In the recent award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, the American President, has marked the third time in the last decade that a leading American Democratic political figure has received the prestigious award. In 2002, the former president, Jimmy Carter and in 2007, the former vice president, Albert Gore, were recipients of the award for their roles in promoting solutions to major international problems.
Cary Fraser's blog
Politics of Peace, Poverty of War: Obama Confronts the Afghan Imbroglio
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Terror, Torture and Tyranny
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On March 15, 2009 the former American Vice President, Dick Cheney, launched a very pointed attack on the Obama administration for its abandonment of policies that had been pursued by the Bush-Cheney administration in the course of its "War on Terror." The criticisms, coming less than two months after the inauguration of Barack Obama as President, marked the end of the "Cold Peace" between the former Vice President and the new administration that had prevailed over the transition period following Obama's victory in November 2008. read more »
Barack Obama and the Revival of American Democracy
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The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was an extraordinary moment of pomp and circumstance televised around the world as a symbol of the workings of American democracy. Despite the festive atmosphere and the distinct sense that Obama's inauguration was a watershed in American and world history, and given its promise of an American renewal, Obama's inauguration address was a sombre recognition of the challenges that his administration and the country were facing: read more »
Beyond Bush II: American Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States is scheduled for January 20, 2009, a date that will stand as a watershed in American history. Like Canada, which appointed Michaelle Jean, a woman of colour, and of Haitian origin, as the Governor General in 2005, the United States is moving into a new era in which it will redefine its self-image and its political identity. read more »
Obama and the Search for a New Contract in America
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In 1963, the African American writer, James Baldwin, published My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation in which he wrote:
