Artful Dodger:

> That's what is meant by wanting him to fail. We want Obama's efforts to fundamentally
> change America to fail because we believe he is taking us in the WRONG direction.

I think that Obama's true failure is not in trying to change the US, but in failing to realize that the US is a country that cannot change. The American political, legal and economic systems have become such that the US can no longer see itself in a different way. The United States has an inertia to change, and Barack Obama fails to accept that. The US is very good at technical change (computers, cell phones, satellites, etc.) but it has become fossilized in its inability to change politically or socially.

Certain things point to the American failure to accept change. For example, the nuclear threat fo the Cold War and the thousands of soldiers killed in imperialist wars should have given Americans a distaste for war. Instead the US is more militarized than ever and the American government is constatnly trying to find enemies to justify the ever increasing militarization of the American economy. The situation is such that one of the main sustainers of the American economy is the congressional-industrial-military complex.

Another example of the American unwillingness to change is the bailouts to the banks. Rather than accept that the Capitalist system has some serious flaws and contradictions, the American government decided to intervene and save a failed financial system. In the past the cyclical collapse of the financial system pointed to the recurring crises in Capitalism. Rather than accept that there is a need for change in the economic system, the Us refuses change and decides to save banks in order to maintain the status quo.

Americans do not want to see that the current economic system is unsustainable. For a long time the largest companies in the World were American companies. General Motors used to be the biggest until it nearly collapsed. Now Toyota and Hyundai compete for the top spot in the automobile manufacturing sector. Exxon remains the biggest oil company in the World, but at its current rate of growth, Russian giant Gazprom will be the biggest energy company by 2020. The largest steel manufacturers in the world are now Arcelor Mittal (based in Luxembourg and India), Shanghai Baosteel (in China) and Posco (in South Korea). United States Steel Corp. is now ranked 11th in the World when 100 years ago it produced 60% of the World's steel and was the largest company in the world. At the current pace China will have the largest economy in the World by 2017.

Since light and heavy manufacturing have slowly shifted overseas, the US has sunk into a masive trade deficit that is eating away at the American economy. The response to this presented itself in banks taking more aggressive and more risky investment strategies that eventually led to the collapse of 2008. At the same time, the increasing militarization of the US has been used as a way to stimulate economic and technological development.

Maintaining the military system and the banks has come at a high price. Funds that were meant to provide for social services and "entitlements" were heavily diverted mostly to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. People have already forgotten George W. Bush going to congress to literally "beg" for more funds because the war effort in Iraq was constantly running out of money (or course, to the benefit of companies like Haliburton, who made hundreds of billions out of the War). Congress simply shifted funds that were "earmarked" for the pension system and reallocated them to the Pentagon. In doing so the War in Iraq was paid with the pensions of the Baby Boomer generation.

Alan Greenspan (former chair fo the Federal Reserve) warned that by 2017 the pension system could run out of funds. At the same time, as many of the poorer segments of American society retire, the stress on the healthcare system will increase.

Barack Obama tried to rectify some of this economic problems, but he failed to realize how reluctant to change the American public is. Americans want to have it all: the biggest economy, the most powerful military, the highest standard of living, AND the lowest taxes. Therein lies the contradiction. You can have a big military by taking from the poor and reallocating money to the pursuit of military might. You can have a high standard of living with good pensions and good healthcare, but only by having a higher rate of taxation. You can have the largest economy in the world if the manufacturing sector is strong, but all manufacturing is now done overseas. Something has to give: either a smaller military, a lower standard of living, or higher taxes.

Barack Obama pretends to want to change things, but does nothing to change the nature of the system. That is why Barack Obama is failing and the public, unable to see what the true nature of the problem is, will simply hand both houses to Republicans, thus making sure that the US is politically, economically and socially stuck for several more years. Republicans behave as if everything is fine with this political and economic inertia. The question is, what will the US do when China becomes the largest economy in the World in 2017? That is only 7 years from now and the way things are looking it is quite likely that Sarah Palin will be in office by then!