Thread by @mhbx

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton Good, even great, question. One most salient for the times. IMO, and what I think @JYSexton and also @HC_Richardson, among others, are trying to address...

Lots of angles to explore in response...
Here is my first hit:

How do you counter the Taliban? Or ISIS?
Fundamentalism

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 2/ at this level is deeper than simple mental/intellectual ascent...
Even the particular dogmas are not important.. The are the "string" around which the super-saturated "solution" manifests...But it is the "solution" that is the even deeper than dogma systemic paradigm/context.

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 3/ Counter it?

The reason we are experiencing the social disorder these days, and the inexplicable rise of Trump, and the increasingly emboldened "rise of the South" in its various inflections of White Supremacists, from anarchists to KKK to the racism in certain police depts

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 4/ Is because, in part, a completely different culture and foundational belief system is finally making its way to the surface.
It has been in process for a long long time. The thread is an excellent telling of that founding story.
It is why "The South won the War", and why

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 5/ what we simply denominate as "racism" is far more than an aberration, it is a foundational, even axiomatic understanding of how the world is and works.

So. How do you fight that?

It is this that is the clash going on in the streets and in the halls of power now...

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 6/ Which founding principles will be, in fact, the pillars of our society, our country, America?

As others have written books about, America was founded in a contradiction. Esp re slavery, capital, property, and who was in fact a citizen.

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 7/ That contradiction was partially dealt with in the Civil War. But it was not settled. See the history of Grant, and some of the struggles around Reconstruction, and post Grant, how it was ceased, leading to the era of Jim Crow.

Now that understanding of the world, is not

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 8/ simple opinion, but, axiomatic framing of "how it is".

So we have "all men are created equal" on one side.
And the other, using the same language define "all men" as
a. white
b. men... not women.
... and btw, this is the essence of Xn and fundamentalist thought...
Women

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 9/ Women are specifically consigned to a subservient position. It is in all fundamentalist societies/belief systems.

Even the women who are part of the system believe it to be true. I promise you, I have seen it from the inside. Women who are in these systems are fierce in

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 10/ their belief in this structure, as much as any of the men.

You can see some of this worked out in culture in the HBO Show "Big Love". Even though it is specifically Mormon, it is the fundamentalism that is the same.

And

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 11/ And dystopically, in the novel, and TV series Handmaidens Tale.
A work that is the "1984" for our era. It is that salient...IMO.

So how do you fix, or challenge that?

Not sure. It is a battle for the soul & spirit of America that has been raging since the beginning..

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 12/ Before the constitutional convention. All the way back to the first landing of Europeans in the New World.
[ See Jill Lapore These Truths... Excellent discourse on these points and the history behind them. ]

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 13/ It is religious. It is a level of belief that is immune from its own implications of the principles it holds...

It is the reason why the UN is so hated by this segment of society, and why the America Firsters are so implacable and resolute against anything that tends

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 14/ to admit of a larger scope than "America", anything "Global" that would undermine this concrete belief systems and the iron grip they have on the "Truth".

To extend the point:
I think this is the underlying reason for the otherwise inexplicable puzzle why members of this

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 15/ sect [ which, in its political manifestation has taken on, or rather, taken over the Republican Party ] is so against
. Multinational trade treaties
. Recognizing science (Science has been a thousands years enemy of the religious fundamentalists...right up to our time)

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 16/. Climate change... because it is a global issue that transcends the small frame their world view can comprehend. And to extend that frame to include others, not us, is to erode the entire foundation of their world view/framework.
. education
. justice

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 17/ and etc.
I think you can pretty much insert any of our major problems & issues into this framework and see why it is near impossible to make any substantial headway.

One side is not converted to another way of thinking. They are simply dominate in the moment.

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 18/ Today the metaphorical, and physical, "South" is rising again.

We are fighting today the battle that has been in process from the days of Salem.
The Puritanism, absolute in its righteousness, and clear in its belief that those like Roger Williams, & their call for

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 19/ religious freedom, were of the devil.

Freedom vs "the Truth".
Who serves and who is served.
White culture vs other cultures...
and don't forget the Bible gives full justification for not only slaves, but that the "children of Ham" are to be our servants.

@MarkHutton2 @JYSexton @HC_Richardson 20/ It is the American story.

Other than that...
How to counter it?

Easy...

Just tell "them" they are wrong...
Trump and the new instance of this belief as presented in "Trump-ism" will surely see the light...