What would you do if your country was under attack? If your government was under siege by an occupying force with utter disregard for the well-being of your fellow citizens? Would you ‘cut and run’? Or would you take up arms against the invaders as a true patriot?

No, this is not some clever peacenik defense of the Iraqi ‘insurgency’—common citizens using the dire means at their disposal to eject an occupying enemy. I’m talking about America; what if some foreign force that supported torture and opposed human rights and your constitution—a force not unlike say Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia, or Turkey—suddenly invaded Washington. What would you do? Act like a patriot or a girly-man?

Well, it’s happened.

Think, for one second, of all this administration has done. Has there been one thing that made you feel safer, that made you feel someone’s in charge, that your rights and well-being were secure? Has there been one thing they’ve done that hasn’t been a scandal of mismanagement, corruption or fraud? Has there been one thing—just one—that they’ve said that hasn’t been an outright laughable lie?

That’s what it feels like when your country’s occupied.

Here’s a little test: name the first ten scandals of this administration that come to mind. For starters, there are the lies, about WMDs, about enriched uranium, about mobile chemical labs, about Hussein’s connection to al-Qaeda or 9/11. We also have the flagrant violations of the Geneva Conventions, like torture, depleted uranium on missiles, black sites, extraordinary rendition, white phosphorous on civilians, shutting down of Iraqi hospitals, or forcing fleeing civilians to return to Falluja so they could be slaughtered.

How about BushCo’s utter disdain for the military, having no entrance strategy, no exit strategy, improper armor, improper transport, cutting of veteran’s benefits here at home, lying to widows about cause of death, W not attending a single military funeral or Rumsfeld being too busy to personally sign G.I.’s death notices?

If you haven’t chosen your ten yet, you could try denial of global warming, the gutting of Medicaid, minimum wage, or your constitutional right to habeas corpus, the invasion of Terry Schiavo, or the indictments and/or investigations of Tom Delay, Bill Frist, Scooter Libby, Jack Abramaoff, Michael Scanlon, Duke Cunningham, and Kenneth Tomlinson. Phew.

If you’re still having trouble rounding out your list, there’s always Abu Ghraib, the deregulation/Enron scandal, Halliburton’s no-bid rip-offs, male hustler Jeff Gannon being given White House press credentials, Rove and Co paying off broadcasters to tout propaganda, Cheney’s torture loophole for the CIA---or maybe his telling Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself on the Senate floor.

Oh, and then there’s Katrina—and of course Brownie, who went in a single career jump from assisting a manager of horseshows to heading the one organization in charge of protecting the entire country—300 million people—from disasters.

Pretty impressive list, huh? We haven’t even gotten to PlameGate, Swift Boat veterans, John Bolton, or threatening to blow up al-Jazeera. Really makes you swell with pride.

Now remember, these are only the horrors we actually know about, the few scant things that managed to squeak through the White House’s totalitarian grip on the media, public debate, and public oversight.

Think for a second about some areas where disaster has yet to strike, things not on your list. Do you think those areas are safe? Say a nuclear accident, a bridge collapse, or a pandemic. Think you’re covered? Think your list of ten up above there is just isolated incidents, and that all is well with all the things we can’t see? Or is this abominable record of disaster just the tip of an iceberg?

Remember, these are people who have lied about everything and stolen everything in the public coffer that wasn’t nailed down. They lied and sent young Americans to die in a uniform they themselves couldn’t ever be bothered to put on.

The food you eat: it’s safe, right? There’s somebody out there making sure it’s free of carcinogens, mad cow disease, chemicals that could kill you, or just everyday germs, right? Someone’s keeping an eye out to make sure that there isn’t a wave of deaths from infected food in the school system, say, or at the mall, right? Do you think that person is a qualified professional or do you think he’s a Brownie?

The water you drink it’s clean, right? If there was a toxic spill careening down the Mississippi or the Ohio or the Potomac like the one that just happened in China— there’s a plan in place to protect you and your family from being poisoned, right? Just in case, there’s a system set up to get you and your family clean water to drink, cook with, and bathe with, right? The person in charge of that system, do you know if he’s a scientist or doctor or public works expert, or is he maybe just the wayward son of a defense contractor who dumped a lot of money into a bunch of GOP PACs in the last election?

Your hospital—think it will always be there, and will always provide care for you and your neighbors when the unthinkable happens? Think the doctors are well trained, the equipment is sterile, beds will always be available for when the disaster befalls you? The disabled girl down the street, I mean, all her care is paid for, right? I mean, no one’s done anything stupid like gut the funding for these necessities to finance a tax cut or anything, have they?

And the CDC, if all of a sudden avian flu hits, or something they haven’t even encountered yet, like a new SARS, well, there’s a qualified team there, right, making sure you and your family will get the needed preventative medicine, or the required treatment if God forbid they contract something, right? There’s no Brownie there, is there, or a team of faith-based healers ready to tell you to pray for God to send a cure when your kid comes down with the Black Death 2007, right? Karl Rove wouldn’t let that happen, right? He cares about you.

And of course, Social Security won’t ever be touched.

The drugs you take, the FDA is there for you, right? There’s no political crony sitting at the helm lining his pockets with payoffs from pharmaceutical companies while unsafe or untested drugs are rubber stamped and put on the store shelves, right? I mean, you trust that Dick Cheney wouldn’t let that happen, right?

You savings account—the FDIC and banking laws will protect you, right? There’s no way you could wake up one day and find it’s all be defrauded away into the offshore account of a friend Tom DeLay’s, is there? I mean, you’re protected, right?

What about that nuclear power plant in the next county: feel like it’s all up to code, all the safety precautions are fully operational, that someone reliable is watching out for you? Do you think there’s a cogent plan to get you and your family out of there if the shit hits the fan, with a responsible qualified adult at the helm? Or is there maybe a former male hustler on watch?

What about that convention center or stadium being built downtown? Those workers are all legal, right? The plans have all been approved, someone’s checked and made sure all the materials are the best available, the contractor built everything to code, right? A big cement overhang’s not gonna collapse on you and your kid at the ball game, right?

What about the bridge you drive over to get to work, or the tunnel your kid’s bus takes on the way to school, or the dam by your mother’s house, or the train trestle at the end of your street?

The next time you’re driving the kid to Cub Scouts over that bridge, say to yourself, ‘I paid taxes and my government cares about me and they made sure my cash went into securing this bridge and not into the coffer of some no-bid corporation or contractor.’

Say it, go ahead.

Notice that feeling in the pit of your stomach? That’s the horrible suspicion that you’ve been had, that nothing’s up to code, that no one’s looking out for you, that anything can be stolen right out from underneath you and your family at any minute. It’s desperation.

That’s what it feels like when your life is under siege.

This utter lack of certainty about your life is the absence of freedom. It’s what happens when your country has been taken over by a hostile, occupying force. Nothing is safe. You government has been invaded by a cabal of thieves intent upon dismantling all you take for granted, all you’ve invested in, all you hold dear. That government Grover Norquist wants to drown in the bathtub? That’s you.

It might explain why some desperate soul on the other side of the world would strap on a belt of explosives.

But you, what are you gonna do? Cut and run? Or will you do what any patriot would do when they realize their family, their town, their kids, their schools, their banking system, their food, their water, their medicine, their transit system, their healthcare—their very way of life—is under siege?

Do what you know must be done before the next disaster strikes.

Impeach them.