People.
They would be the children and parents from Straight, The Seed, Safe, growing together and the various teen help programs that are synanon based, the Authors writing books, the lawyers who have represented us, The newspaper editors, Montel Williams, Periodicals like 'high times' and "these are new times" that picked the story up then and now, People writing these stories, people participating in blogs thruout the net, People public speaking on their experiences, the many parents who have read these forums and come away going "okay..my kid has problems...but no way am I putting him/her in a program like that". The everyday people who respond to articles, blogs and these forums with comments like "is that really going on in America..who is speaking for these children?"
It has been a collective effort with the result being a net loss of acceptance of these places in The hearts of the american people. Sure, these places still exist and people still cheer when Maury brings out a 30 year old muscled man to red-faced scream and yell in the face of a frightened 13 year old,but changes like this..changes ingrained in the social fabric of a nation raised on the drug war and help at any cost, and who have never known anything but 'the fight', will only come as we tell our story and continue to encourage others to do the same.
So, these forums really have several functions as I see it.
1) allow people who were in these programs a way to explore what happened to them free from the distortions and emotions of talking to family about it, and free from the shame of publicly admitting their incarceration in a 'drug rehab' to their friends in real life and all the negative assumptions that come with that, thereby offering a protected place to discuss this very emotional and strange thing that happened to us as children and to come to terms with what it means to have been in a treatment cult.
2) Allow an environment where debate can occur (at least here on the Seed forum) without the threat of extreme personal attacks. This way, we can all adjust our emotionally held preconceptions of what occurred without being shouted down. We all need to. No matter what side of the issues you come down on, it is inevitable that you have interjected your own 'stuff' into your memory as this is human nature. This alone allows the truth to bubble to the surface and is evident to anyone who has read thru this forum.
3) a resource for the media. An important part of telling a story is to have others with more power tell it for you. As such, the fornits and related websites have been used to write books, for references on blogs, on television, and hopefully major print and video to come.
4) finally, and perhaps most dear to me, to provide a place where people who have carried collateral damage; self worth issues, anger, alienation, feelings of hoplessness, inappropriate socialization (coming down on someone lately? Told anyone your 'feelings' within 5 minutes of meeting them..much to their horror?), post tramatic stress, loss of family ties, whatever... can work thru their problems and emerge healthier and happier
There are more positive results. The only negative result I have seen is some petty bickering, some people who have mental problems and become obsessed and stuck back there and blame all their current problems on what happened in the Seed/straight/pickyourprogram. But all in all, I am very happy and proud of the efforts and people who have created and contributed even just one word to these forums.