I found today’s lecture to be a little disturbing. The expression “history always repeats itself” has never seemed as real to me as it did today. It seemed as though after every point Professor Hass made, she asked us “seem familiar?” The “disasters” of the 1970’s and those of the present time are nauseatingly similar. We are making the same mistakes we made almost forty years ago, and facing the same consequences we suffered through.
The best example of this from lecture, was when Professor Hass pointed out that our reliance on foreign oil is going in the wrong direction. In the 1970’s 35% of our oil came from foreign sources, leading to an oil crisis. What do we expect to happen now that we’ve reached a 55% reliance? It seems as though President’s Carter solution for wearing a sweater might not be as ridiculous as once perceived. Perhaps with practical solutions, we can begin to force our reliance on foreign oil in the right direction.
The events in Iraq and Vietnam are also shockingly parallel. With only the difference of a military draft, both wars are practically the same. Both were started under false pretenses. Both have received harsh ridicule from the American people. And both will be remembered as lapses in judgment on the part of the executive branch. Although corruption today is a common characteristic of an ambitious politician, have we learned nothing from Nixon and the Watergate scandal? It seems as though a solution to our current situation is to look to the 1970’s and recognize it as a decade of mistakes, mistakes that should not be repeated.
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I agree with what you said about wearing sweaters. We all need to do a little more to help out during this time of crisis. Obviously the government can not handle this on their own. Until they are able to fix things, we should cut back as much as we can to aid in the effort. Using less energy, and overall consuming less resscources can have a big impact if everyone pitches in to help.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think there should be a much larger emphasis on conservation and recycling. Our country is not cutting back as it should be in such a recession. We need to learn from our past mistakes and be able to fix these problems, instead of finding ourselves in the same exact ones.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that it does seem awfully eerie that our country has faced many of the same challenges under the Bush presidency as the country experienced in the 1960's and 1970's. And I whole heartedly agree that Americans should be helping out more in a time of crisis, as rediculous as Carter's idea might have sounded. While the government can not be asked to do this alone, I think that they should try and help out in interesting ways, for instance, the PSAs about remembering to unplug cell phone chargers plugged in comes to mind. I think it would be great if the government were able to come up with interesting and practical ways for Americans to help pitch in with conservation and recycling, as was previously mentioned.
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