I wrote this on Tuesday.  Has anything really changed?

Last night was not a good one. I got almost no sleep. And apparently during the rare minute that I did drift off I was snoring so loudly that Mrs. Coop had to remove herself to the sofa in the living room. Now, the question is, why did I get so little rest last night? Too much pepperoni? Too little wine? No. The correct answer is my government is trying to kill me. That's right, I said it. No, they're not doing it in any kind of overt, car-bomb under the seat sort of way. They prefer to do it slowly, one nerve at a time. And good Christ are they wearing my nerves down these days.

I've sent e-mails to Senators and left voicemails for Representatives, trying to get them to defeat the bailout/handout bill. I've bothered every friend I have to please please please do the same. So Congress defeats the bill, completely defying the White House and the leadership of both parties. HUZZAH!!! I did the right thing! I fought the good fight and I won! Right? Right?

C'mon, somebody throw me a fucking HUZZAH here because I'm quickly beginning to rethink this thing as I'm lying in my bed in a cold sweat last night. Images flash through my mind: of my amazing wife and our two incredibly beautiful kids living out of the back seat of the minivan, which hasn't moved in months because gas either costs too much or just isn't available (take a look at the Southeastern U.S. for more on that!) and so the van has grass and weeds growing up through the wheel wells . Those two incredibly beautiful kids are underfed and filthy and battling severe colds because we can't afford to take them to the doctor because we no longer have any health insurance because I've lost my job because the small film studio I worked for could no longer afford to pay me or any of my fine co-workers because the line of credit that it relied upon to pay those fine employees dried up because the credit facility went bust because the bailout funds were never allocated because I sent e-mails to Senators and because I left voicemails for Representatives, trying to get them to defeat the bailout/handout bill and because I bothered every friend I have to please please please do the same. WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?!?! And the sweat pours off me and I toss and I turn and every god damned nightmare scenario that I can conjure plays in my head.

But the problem is, even here in the bright light of day, I can't say for sure that what I did was the wrong thing to do. In fact, I still think it was the right thing to do! And that's where that thing about the government trying to kill me comes in. You see, nobody has yet to fully explain this unholy mess to the public. Do we need the bailout? Is it really just corporate socialism to protect the wallets of a few fat cats? The only one who has come close to explaining it all is Paul Krugman and I'm not sure I even understand him most of the time.


So I think the powers-that-be (and we know who they be) are just trying to drive us mad. Make us more irrational than we already are as a people. But to what end? They already own all the good stuff. They couldn't possibly want any of the crap that the rest of us own, it's all shit. I mean, the top 400 richest people in the US got even richer, to the the tune of $650 BILLION, during Bush's reign of stupidity. So what else do they want from us? Could it be that, having taken all else, they've come back to snatch our sanity?

YIKES!

So now the bill has passed...so what do I do?  What do we do?
Courtesy of http://coopyikes.blogspot.com/