It is time, indeed.

    It is time to open a new chapter in the history of the United States, to a great extent, that is, a new chapter in our history. Barack Obama's campaign slogan - "It's time for change" - expresses not only the need for change the American people feel. It conveys the hope of the planet.

    It is time, indeed, to put an end to a brutal, deceitful and dogmatic foreign policy that has deepened the gap between rich and poor nations. It is time to end an Iraq war that revived the ghost of colonialism. It is time to stop a social policy defined by the rich for the rich. It is time to strip finance of the monopoly it's appropriated for itself over the future of globalization. It's time to return a minimum of influence over their economic destiny - which is to say over their destiny, period - to the citizens of the United States through the intermediary of their elected representatives. It is time that America cooperate in the common effort to save the planet. It is time, finally, that the world's biggest democracy be embodied not by a senator who comes from an overbearing and sure-of-itself Western conservatism, but by a man of the new century, of mixed cultures, open to difference.

    We don't know yet whether Barack Obama's election will give the signal for a new American revolution. It's still a dream and we will judge on the actual evidence. But we know that America now holds a chance to regain the world's respect.

    It is time, indeed.

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    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.