"America is known, all throughout the world, as 'Occupied America.'”
Totally needless clarification, but as someone living in Jerusalem who has been fighting an occupation for years, this is...inaccurate. Extravagantly so. Umm, no, you cynical numbskull (apologies to sincere numbskulls and apologies for any whiff of ableism), it’s not. But not only is America not known around the world as occupied, it isn’t occupied. In any sense. At least not as a belligerent occupation by a foreign power. The picture above is a picture of occupation. Khan al Ahmar is a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, about a 20-minute drive from where I type on the western side of the “green line”. It’s been a target of expulsions for years. In many ways, it’s paradigmatic of occupation. This is the Husan Checkpoint (photo by Anat Tueg) set up to restrict access to occupied Al Walaja, four kilometers from occupied Bethlehem, about 40 minutes from where I type (if you have Israeli plates and license, otherwise, it take a bit longer). It’s known by some as the most beautiful village in Palestine in the occupied West Bank.
Occupations are by the dominant over the subalterns. And use both political and military coercion. Nothing about Aurora Colorado resembles this. No Venezuelan gangs dominate other populations.
On the other hand, the occupation of these two (and many other locations) in Israel-Palestine, are completely enabled by the US and Canada and the EU and Australia. Americans are not occupied, we are occupiers.
The question is what we might do about it under a Harris administration. With Drumpf, there’s no hope whatsoever. Not sure there is with Harris, but there are 10,000 other reasons to support her (I’ve already cast my absentee ballot, as has my daughter and her mother, and all three count in Michigan). But the situation is utterly intolerable. And it will only change if there is smart and focused and strong external pressure. We must not let this continue. As for the citizens of Aurora, have a lovely day. And don’t forget to vote.
[EDIT: I consider the US ethnically cleansed and a site of genocide, not a current occupation. But I don’t see any sense in quibbling over definitions with those who see it as “Occupied Turtle Island”. Pretty much a distinction without a difference.]