Making Progress?

History--Repeats or Rhymes?

Recently we were trying to get organized by getting rid of papers no longer worth keeping.  Some of the documents were no longer relevant, but other import/repeats records were inaccessible in the piles of neglected 'stuff.'  The good news is that we have made progress with our discarding and organizing!  However, this blog is not intended to motivate spring house cleaning.

One of the things discovered in our cleaning effort was a newspaper clipping from The Waco News-Tribune, dated Monday, August 20, 1973, saved all these years because of a picture of a handsome young stockbroker, my husband.  However, it was what we saw on the back of the clipping that inspired this blog.  The content of two articles, published eight decades ago, addressed issues much like current problems of today, with the same empty political language.  For example, the former Colorado governor warned that Environmentalist's should "seek a better balance" between developing resources and protecting the environment.  He concluded that if the environmentalists did not compromise, there might be a "backlash among groups affected by energy shortages.  He was more concerned about energy shortages than the environment.  That has changed, but have we made enough progress? 

The other article on the same page opened with the headline "McGovern Claims Impeachment Necessary if Nixon Defies Court." The article continued.  Congress would "have no other recourse should President Nixon defy a court order to release tapes of his Watergate related conversations."  Of course, Nixon did not defy the Court but rather turned over the tapes, and, ultimately, he resigned.  Actions of the current president are different but no less controversial.  

The happenstance of reading the 1973 newspaper articles, with political events dealing with their own serious issues--different but still involving environmental issues and power of the president, could not help but make me reflect on the similarities. handled so differently but leaving unresolved issues as well.  The happenstance of reading these newspaper articles from so long ago seemed a strange coincidence.