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In this video, Lexual discusses various aspects of American culture and society in the 1980s, including the physical and mental toll of the Vietnam War on veterans and their struggle for adequate healthcare. The rise of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, the growing conversation about mental health and medical advancements, and the controversies surrounding physician-assisted suicide, prenatal testing, and discrimination against disabled individuals. The video also explores the rise of homelessness, gun violence, and hate groups, and the impact of trash television and Oprah Winfrey's early years as a TV host on American culture.
In this section, the video discusses the physical and mental toll of the Vietnam War and the government's inadequate response to the struggles of returning veterans. It details the 1984 lawsuit settlement made by seven manufacturers of Agent Orange for Vietnam veterans exposed to the dangerous chemical. However, the settlement did not include Vietnamese victims of the chemical. The section also touches on the media's portrayal of the war in popular films during the 1980s, set amidst a time of intense patriotism and a desire to prove America's strength. The section concludes with a discussion of medical advancements and healthcare in the 80s and how the transition from unionized and public sector jobs to service and retail labor in the private sector had impacts on people losing their employer-sponsored insurance, highlighting one of the consequences of a capitalist society.
In this section, the video talks about various medical discoveries and controversies that shaped discourse and experiences in the late 1980s. The AIDS epidemic dominated the decade, with activists resorting to extreme measures to demand government intervention and a viable cure. Meanwhile, other diseases, such as mononucleosis and Lyme disease, were also identified, leading to research and better treatment options. The video also discussed the controversy surrounding tampons and toxic shock syndrome, and advancements in euthanasia or medically assisted killing, prompted by the case of Nancy Cruzan, who was declared to be in a persistent vegetative state after a car accident in Missouri and whose parents fought for her right to die.
In this section, the transcript excerpt describes the debates surrounding the ethics of suicide for terminally ill or chronically in pain people in the 80s. Elizabeth Bouvia, a 26-year-old quadriplegic woman suffering from cerebral palsy and arthritis, checked herself into a psychiatric ward in Riverside, California, and asked to be starved to death. But the hospital refused and ordered her to be force-fed. The Hemlock Society was founded in 1980 to provide information to the dying on the most painless way to die while lobbying to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Pathologist Jack Kevorkian began advertising himself as a death counselor and helped several patients die. Disability's one-third to one-fourth of the American population were understood in new ways. Closed captioning on TV was introduced, and black deaf people carved their community, protesting for better opportunities, including in higher education.
In this section, the 1980s saw progress in the treatment of disabled individuals as colleges receiving federal funding had to make reasonable modifications for qualified disabled individuals, and the American with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, making discrimination against people with disabilities a crime. Despite this progress, changes in attitudes towards disabled individuals were slow. Furthermore, the highest grossing film at the time, Rain Man, brought attention to autism but also perpetuated the misconception that all people with autism had Savant abilities or that only those with Savant abilities were worth accepting. Additionally, the availability of prenatal screening gave parents new power to decide what kind of life was valuable enough to bring into the world, sparking debates about preventing autism and down syndrome via testing, conspiracies about origins, and vaccines. Mental health funding was also cut during these years, leading to over forty thousand closed hospital beds, and the closure of hospitals meant removing mentally ill patients who could have managed with care and resources.
In this section of the video, the focus is on the increase of homelessness in America in the 80s. The rise of for-profit "Board and Care Facilities" that were often placed in struggling neighborhoods where there was crime and drugs, led to many mentally ill people being kicked out of facilities. The demographics of the unhoused were shifting from single white alcoholics to a wider variety of people, such as younger and black individuals. The number of adult mental hospital inmates decreased from 85k in 1965 to 23k in 1981, with 47k ending up on the streets of the city, which is believed to be a reason for the rise in homelessness. Although low-income housing was available, affordable housing would steadily decrease as the cost of living rose in the decades to come. The Reagan Administration stopped plans to build federally subsidized low-income housing and raise rent on such housing, and introduced cheap housing vouchers. Experts believed that the number of unhoused individuals was around half a million, yet the Reagan Administration only estimated the number to be around 250-350k. The importance of mental health was missing from much of the discourse around homelessness, and it was becoming more evident that black men, women, children, transgender youth, and the mentally ill were becoming more numerous on the streets.
In this section, we learn about Joyce Brown, a homeless woman who became somewhat of a media figure in the 1980s when she was arrested for living on the streets. Though she secured representation from the civil liberties union, her 11-week sentence ultimately didn't lead to any significant change or decrease in homelessness in the city. Unfortunately, Brown's poor mental health and drug use continued, and she returned to erratic behavior soon after being interviewed on national television and shopping at Bloomingdale's. Brown's case was seen by some as a victory for bodily autonomy but was ultimately a complicated reflection of the challenges and neglect of mental health treatment for unhoused people. The 1980s saw a renewed conversation about mental health, particularly in relation to the types of crimes and violence that were linked to untreated schizophrenia, manic depression, and PTSD.
In this section, the video delves into three tragic incidents of gun violence that occurred in the 1980s. The first is the shooting at a Los Angeles elementary school by a man named Mitchell, who had suffered a nervous breakdown years earlier when both his parents and five younger siblings died in the Jonestown massacre. The second incident was the shooting at a Stockton elementary school, where a man named Purdy killed five people and injured 32 others, mostly Southeast Asian immigrants. The third incident was the massacre at a San Isidro McDonald's committed by a man named Huberty, who had been abusive to his family and obsessed with guns. The video examines the possible connections between these shootings and mental health, economic insecurity, and access to guns.
In this section, the video highlights the extreme acts of violence and "going postal" phenomenon among disenchanted workers in the American postal system who experienced poor working conditions and mental health challenges amid easy access to guns. Meanwhile, there was an underlying loss and trauma in 1980s America with tens of thousands of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS, the War on Drugs, and racist, homophobic, or misogynistic violence. The video also delves into the racial divide that erupted violently in Galveston Bay, Texas, where Vietnamese refugees were harassed, threatened, and attacked by white fishermen and the Ku Klux Klan for "stealing white jobs."
In this section, we see how white supremacist groups continued to impact the political landscape in the 80s, such as Beam's racist spectacle and the KKK's rebranding, splintering into more dangerous factions. The clan's aggressive pursuit of white children and the rise of more mainstream white supremacist groups like David Duke's National Association for the Advancement of White People are also highlighted. These groups published newspapers and refined their arguments to appeal to a wider audience, often playing up the idea of whites as perpetual victims at the hands of foreigners and non-whites. Despite being almost defunct, the KKK continued to set up paramilitary training camps and rally nationwide, and some members even won party nominations in some states.
In this section, the transcript highlights the rise of computer networks among hate groups, which became the precursors to chat rooms, forums, blogs, and social media sites that introduced different new perspectives to lonely, miseducated, and outright hateful souls. Such sites were also found to be keeping enemy databases and offering extremists a trendy way to spread hate propaganda. David Duke and other white supremacists were increasingly exposed to far-right conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial and anti-semitic rhetoric. Additionally, the transcript describes how white Nazis adopted the look of skinheads, which originated in London as an expression of alternative values but not racism. As more historical scholarship offering proof emerged, Holocaust denial continued, along with anti-semitic conspiracy theories of a Zionist-occupied American government.
In this section, Lexual explores the white supremacist movement's fascination with the Northwest Territorial Imperative (NWI), which called for the creation of a white ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest. Robert E. Miles and Thomas Metzger were influential voices promoting this idea, and the Aryan Nations Congress of 1986 heavily endorsed it. White supremacists often gathered at such meetings, armed and eulogizing the end of days as they distrusted the federal government, believed to be under Jewish control. One of these groups was the Christian Identity extremists, who interpreted Christianity by considering whites to be the true descendants of Israelites, exterminating non-whites as an ideal. This belief system led a Christian identity group called The Order to fund their activities through armed car heists. They assassinated a Jewish radio host named Alan Berg, making them infamous, and one of them signed off after being charged with the crime of violating Berg's civil rights.
In this section, Lexual discusses the violence perpetuated by the Jewish Defense League, which led to negative press and backlash against Arab Americans. He also talks about the 1985 bombing murder of Palestinian activist Alex O'Day, which led to failed criminal convictions of JDL group members and the group largely being under the radar until resurfacing in hip-hop in the 1990s. The section also delves into the 1988 murder of Ethiopian man Mulugetta Syrah by War Affiliated members, which bankrupted the group due to leaderless resistance tactics being called for by white supremacists. Additionally, the section touches on William L. Pierce's Hunter, a book about a serial killer of interracial couples based on Joseph Paul Franklin, a Klan member and Nazi drifter who was arrested in 1980 and linked to over 20 killings, and John Metzger and Tom Metzger's appearance on Geraldo, which was criticized for perpetuating hate. The section ends by discussing the rise of trash television and Oprah Winfrey's early years as a TV host, where she held shows on controversial topics such as Satanism, cheaters, and women having babies with their fathers.
In this section, the rise of cheap and controversial talk shows in the 80s is discussed, with shows like Sally Raphael and Morton Downey Jr. exploiting divisive issues to increase ratings while Reaganite social conservatives turned a blind eye to the government's hands-off approach to television content. Some talk shows, like Geraldo, covered important topics like sexual harassment in the Navy while others involved racists or mentally ill guests for the sake of confrontation. Trash TV normalized hateful figures for viewers seeking 15 minutes of fame, foreshadowing the rise of reality TV and influencer culture.
In this section, the 1980s media landscape is explored, with the rise of television news and major newspapers adapting to changes in readership. The emergence of CNN marked a new era in round-the-clock news coverage that was met with skepticism initially, but its ability to cover every angle of major events led to its success, attracting millions of subscribers by the end of the decade. The hunger for news stories was reflected in the coverage of Baby Jessica's 1987 rescue and other major events, leading to a surge in late-night news shows on the big three networks. However, the fame and attention that came with these events also had negative consequences for those involved, as seen in the McClure family's strained relationships due to Baby Jessica's overnight celebrity.
In this section, the video discusses media consolidation in the 80s and its impact on the journalistic ethics and truth. While liberal-leaning newspapers such as New York Times and Washington Post had more editorial freedom, conservative voices were seeking alternatives to hear ideas and language that were not in the liberal mainstream media. This gave rise to the popularity of AM radio with political commentators like Rush Limbaugh, who launched his talk radio show in 1984, and Sean Hannity. The section also highlights how the Reagan administration spread propaganda through TV shows like Hill Street Blues, Cagney and Lacey, and 21 Jump Street, which projected cops as selfless heroes who could overcome their own biases and flaws. Additionally, it discusses the launch of the reality TV show Cops in 1989 by the Fox network. The show presented the arrest of black and Latino people while making fun of mentally disturbed and unhoused people. It gained 8 million viewers per episode at its peak and aired for almost 30 years. In 1990, the Hate Crime Statistics Act was signed into law, giving permission to collect and publish data on hate crimes based on race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. However, it is noted that disability hate crimes were not mentioned, and mainstream history retrospectives ignored marginalized groups like black people, black women, the disabled, Jews, and the unhoused.
In this section, the speaker discusses how mental health issues do not cause hateful behavior but neglecting the prevention and treatment of these issues can exacerbate such behavior. Both the lack of healthcare provisions and cultural stigma towards mental disorders contribute to this problem. The media diet of many Americans also sheds a spotlight on new ideas and people but also exposes and exploits fears and hatred, leading to the rise of reality TV, troll culture, and social media influencer culture. While Reagan exacerbated ongoing problems, these issues cannot be solely laid at his feet, and the larger global issues of the time will be explored in the series finale of the show.
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