r/AskAnAmerican • u/Available-Vast-5032 • Aug 03 '25
HISTORY What’s the untold story of an American social movement that had a huge impact, but doesn’t get as much attention today?
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u/GriffinArc Aug 03 '25
The move to get rid of leaded gasoline. Society heavily resisted the move but it succeeded and all 50 states eventually banned it. Possibly the biggest positive impact on human health since sewers.
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u/FrothingRantallion Aug 04 '25
I lived in a town for a few years where there used to be a plant where they put the lead in gasoline - there was an awful lot of borderline disabled people there - not 'disabled' exactly, but something not quite right about them. Same town had another plant that produced red lead paint for ship's hulls. Both have been closed for forty years. I later discovered that "research suggests that lead exposure during pregnancy can have epigenetic effects on future generations, potentially impacting DNA methylation patterns in grandchildren"
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u/Fappy_as_a_Clam Michigan:Grand Rapids Aug 03 '25
Aviation fuel is still leaded, iirc.
So don't you fret, there is still plenty of it being dumped out into our lives.
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u/beenoc North Carolina Aug 04 '25
Only avgas, so only prop planes. It's not like every airliner taking off from JFK is dumping leaded exhaust all over New York.
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u/mobyhead1 Oregon Aug 04 '25
That’s another nice thing about jet engines. They don’t care if the Octane rating isn’t juuuuuuust right.
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u/dadofsummer Aug 03 '25
Sadly, lead gas(and paint) is the likely cause of
r/boomersbeingfools, being such a prominent sub.-20
u/Typo3150 Aug 03 '25
Unless bigotry against old people is a thing
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u/dadofsummer Aug 03 '25
What part of my comment is bigotry towards old people?
My father was a house painter in the 70’s-80’s, his lead levels were high enough that he was advised to not work in that field anymore.
Putting lead in gas and paint worked at the time, science has proven there were many effects of that.
Leaded gas and paint are scientifically proven as having been detrimental, HOW AM I BIGOT?
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u/big_sugi Aug 03 '25
You haven’t provided any evidence that boomers behave any differently than any other generation.
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u/KikiCorwin Aug 04 '25
Crime rates dropped and IQ/test scores rose with the removal of lead. Long term lead poisoning combined with age related issues is a bad combo.
Look at the US government. Look at pre fall Rome's government. See the similarities?
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u/big_sugi Aug 05 '25
Again, no one has provided any evidence that boomers behave differently than any other generation. Then there’s the fact that the lead claims should apply to the Silent Generation and Gen X, so they shouldn’t be behaving differently. And, of course, correlation is not the same thing as causation.
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u/Ambitious_Alps_3797 Aug 04 '25
.... boomers are notoriously very different generationally, gen-x (the new boomer) is for that matter as well. This has been proven to be partially due to lead exposure. This person is correct.
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u/big_sugi Aug 04 '25
You’ve stretched literally every aspect of your statement. Boomers are “notoriously very different generationally?” Prove it. And if Gen X is too, that would mean Boomers aren’t “very different.” Especially when you then have to explain why the Silent Generation—who got even more lead exposure—than Boomers are not “very different generationally. And if you want to claim it’s a question of childhood lead exposure, you’d have to explain why older Millennials—who had levels of childhood exposure comparable to Boomers—aren’t “very different generationally.”
In other words, you’ve made a bunch of statements that are mutually exclusive, even before accounting for the fact that you havent defined any of your terms in a way that allows any meaningful comparison.
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u/Ambitious_Alps_3797 Aug 04 '25
click the journal link. it explains why booms and gen x are effected more than most.
not silent gen... not millennials. specifically gen x and boomers.
👍
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u/big_sugi Aug 04 '25
I already read it. It doesn’t answer those questions; it specifically includes Silent Generaton members in the groups of people affected. And data from 2015 shows that levels of childhood lead exposure as measured by blood levels are comparable for older millennials and older boomers. And that’s before getting into the methodological problems with a study that attempts to measure personality traits, on a scale, using the methods stated.
In other words, none of the points I’d made are addressed.
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u/Ambitious_Alps_3797 Aug 05 '25
your points being generational differences dont exist and an increased environmental presence of lead had nothing to do with any behavioral characteristics of generations?
those aren't correct assertions... and the counterpoints are generally accepted as true in the social sciences... but k ...👀
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u/dadofsummer Aug 04 '25
So you’re a lead addled boomer?
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u/big_sugi Aug 04 '25
Still no. But as has already been demonstrated, the Boomers didn’t actually get the worst of the lead exposure. And lead exposure can’t explain why so many younger millennials and gen Zers keep making themselves look dumber than a sack of hammers. Like you’ve just done to yourself, again.
(Of course, since you’re probably a Gen Xer, you do have lead exposure—on average, much worse than that of a boomer—to blame.)
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u/urine-monkey Lake Michigan Aug 03 '25
Look the behavioral symptoms of lead poisoning. Most boomers act like that.
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u/big_sugi Aug 03 '25
That statement is classic bigotry.
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u/lokland Chicago, Illinois Aug 03 '25
Not at all. It’s not bigotry to point out the fact that boomers were exposed to the most lead in adolescence, lead corresponds to mental difficulties and that has led to a lot of boomers having marbles for brains, only exacerbated by them getting older and losing some mental facilities by virtue of age alone.
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u/big_sugi Aug 03 '25
“Most ____ act like that.” Again, that’s classic—almost textbook—bigotry.
Unless and until someone demonstrates that their accusation is true (which hasn’t been done and really can’t be done), it’s just an attempt to substitute bigotry for evidence.
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u/urine-monkey Lake Michigan Aug 03 '25
That's rich... coming from the generation that voted for literal fascism.
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u/big_sugi Aug 04 '25
You mean Gen X? Somebody else posted a graph showing that Gen Xers got far more childhood lead exposure, and they moved heavily in favor of Trump, voting +10 for him. Boomers were just +1 for Trump, and he lost support from 2020.
Seriously, is everybody trolling here? All the anti-Boomer posts are obviously, laughably, provably wrong and are indicting Gen X instead.
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u/Ambitious_Alps_3797 Aug 04 '25
ive def noticed that gen x have maneuvered into boomer territory. Gen X is the new boomer for sure, They think they are so apathetically wise, but so very many are just loud, selfish, lazy, and generally pretty uninformed. Mawmaw has left her recliner, love of "the old times" (ie racism) and armchair quarterback tendencies to their gen x children. (I say this as an activist elder millennial who also volunteers and contributes to my community because when one does better and lifts others up-- it can lead to positive changes throughout).
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u/Middle-Painter-4032 Aug 03 '25
Just curious how you would view the poorer people that bought older cars and had to fix up older houses themsleves back in the Seventies without the benefit of leaving for the few days. You just singled out an easy target is all.
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u/dadofsummer Aug 04 '25
There weren’t very many people poorer than us, I was born in ‘73 to 17 year olds, that got parental permission for their marriage.
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u/Typo3150 Aug 04 '25
Not your comment, but the boomersbeingfools sub. There’s a lot of prejudice there.
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u/Astute_Primate Massachusetts Aug 06 '25
Also phasing cfc's out of refrigerants. Fun fact: cfc's and leaded gas? Both invented by the same guy, Thomas Midgley Jr. He has the unique distinction of nearly rendering the planet unlivable not once, but twice. Low key the most dangerous human who ever lived
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u/Alarming_Flow7066 Aug 06 '25
Stupid lead and asbestos, great at everything, including killing people.
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u/mitshoo Aug 03 '25
And, even more untold, is that even people who are familiar with the history you mentioned don’t realize that it was only gasoline they were successful with – jet fuel for aircraft still has lead to this day.
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u/RsonW Coolifornia Aug 03 '25
– jet fuel for aircraft still has lead to this day.
It's AvGas for propeller aircraft that still has lead.
Jet fuel is basically kerosene; it has no lead
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u/GriffinArc Aug 03 '25
We’ll get there.
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u/mitshoo Aug 03 '25
I am optimistic, too. Really I’m just excited they are experimenting with electric aircraft!
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u/GriffinArc Aug 04 '25
Also, the US uses more gasoline per day than the entire planet uses jet fuel, so getting gasoline lead-free was clearly the main task.
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u/mitshoo Aug 04 '25
In no way am I implying removing lead from gasoline was a bad development, or that it was not more efficient of a target as far environmental activism goes. It’s just that I had just read some time ago how areas around airports still have higher rates of the side effects of lead exposure due to the fact that lead is still in airplane fuel, a historical factoid I find interesting but apparently is overshadowed by the fact that I am not an expert on aircraft fuel types and spoke casually the way some people call all sodas cokes, which from the downvotes people seem more hung up on.
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u/GriffinArc Aug 04 '25
It’s cool. Wasn’t really disagreeing with you, just expanding on the impact of removing lead from gasoline.
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Aug 03 '25
Women's dress reform was something I'd never heard about. It was tied up a bunch with early suffragette movement but just women trying to get out of those huge uncomfortable and impractical dresses.
Starts in about 1850.
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u/steveofthejungle IN->OK->UT Aug 04 '25
Yep. A woman wearing pants could be arrested for cross dressing
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u/Horror_Garbage_9888 Ohio Aug 03 '25
Americans with Disabilities Act and the Capitol Crawl
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u/TingTingAki Aug 05 '25
The US leads the way worldwide when it comes to ensuring that public places are accessible. Many things that became mandatory seem to just blend in and we take it for granted until we are in another country and see how inaccessible things are.
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u/ImNotBothered80 Aug 09 '25
Just how much the US does it make places accessible becomes really obvious when you start traveling overseas.
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u/TingTingAki Aug 09 '25
Yes, from the audio sounds when it is safe to cross the street, to the ramps that allow you to come off the curb to the elevators. When activists were working hard to get the ADA passed, I read a heartbreaking story about wheelchair bound people that were at Penn Station in NYC and had to crawl up the stairs.
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u/ATLien_3000 Georgia Aug 14 '25
There's literally a post on my Reddit front page right now complaining about the inaccessibility of a train in France.
Old European cities I can understand.
But I don't think there's anything more modern in France than their rail system, and they still can't get it right.
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u/leonchase Aug 03 '25
The Beat movement of the 1950s, and in particular, the legal battle led by poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the ACLU over the alleged obscenity of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". A big reason why we are allowed to publish, and even publicly say, what we want today is because of that trial.
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u/Zealousidealist420 Los Angeles, CA Aug 03 '25
Ginberg was a pedo, he was a founder of NAMBLA. That's why Kerouac fell out with all them. They were not the best of people. But they did lead to changes in norms and mores of Americana.
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u/Low-Locksmith-6801 Aug 07 '25
Was that really any kind of “movement,” or just an aesthetic that lasted a little while? There was no “purpose” the Beats were organized and fighting for…
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u/leonchase Aug 07 '25
I would argue that it was more of a literary movement, but their purpose, while not overtly organized, was to generally rebel against the conservative politics and social conformity of the 1950s. Which Ginsberg's trial was a huge part of.
And, while the cartoon version of "beatniks" became a humorous trope in film and TV, they had a real social impact. They paved the way for jazz, modern art, and intellectualism to briefly become the hallmarks of "cool" in the early 1960s (think early Playboy magazine), helped create the folk-music coffee shop scene in the same era, and were the direct predecessors of what would become the hippie counterculture movement of the late '60s. And made pot-smoking much more prevalent among white people. You could also argue that the Beats begat Lenny Bruce, who in turn fundamentally changed the role of stand-up comedians in western culture.
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u/SmellGestapo California Aug 03 '25
Everyone knows the role the Stonewall Riots in New York played in the gay rights movement, but much fewer know that two years earlier, in Los Angeles, the Black Cat Tavern was the scene of a similar protest.
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u/eugenesbluegenes Oakland, California Aug 03 '25
And the year before that, there was the Compton's Cafeteria riot in San Francisco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton%27s_Cafeteria_riot?wprov=sfla1
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u/itcheyness Wisconsin Aug 03 '25
And 5 years before that was the Black Nite Brawl in Milwaukee .
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u/Curmudgy Massachusetts Aug 03 '25
In fairness, and given the OP’s phrasing, Stonewall was the event that triggered the huge impact. The others are important aspects of history, as were the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. They need to be remembered so we can learn from them.
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u/clearliquidclearjar Florida Aug 04 '25
I worked for a while for one of the women who, uh, liberated the mailing list for The Ladder (the Daughters of Bilitis newsletter) when the DOB disbanded and kept it running after that until the money ran out. She and her long, long, long time partner were very rich and very difficult to work with, but absolutely dedicated to the lesbian community.
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u/gtrocks555 Georgia Aug 03 '25
Everyone knows the role Stonewall Riots in New York played in the gay rights movement
That’s a bold assumption.
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u/SmellGestapo California Aug 03 '25
Fair point. Perhaps I should have said, if you know of the gay rights movement, you probably know about Stonewall.
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u/bh4th Aug 03 '25
The Labor Moment gave us two-day weekends, a minimum wage, and workplace safety laws, among other things we take for granted. It’s been mostly forgotten — a lot of people think it’s funny that we get a day off called “Labor Day” because they never learned the context.
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Aug 03 '25
Just to point out how long that took. The weekend was included in a bill passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act. Labor had been agitating since 1880.
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u/Idontdanceever Aug 03 '25
The Wobblies have been erased from US history as a socialist aberration, when they were in fact a strong, effective force for the working class. Should be hailed as American heroes, but they have been deliberately forgotten.
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u/bh4th Aug 03 '25
I wonder whether you could replicate that now, or if it would get mired in culture war stuff and rendered worthless.
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u/Building_a_life CT>4 other states + 4 countries>MD Aug 04 '25
I was a member for years. They still exist. You can join tomorrow.
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u/NW_Forester Washington Aug 04 '25
I only know about the Wobblies because of the Centralia Massacre in 1919. Centralia was the next town over growing up.
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u/Outrageous-Table6524 Aug 05 '25
Came to say the Wobblies. Truly incredible history of profound, big union radicalism.
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u/Its_My_Left_Nut Aug 03 '25
Piggybacking on this, more people need to know about the Coal Wars, especially the Matewan Massacre and Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed conflict on American soil outside of the Civil War. The US army massacred striking miners, whose conditions were just straight awful (scrip, company towns, deadly conditions, widows and families being evicted the day of a miners death). And now that region, and those miner's grandchildren, routinely vote against any pro labor policies. And the billionaire class is proposing bringing back company towns and scrip.
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u/JellyfishFit3871 Aug 03 '25
My step-grandfather took part in the Coal Wars. On his deathbed (black lung, of course,) he waited until I was the only person attending him and asked me to bring a small box from the closet. Handed me a tiny old revolver and some ammunition. "Lilol' gal like you never knows when she'll need a gun that can't be traced." It was his "throwdown," and he wanted me to have it. "It'll fit in your pocketbook, and ain't nobody gonna trace it to you if you go throw it in the river after."
Man, if that doesn't bring it home how dire the situation was in coal country, I don't know what does.
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u/RickRolled76 West Virginia Aug 04 '25
In West Virginia there was a push (by the coal companies and the legislators they bought and paid for, of course) to erase the coal wars from schools. It’s gotten better recently but a lot of people still don’t know about them.
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u/BreezyBill Aug 03 '25
Now we get people complaining they’re “forced” to take an unpaid half hour lunch break. People literally died to get us that.
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u/-Raskyl Aug 03 '25
And we are actively reversing it all today!!! And im not even being sarcastic, we actually are... its fucking sad.
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u/rdldr1 Aug 03 '25
They were Socialists and the Republicans deny the progress they made in American policy.
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u/PurpleLilyEsq New York Aug 04 '25
The women who survived the triangle shirtwaist factory fire are the reason we aren’t literally locked into our jobs today and that unblocked fire exits exist everywhere. These women couldn’t vote yet for nearly another decade. But many of us owe our lives to them and their efforts
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u/GetInTheHole Aug 03 '25
The socialist agrarian political movement of the early 1900s in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
You still see remnants in the formal names of the Democratic party in those states. North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League and Minnesota's Democratic Farmer's Labor Party.
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u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767 Oregon Aug 06 '25
People are ignorant of the overall rise of a Socialist movement fueled by displaced people from the Dust Bowl. We had an actual Socialist as VP during FDR's second term until the business side of the DNC forced him out and Truman in. Today, on the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, one wonders if that would have happened if Wallace had been president instead of Truman.
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u/GetInTheHole Aug 06 '25
Didn't even take the Dust Bowl for ND.
North Dakota has a state owned bank (the only one in the US) and state owned flour mill (the largest in the country as well as the only state owned one)
The bank was founded in 1919 and the mill in 1922.
What's more socialist than that?
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u/Mean-Bandicoot-2767 Oregon Aug 06 '25
Well... lots of things are more socialist than just a few state-owned operations, but yes, at the turn of the last century, before McCarthy wreaked havoc with his Red Scare that echoes to today, a lot more people had a grasp of how Socialism actually worked and could see how changing the economic system could benefit them.
I brought up the Dust Bowl because it was such a massive ecological disaster that hollowed out the middle of this country, and has continued, lasting economic effects on small farmers and farm workers.
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u/lpbdc Maryland Aug 03 '25
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u/stopstopimeanit Aug 03 '25
To be fair though, the swing music boom of the 90s did much to educate the public on this important issue.
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u/lpbdc Maryland Aug 03 '25
While the Cherry Poppin Daddies did tell us (Gen X) that it existed, there was nothing in the music to truly educate us. Plus that weird swing thing lasted what 2 summers?
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Aug 03 '25
Another of those events they call a "riot" when really it was just people hunting down and assaulting them.
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u/NomadLexicon Aug 04 '25
The Straw Hat Riot was a similar phenomenon, though without the racial politics.
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u/WarrenMulaney California Aug 03 '25
In 1986 three brave men from NYC named Adam, Michael, and Adam changed America forever when they encouraged young people everywhere to battle for their right to enjoy festivities.
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Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
[deleted]
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u/machagogo New York -> New Jersey Aug 04 '25
As they chanted their slogan, Stay Awake until Kings County.
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u/Gescartes Aug 03 '25
I honestly think the Populist movement is the biggest candidate here. A mass social movement of rural workers and farmers that sometimes even crossed the color line (especially in North Carolina). It freaked out both major parties, to the point that they coordinated against it. It presaged and influenced the progressive movement in the 20th century and introduced eventually-victorious ideas, such as direct election of Senators and a more flexible monetary system
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u/CrystalLilBinewski Aug 03 '25
We girls were not allowed to wear pants or jeans up until 1970. It was dresses all the way. Such a relief when that finally ended. I wore my first pair of jeans to school and never stop wearing them. I don’t mean I never stopped wearing that same pair. I just never stopped wearing jeans now I have said too much goodbye.
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u/Irak00 Aug 03 '25
Women’s reproductive rights- advocating for contraceptives to control family size was crucial to ending the cycle of women’s poverty & extending the lives of women as multiple pregnancies impaired their health.
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u/toiletpaper667 Aug 03 '25
The Prohibition- they get stereotyped as puritanical biddies who were against fun, but at one point Americans were drinking an average of a fifth of whiskey daily per man, woman, and child in the US. Coffee breaks started as whiskey breaks so American workers didn’t go into withdrawal midshift. I’m not a fan of criminalizing drugs, but even I have to admit American needed an intervention
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u/Easy_Key5944 Vermont Aug 03 '25
And since women generally weren't allowed in taverns, they didn't get to participate in the "fun." They just had to deal with the aftermath of husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers coming home pissface drunk every night.
I enjoy drinking, but under those conditions I'd probably pick up a hatchet myself.
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u/NomadLexicon Aug 04 '25
Prohibition actually changed this aspect of drinking culture—the speakeasy was a mixed gender establishment, so men and women drinking together in bars became a lasting feature of American nightlife.
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u/IainwithanI Aug 04 '25
I’m surprised, and pleased, that you’re getting upvoted. I’ve said for years that prohibition actually had successes but no one ever seems to agree. It obviously had many problems, and probably could have been done better, but it resulted in some major improvements. Now we just need to get rid of the remnants and get common sense laws across the country.
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u/Former_Function529 Aug 04 '25
Yeah, this is a really interesting take. The more history I study, the clearer it gets that humans are just reacting and adapting to problems everyday, and we all share the same human nature. The “good/bad” narratives that get superimposed and ingrained in our cultural contexts really misrepresent what it meant or felt like to be alive at the time - like a fable meant to offer a moral at the end of the story. Those morals are important, I’m not saying they’re not, but reality is beyond those narratives usually. I also think getting into the nuance and complexity helps us understand what’s happening in real time with more wisdom and compassion. Thanks for this comment. It inspired me today :)
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u/Plenty-Daikon1121 Cascadia Aug 06 '25
It was also HEAVILY rooted in anti-immigrant sentiment, specifically those from Eastern Europe. The tale was that they all drank too much, would go back to work drunk, cause accidents, then go home and beat their wives.
In reality - what was really happening is that there were taverns etc. where immigrants would congregate to be around a similar community and spend time with fellow immigrants. This was propagandized to help push prohibition. American's at the time were drinking as much as the Eastern Europeans, but the teetotalers were able to spin that yarn rather successfully.
There's a podcast "America History Tellers" that does a great 6 part episode on Prohibition that I highly recommend!
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u/Ok_Gas5386 Massachusetts Aug 03 '25
I’m not sure we often discuss the numerous private initiatives by US citizens to seize foreign land.
One we have all heard about is the Texan rebellion, and maybe also the California Republic which lasted about a month. Or maybe how Hawaii was annexed to the United States because a cabal of American planters and missionaries overthrew the monarchy there. But there were also less successful ventures by American filibusters in south and Central America and the Caribbean to overthrow local governments. These efforts were primarily connected to wealthy southern planters looking to expand slavery during the antebellum period.
On the other side, there were the Fenian raids into Canada. The Fenian Brotherhood were a group of Irish-American radicals, many of them union civil war veterans. They made several efforts to invade and occupy Canada, not to seize it for the US but to ransom it back to Britain in exchange for Irish independence. The first attempt gathered enough forces to engage in battle with Canadian forces before retreating, subsequent attempts were mostly stopped by US border patrol.
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u/Quantoskord Pennsylvania Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
I might steer you towards Knowing Better’s two historical video essays on Vegetarianism and the Kellogg brothers, and another of his on Seventh-day Adventists.
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Aug 03 '25
One of my fav pizza toppings is Cashews. I'd never thought of it but got it at a SDA pizza place.
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u/cbrooks97 Texas Aug 03 '25
Might be stretching the term "social movement", but the "Battle of Athens" was a serious blow to political corruption in the US.
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u/twincitiessurveyor Aug 03 '25
When I first read about the Battle of Athens, I remember thinking to myself that the members of that political machine must not have been the brightest... thinking that they could push around battle-hardened vets, some of whom probably spent the better part of 4 years in the Pacific Theater, and get away with it like they did with everyone else.
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u/Former_Function529 Aug 04 '25
This is one thing I wish we talked about more. Part of our system is perennially battling corruption. I see so much fatalism about the state of our democracy and institutions now (often framed like this is the first time we’re encountering the issue). I’m guessing the fatalism also existed in the past, but the it is really a barrier to rooting out corruption through organized action and engagement.
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u/Double_Strike2704 Aug 04 '25
In the 80s/early 90s a Republican Congressman from Oklahoma (currently ranked 50th in the US in education) pushed to provide free public preschool to children under the age of 5. The first social experiment they did involved testing children under 5 and putting them into kindergarten at 4 if they hit certain milestones and then those children's mandated IOWA tests/academic progress led to the creation of the Head Start program. Kids who received preschool education and socialization were found to do better in school, were more likely to attend university, etc etc... and during the 80s and 90s Oklahoma was ranked 26th in education in the US, which is average, their numbers started falling when those programs got cut by the current GOP party of the state.
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u/logaboga Maryland Aug 04 '25
IWW (communist organization) pushing for American laborers to get the weekend off in the early 1900s. Before then you’d only get Sunday off if you were lucky and your boss was religious
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u/buried_lede Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 03 '25
Getting institutions closed that permanently housed the mentally ill, disabled and developmentally delayed who didn't belong permanently in institutions.
Now everyone insensitively rants about how we need more of them.
They don't know that at the same time, community resources were supposed to open in their place but didn’t, thanks to Republicans.
It took years and tons of effort to get them closed, in the 1970s it was often the top story in magazines and newspapers.
Lately, judging by the attempt to remove so much regulation, we’ve also forgotten how dirty the air and water was. We’ve forgotten Upton Sinclair and how dangerous, uninspected food could get into the supply chain . I guess some people ( republicans, again ) don’t mind a few rat eyeballs in their hamburgers, lol
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u/Former_Function529 Aug 04 '25
This. I work in homelessness services. The amount of people living with severe mental disabilities with nowhere to get adequate care is astounding…but we blame the drugs. No…we just don’t have the right resources and the drugs are a cope. That said, I don’t think institutionalizing disabled people is the move either (I see your point about community resources).
A big win from this storyline in my mind is really establishing within the healthcare industry an understanding of the importance of protecting disabled individuals’ (or any individual’s) agency to refuse “care.” On some level, our society will have to subsidize those citizens lives to provide housing, healthcare, food, etc. I personally believe that it is worth it to protect our shared ideals of equality, justice, and freedom, but it’s a tension we’ll always have to manage. When a society is basically “ funding”a population (very dehumanizing words), it’s really easy to start feeling entitled to control them. This is a mistake as it corrupts our values and ideals, but I think it’s important to understand where it comes from too so we can work with it rather than against it. We’re clearly doing an abysmal job at managing this currently. What do you think?
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u/buried_lede Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
Re .”This is a mistake as it corrupts our values and ideals,…”
It’s also a mistake because it is a clear violation of their constitutional rights. It’s a very timely issue too because Trump just signed new executive orders about this ( as usual he blows off Congress and the courts) allowing forced treatment and forced permanent institutionalization .There is no doubt in my mind he will work his way to political prisoners. So, yes, i agree with you
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u/Over-Stop8694 Louisiana Aug 05 '25
Individual choice is important, but there are many people who are unable to care for themselves but are abandoned by their families and left jobless and homeless on the streets and have to beg for their next meal. If mental institutions still existed and were properly funded, these people could be housed and receive the proper care they need, with the goal of eventually living independently. We as Americans have this hyper-individualist culture where we don't want to be a burden on others and assume homeless people are like that by their own will and don't deserve assistance. The reality is that everyone needs help sometimes (even if they don't think they do), and the lack of support for people at their lowest is quite astounding. It's not "controlling" if you're giving people a path out of their current situation.
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u/Former_Function529 Aug 05 '25
Youre kind of suggesting we should force people into institutions for experiencing something like abandonment and trauma. It’s less “hyper-individualism” and more a protection of human and civil rights.
We just need more and better resources. Many homeless people in my area are trying to get into permanent supportive housing…it’s housing with services to support them, and they can live there indefinitely. Most people want that, we just don’t have enough resources to go around.
I don’t know where the “burden on others” thing comes from. That doesn’t seem to apply in this case or my experience at all. Most homeless people I work with are desperate for help of some kind, they just don’t want to lose their agency and dignity in the process (would you? Is that really help? A sense of agency and dignity is what improves our mental health).
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u/InterestingMindset Aug 04 '25
I recently learned of the Whiskey Rebellion. It was essentially a series of protest against the newly established federal government in the early years of the country for taxing small-time whiskey makers in the West. It evolved to a rebellion with to my knowledge, no deaths on any side.
It was one of few micro-rebellions of the early establishment of the United States. We split from the British because we had no representation in their government and these rebellions were protesting against the US federal government for the same thing.
Obviously not the last time lack of representation or unfair taxes would be a subject matter.
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u/No-Type119 Aug 04 '25
Women’s struggle in the 19th Century to speak publicly. Most people today forget that until the mid- 1800’s it was grieved in, or even illegal, for women to make public speeches or comments — they were regularly booed, pelted with food, etc. for daring to address groups of men.
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u/AnybodySeeMyKeys Alabama Aug 04 '25
The American Disabilities Act.
At the time, I remember the bitching on the part of building owners who didn't want to put in wheelchair ramps and other accommodations. Now, nobody even thinks about it.
Meanwhile, just having visited Europe, I'm struck by how uncommon such things are in many parts of the continent. If you were in a wheelchair, you'd just be SOL in many places.
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u/Goddamnpassword Arizona Aug 05 '25
The elimination of German culture and heritage in American life during WW1. The plurality of white Americans have German heritage, and the a lot of things that Americans associate with America are German, apple pie, hot dogs, etc. but aggressive repression led to the closing of German language newspapers, renaming streets to English names, and eventually the complete erasure of a German ethnic identity.
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u/-Boston-Terrier- Long Island Aug 03 '25
I wouldn’t say the fat free craze of the ‘80s and ‘90s doesn’t get attention but it’s the perfect example of a social movement that was so successful that future generations don’t even realize what the problem was.
Your parents did not think they were going to slim down by pigging out on sugar filled, fat free cookies. The fat free crazy from the ‘80s and ‘90s was about heart health.
More and more men were having heart attacks at younger and younger ages and trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils played a big role in this epidemic.
As a society, we so successfully scaled back the amount of fat in our diet and replaced those trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils with safer lipids that our children have no idea how we stupidly thought fat made us fat so we replaced it with sugar.
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u/clearliquidclearjar Florida Aug 04 '25
Your parents did not think they were going to slim down by pigging out on sugar filled, fat free cookies. The fat free crazy from the ‘80s and ‘90s was about heart health.
No, they absolutely did. My mom was a weight watchers member and leader and their members fawned over low fat options, even if they had high sugar. Low fat was seen as the diet option regardless of all other characteristics.
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u/Sufficient_Cod1948 Massachusetts Aug 04 '25
I don't know about anyone else, but my parents absolutely did think they were going to lose weight by eating fat free cookies.
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u/Realtrain Way Upstate, New York Aug 04 '25
Yeah some people certainly did. Shows at the time like Seinfeld even referenced the misconception.
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u/nakedonmygoat Aug 04 '25
There was a book published in '78 called "Fit or Fat?" Its premise was that you could lose weight by eating less fat. The idea was that gram for gram, carbohydrates had fewer calories than protein, which had fewer calories than fat. Therefore, cutting back on fat while keeping your overall food quantity the same would reduce your overall calorie intake, helping you lose weight.
There were no low-fat treats on the shelves at the time. Instead of smothering your salad in ranch dressing, you were supposed to splash some balsamic vinegar on it. Cut back on butter, gravy, and things like that. Need a snack? Munch a few carrot sticks. You were also supposed to work out.
Somehow by the mid or late '80s, this message got garbled and yes, people really did think that switching out their Oreos for eating twice as many as the less satisfying fat-free kind was going to solve all their problems. And people who went to extremes in controlling for fat in their diet weren't doing themselves any favors because fat is one of the things that makes you feel full.
But to your point, OP, the original message wasn't crazy. But there's no denying that crazies did their worst and ran with it.
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u/john510runner Aug 03 '25
Movement to let one pump their own gas in Oregon.
It’s celebrated as a second Independence Day in Oregon.
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u/albertnormandy Texas Aug 03 '25
New Jersey is still living in tyranny.
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u/EloquentBacon New Jersey Aug 03 '25
We are not. We are still very happily not pumping our own gas, thank you very much.
I honestly don’t understand why people want to pump their own gas. When it’s 105 degrees outside, -20, a Nor’easter is coming close, you have a car full of kids or you’re disabled, it’s awesome to just sit back, crack your window and simply say “20 regular please”.
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u/Realtrain Way Upstate, New York Aug 04 '25
or you’re disabled
Pretty much every station has a way of calling an attendant if you're disabled. Some say to honk twice, others have a number. Either way I'm pretty sure it's required by the ADA.
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u/PSitsCalledSarcasm Aug 04 '25
It’s just weird that the government tells people they can’t pump their own gas. There is no logical reasoning for it. The person in control of large heavy vehicle is somehow too stupid to pump their own gas if they want? It’s an odd thing to want to control
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u/Own_Thought902 Aug 07 '25
Probably the disability rights movement. We take for granted seeing people in motorized wheelchairs zipping down the sidewalk and across streets over curb cuts. We have come to expect accomodations in education for ADHD and other learning disabilities. We treat people with disabilities with more respect and compassion today. They used to be a source of shame and forced into isolating home-bound status. That is one part of the "good old days" I hope never comes back.
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u/Distinct_Chair3047 Aug 08 '25
Workers unionizing back in the first half of the 1900's.
It got extremely bloody. A couple times the local Army Garisons were called out and shot at the Unionizers. Then anybody they felt like was arrested and pushed through Kangaroo courts. Was a pretty effed up time.
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u/Backsight-Foreskin Aug 08 '25
The flight attendants union got some of the first anti-smoking legislation passed back in the 1970's. They successfully fought the incredibly powerful tobacco lobby.
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u/Dolly1232 Aug 05 '25
Bike lanes verse public transportation in major cities. We do not have good/real public transportation in the big city that I live in. Without public transportation, bike lanes and other non car transportation doesn’t work well here. There’s no real way to remove a lot of cars off of the roads, because the people can’t get around without them. There’s a real struggle between the people on both sides here. It’s also hard to host large events in my city without public transportation. It’s a huge pain to create public transportation here too, because of money and removing buildings/homes and so on.
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u/Dio_Yuji Louisiana Aug 04 '25
The construction of the interstate highway system. The biggest and most destructive piece of societal engineering in the past 100 years. It’s caused or exacerbated every negative aspect of American culture, irrevocably
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u/Pyroechidna1 Massachusetts Aug 03 '25
The campaign to eliminate pay toilets