Well, I think you have to live outside the USA to see it the way I do, Bobert. It becomes so glaringly obvious when you do.

Jesse Ventura lives in Mexico now, and that's exactly what he said. He says if every American got a chance to just live in some other country for a year and to view the USA from an outside perspective and hear what people in some other country think about it...and then they all moved back...THEN things would really change in the USA! I agree with him on that. Unfortunately, it ain't gonna happen.

I'm not quite sure "how much" Obama can do in the present situation. I'd have to be in his shoes myself to know that. I do wish, though, that he had not decided to enlarge the war in Afghanistan, because I think it's a huge, giant mistake to do that. There is no good reason at all for the USA to be in Afghanistan...or Iraq...or Yemen...or anywhere else around there. I, like Michael Moore, am horrified by Obama's Afghan policy, and by the bank bailouts done under Bush and Obama.