History repeats itself

The Atlantic magazine reminded me this month that I am now old enough to have a historical perspective that younger people lack. There is an article about how the US tried to go green 30 years ago with the encouragement of President Jimmy Carter. That all went to hell in a hand basket with the election of Ronald Reagan. How well I remember the problems of the Carter years with high inflation and then the benign neglact of the Reagan years where he just kept smiling and saying everything is OK while the rich got richer and the ordinary people struggled to survive. And here we are again, though a bit in reverse. We just had years of neglect for ordinary people while the rich got richer at unprecedented rates and now the new administration wants the country to go green. I am amazed that my 16 year old Honda still gets 32 miles per gallon when it used to get 36 on the highway and they are trying to advertise new cars that get 23 miles per gallon as a new model of efficiency. My next car will need to get about 50 miles per gallon, or I'm not interested! I know that what will kill the Obama administration is the enormous debt that it is piling up on bail-outs and the old republican saw inveighing against tax and spend liberals. I don't like to think how the poltical pendulum will swing and bring about another rise of conservatism. I don't want to face it in old age - especially as I arrive at the portals of Social Security and Medicare! And I'll indeed be blessed to go back to my North Carolina farmer roots and just work until I can't work any more all the time remembering my grandmother telling my father, "I just can't do like I used to." Creeping decrepitude is already making those words more familiar than I might wish. And the promise of a green economy leads the way to the future, for now. Yes, I've seen this one before.