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Being in intractable pain these days, I often turn to prescription drugs (Oxycodin) as prescribed by my doctor, to provide some temporary relief.
As long as I follow instructions, and medicate within the properly prescribed guidelines, I can manage that pain. However, on occasion I have self medicated and inadvertently strayed over the prescribed amounts. Not actually a real problem, because within 15 minutes, I find myself fondly recalling those early days in the 1960s.
Recently, on one night of particular note, I found myself traveling through space towards the outer limits of our own galaxy. To the best of my recollection, I found myself twenty-three years into the future and reflecting back on the present.
Mind you, physicists claim that time travel IS possible, so I may have been the first and this all could be a matter of reality as you will see, there is good evidence that it is.
There I was, sitting around with a group of old guys in their early nineties. We were discussing politics and the elections, and reminiscing a bit about history remembering what was and what took place in their lifetimes.
The year was 2032, and somehow I found that I also had a memory' of what had happened over the preceding decades. Interesting how vivid my memory' was, especially when I saw a mirror and I, too, was in my nineties.
We were recalling that we all learned how to drive in an internal combustion engine car with manual transmissions (remember those?); one-speed bicycles, learned to type on manual typewriters, had rotary dial telephones (some even had party lines), and used cameras which required film for photographs. We recalled our transition into the 21st century using computers, complaining about $4.00 a gallon gasoline (those were the days), eating bread that only cost $2.50 a loaf, and using US money to make our purchases, while being able to smoke in restaurants and public places which now seems to be almost in a different world.
As we sat around, we all were talking about the tragic events of the year 2010 and reflected each with a personal touch about the conditions which led up to that fateful year. We all concluded that 2010 was not a very good year to be President and even though it was a long time ago, that time in history will always be indelibly etched in our minds.
As we looked back on history, it seems that some of our Presidents had easier terms both with economic growth and political stability. Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Harry S Truman (the guy whose middle name was S), Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald W. Reagan came to mind; those were the good years to be President.
Others were elected and presided during terrible crises: James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow W. Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George W. Bush.
Just a few years prior to the Presidential race of 2008, the country began floundering. We were in the sixth year of the Iraqi Occupation (war), and the economy was flat. The mainstream press clearly wanted to see a Democrat elected in the fall of 2008. They did everything but convince the Vatican to canonize the Democratic candidate.
Although we didn't know it until some years later, oil-producing nations had colluded to secretly purchase their own oil on the open market, driving oil prices to shocking levels above the true demand price and at the time it reached a high of $145 a barrel in August 2008, just before the general elections. A historian pointed out the purpose was simple: to effect regime change in the United States.
We recalled the U.S. economy was already in a real slump and the nation was suffering the curse of stagflation the process of slow growth and inflation. There were millions of homes in foreclosure and the credit market had tanked. With the then-high price of fuel, thousands of independent truckers went under, as did many restaurants due to the high wholesale costs of food and lack of on-time delivery of products.
Airline after airline failed some went bankrupt others just went out of business. Airlines with names now long forgotten: American, Delta, Northwestern, United, ultimately merged into the one lone U. S. carrier the one we all have learned to love so much Southwest.
Against this scenario of weariness of the war on terror, the economic distress, the American people were ripe for a demagogue, and they certainly got one in Barack Hussein Obama.
He and his running mate Joe Biden, a United States Senator from the state of Delaware, inspired voters with vague notions of hope and change; of a world in which diplomacy would settle all international problems, of free Clinton-inspired universal health care, of abundant alternative cheap energy, of peace and love. To the masses, this vision was just too good to resist.
The Republican nominee was John McCain, an obscure United States Senator from Arizona. This honorable man, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict, had no clue how to run a national campaign and finally settled on a contentious political platform, almost as liberal as Obama's.
He ultimately chose an unknown governor from the great state of Alaska. Her name was Sarah Palin and while she inspired the base of the Republican Party the team lost in the fall of 2008.
Even so, the McCain/Palin ticket might have won the election if it weren't for the fact that many conservative Republicans voted for anyone remember? That's right Bob Barr, another name that is a footnote in history right along with H. Ross Perot.
After Obama's overwhelming victory, the country was positively giddy. Finally, a Democrat was in the White House, and Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, and the Senate with a filibuster-proof majority. Finally the nation again would experience the Camelot of Kennedy days. The gridlock in Washington had ended and now there would be changes that we could believe in. Well, that's how the mantra went.
We remembered when Congress convened in January 2009, and the 44th President of the United States did something unique in history: he immediately made good on his campaign promises. This was a real shocker.
Most Americans never really thought he was serious during the campaign. But whether because of inexperience, idealism or simply incompetence, he followed through with his promises.
In the first 200 days of his administration, Congress passed many of his initiatives and he signed them into law, as he said he would. Obama ushered through many previously unannounced initiatives, costing unprecedented multi-trillion spending packages, all in the name of economic recovery.
He ultimately passed a universal health care package, which added an additional 10 percent tax increase on all working Americans. In January 2011, he signed the Immigrant Amnesty bill that instantly created 12 million new American citizens, each with entitlements to be paid for by the existing American citizens. It was a brilliant political move, because slightly over 96% of them registered as Democrats.
In early 2011, Obama abruptly closed the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and summarily released all the detainees. He repealed the Patriot Act, and cut funding for espionage, and eliminated all terrorist listening and wiretaps. Most importantly, he reversed himself and demanded the organized withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq.
He ignored the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who wanted to retain bases in Kuwait and Qatar; instead he went with the recommendation of a secret National Security Advisor, and ordered all troops back to U.S. soil.
There it was his first year in office. It was already January 2010 and his vision was complete. He did exactly what he said he would do.
But all was not right. Soon came the spring of 2010 and things started to unravel for Obama.
It quickly became evident that the economy needed a tax cut, not the increase he needed. Unemployment quickly rose to 12 percent and even attorneys and economists were found standing in the bread lines hard times had fallen even on those blessed professionals. The price controls on gasoline immediately led to shortages and long gas lines, all while the price per gallon rose to $7.00.
The global cooling trend that we have seen for the past 25 years became obvious in early 2010, exposing the CO2 global warming fraud. Citizens were justifiably angry and the luster of Obama's inspirational speeches was becoming dimmer.
Federal deficits increased massively because thousands of baby boomers, facing job loss and much higher taxes, simply gave up and took early social security retirement benefits.
Although the superb U.S. healthcare system was thrown into disarray, the bright spot was the creation of the Federal Department of Healthcare, which required the immediate hiring of 300,000 administrators, inspectors and auditors, which was the only job growth in any economic sector in early 2010.
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives submitted a budget request that reduced defense spending by two thirds. It helped to stave off a budget crisis and allowed the federal government to borrow needed money from China at only 16% interest. She also instituted a reduction in forces (the infamous RIF), which flooded the workplace with approximately 75,000 unemployed veterans, kicking the unemployment rate above 14%.
By June 2010, the U.S. military withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq was complete but it was a very expensive undertaking. A lot of military equipment had to be abandoned because there were no parts and equipment to maintain and repair them. Former President Jimmy Carter defended the administration on that issue, pointing out that there had been a precedent in his administration, and even before that when Richard Nixon pulled out of Vietnam.
Unfortunately in early July 2010, the gradual Shiite insurgencies from Iran had turned into a true Iraqi civil war, while Iranian tanks crossed the border and quickly took Baghdad. Although the exact number is not known, at least 230,000 Sunni Iraqis died as we stood by and Iran also quickly moved into undefended Kuwait.
President Obama did exactly what he said he would. He sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Tehran to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
After three days of high-level talks, the United States agreed to allow Iran to retain Iraq and Kuwait, in order to create stability in the Middle East, and withdraw objections to uranium enrichment, with the understanding that Israel would not be disturbed.
Secretary Clinton returned to Washington and explained the agreement in her famous speech, in which she proudly noted that the Obama administration had finally achieved, "peace in our time" in the Middle East.
So there was some surprise at the rocket attacks on Tel Aviv on August 3rd, but President Obama said, "This is not the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I know."
The Obama administration decided it would be de-stabilizing to take sides in the conflict, and approximately 34,000 Israeli civilians died during the late summer of 2010. It would have been more, but a nuclear-tipped missile from Iran failed to explode, and buried itself in sandy soil on the Israeli coast. Israeli missiles successfully intercepted half a dozen other inbound Iranian missiles.
Israeli requests for defense aid were rejected, partly because there was no currently operational inventory that would be useful to the Israelis, and partly because the administration feared the US would be blamed for taking sides against the Mullahs.
American Jews were appalled at the inaction. Yes, in 2010 most American Jews were Democrats, but because of the course of events, they are now solid Republicans today.
As awkward as it was, everything might have turned out all right for the Obama administration going into the mid-term elections of 2010, if it hadn't been for the dirty bomb in the Port of Long Beach.
The Obama administration had cut funding for the inspection of containers, because they felt it showed a lack of trust' in the international trading community.
After all, it wasn't really a very big bomb and not a real nuclear device, but nonetheless, it contaminated some very expensive real estate Newport Beach, Palo Verdes Estates and ultimately caused the death of 14,000 Americans. People were especially annoyed that Disneyland had to be closed for total decontamination for almost 10 years.
And so, in the midterm elections, Republicans took control of 90% of the House and 70% of the Senate. California, Oregon and Washington remained the only states in which the Democrats remained firmly in power, and the rest is history.
In early 2011, the impeachment proceedings against President Obama for, "failure to protect and defend" were swift and nearly unanimous. Vice President Biden resigned in disgrace. Newly elected Speaker of the House, J.C. Watts, became the 45th President of the United States.
But you know the rest of the story well.
Republicans finished the war on Islamic fundamentalism, despite outcries of disbelief from the ACLU and New York Times.
When Ahmadinejad declared jihad on the US and all Americans, a single small yield nuclear device eliminated a popular mosque in Tehran and its neighborhood, and a second was scheduled if Ahmadinejad remained Iran's president for more than 48 hours. He resigned for health reasons.
Pakistan was given a month to either eliminate terrorists in its mountainous border region or evacuate the country before the radiation began.
Funding for terrorists seemed to dry up almost overnight when the White House announced that ICBMs were pointed at Mecca and Medina.
Syria, Lebanon and Jordan all accepted Palestinians as part of an evacuation from Israeli-occupied lands, and a promise of non-aggression by the US as long as Hamas and Hezbollah did not engage in any hostilities whatsoever against any other country.
The Pentagon scrapped all "rules of engagement" that restricted military operations. Even Russia is now an applicant for NATO membership.
No Democrat has been elected President since; Republicans have held both Houses of Congress.
History of Western Civilization and Economics are now taught in all public schools, and in English only; and there are border fences, both north and south.
We old codgers then recalled the ancient Confucian curse: "May you live in interesting times."
I drifted off to sleep, and awoke to find myself back in my bed and it was only August 2009, I found myself in the greatest country in the world.
For those of you have ever watched "House" on TV, I wonder if a similar time travel is possible with a combination of Oxycodin and Vicodin in amounts perhaps a bit higher than recommended. Next time I will get hold of a Wall Street Journal. Then I can do some wise investing.
JP Bender is a retired award winning investigative reporter with 35 years experience in the profession. He spends his retirement living mostly in the Cayman Islands and often travels around the United States reporting on issues of national interest. His peers claim he does not fully understand the meaning of “retired.”
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