A Liberal’s Fever Dream
Anesthesia Led To An Alternative Reality
This week I had the third surgery of my life. It was significantly different than the first two. The first happened when I was eight days old and my Zaydie was the mohel. Standing behind the glass enclosed bris room at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto with all my family standing outside watching, he performed the delicate procedure that established a lifelong connection between us. In reality I have no memory whatsoever of the experience and all that I know is from family lore.
My second surgery came a few years later. I woke up with tonsils, but they were gone when I went to sleep. Again, I have no memories of the procedure, but I do recall that for the only time in my life my weight conscious mother allowed me unlimited ice cream. Of course, that I would remember.
The third surgery was this past Tuesday when I had a big boy, arthroscopic procedure to repair a partial meniscus tear in my right knee. This one I remember clearly. After the doctor marked the correct knee with a series of magic marker signs, giving me my first tattoos, I changed into the ubiquitous and ridiculous hospital garment that is open in the back and designed for perpetual humiliation of all patients.
I lay on a gurney and waited to be transported to the operating room. I felt like I was in one of the tv hospital shows that I enjoy. Even the camera angles were the same. Lying on my back I was staring at the ceiling moving past me with occasional side stares into other rooms. Doors opened and closed until one of those rooms proved to be my destination.
Upon entering I noticed how different the room looked. It was shiny clean, and very bright. Everything centered on the middle where the operating table lay, reminding me of what the altar must have looked like in the Temple in Jerusalem and I was the lamb being brought for the sacrifice.
The gurney came to a stop right next to the table and it was cranked up to be at the same height as the table. I was asked to shimmy onto the table. I remember agreeing but I did tell them not to expect any help from me getting off. They put an oxygen mask over me and 2 seconds later I was on the gurney in a recovery room stall in a deep fog. I heard voices but nothing registered. Instead I began thinking about what life was like now.
President Hillary Clinton was not running for a second term so that she could spend more time with her grandchildren, and take care of husband Bill, whose early life of extreme excess had finally caught up to him.
The democratic presumptive candidate for President , Senator Chuck Schumer, announced that Secretary of State Amy Klobuchar, who had won a Nobel Peace Price for bringing a peace treaty between Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, and Palestinian President Mohammed Dahlan would be his running mate. Lapid had risen to leadership by promising and then implementing a beautiful egalitarian section of the Kotel. The Non Orthodox diaspora was so grateful that they funded his election campaigns, while imploring their Israeli cousins to establish a real two state solution. The resulting secure peace and dignity for all, ushered in a period of great economic prosperity for both countries as everyone in the world except Iran now embraced the Jewish state.
If Senator Schumer were to win it would be the ultimate trifecta. A Black President, A woman President and at long last a Jewish President.
Iran’s objections mattered little, as the whole world saw them for what they were. They were the outcasts of the world and could not even feed their people. After the Israelis proved the Iranians were cheating, President Clinton invoked the snap back provisions of the Iranian treaty. Their economy crashed, people were daily rioting in the street, and the downfall of the Ayatollah regime was at hand.
Meanwhile back home, former presidential candidate Donald J Trump was indicted by the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, on charges relating to his money laundering for Russians oligarchs and most shockingly for Vladimir Putin. The Russian economy was failing, and the Oligarchs needed to get their money out of the country. Donald Trump was near bankruptcy and no western bank would loan him money, so wealthy Russians financed him in exchange for washing their millions of dollars.
Perhaps President Clinton’s greatest achievements had been her approach to the Supreme Court and her handling of social justice. Within days of her inauguration, and with a democratic controlled Senate, she nominated Justice Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Scalia. Later she would have the opportunity to appoint another Justice when Judge Kennedy retired, and she chose a Conservative judge who was renowned for her intelligence, fairness, and a strict adherence to the rule of precedent. The Supreme Court was no longer seen by the public as a Conservative or Liberal court but rather a court that followed the arguments presented and the precedents established.
As for social justice, in her first week in office she appointed a blue-ribbon panel to come up with recommendations for a domestic agenda to improve the lives of the many poor and to tackle racism in the country. This led to a federal law banning chokeholds by law enforcement, and the establishment of special prosecutors to investigate charges of police brutality.
With Iran and Russia no longer a strategic threat, there was less need for the military so some funds were transferred from that budget to guarantee federally funded healthcare for those who wanted it, and to begin an infrastructure program to rebuild America.
AND THEN I WOKE UP, MY KNEE HURT, AND IT WAS BACK TO QUARANTINE.