yes, we know there is a lot of blame to go around. Later, guys, much later.
Right now, we need you to begin fixing the problem. We know that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” (I feel ever so much better knowing that) but how about a start?
It would be really helpful If someone in a position of trust would lay out first a serious definition of the problem. I know that banks and insurance companies are collapsing all around us. But that’s an effect of the problem, not The Problem. We all pretty much know now that many banks made many, many bad home loans, and that they packaged those loans into bundles, mixed with some good ones in hopes that investors wouldn’t notice. But is that the whole problem? I mean, if we’re attempting to fix The Problem, it would be helpful if we understood what The Problem is that we are all trying to fix.
Then, it would be helpful if someone could lay out the alternatives, ranging from doing nothing (sounds like a really bad one) to forking out $700 billion to somebody, currently undefined, to buy something, currently undefined.
Now the someone could be Congress, or it could even be the Press (I hesitate to mention “The Media” because that would include all the TV idiopundits). We need a little leadership here guys. Is anyone resembling a leader out there?
And have you heard that Obama is the Anti-Christ . . . and Sarah Palin is a witch (or is she a witch hunter??)
Confused in Concord.