We hear these comments all the time. It's tempting to discount such sentiments as nostalgia, or to characterize the speakers as having grown up naively isolated from the insanities of their own time. But evidence is mounting that something has, indeed, gone very wrong in our homes, schools, workplaces and streets. Bursting prisons give evidence of epidemic drug use and violence. In my grandmother's upscale Richmond, VA neighborhood, someone has been systematically killing elderly women in their own homes.
Domestic violence is a fact of life.
There are many possible explanations. Recently Rachel's ran a three-part series on the history of precautionary action in the U.S. public health system. The example used to show the fall of precaution as a means to deal with possible health risks in this country was the story of leaded gasoline. It is a story of methodical, institutional poisoning. In 1923, lead was introduced into gasoline by the Ethyl Corporation, a joint venture of General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and DuPont.