Much is made of the communications boon to mankind. It is as if the relay of knowledge of events worldwide from one nation to the others and from one continent to another is a sign of great progress in unification of the peoples. Furthermore, this hope towards unity can be viewed as meritorious by its own nature. The idea of the global village which Marshall McLuhen purported is now a much more vivid reality than when he first purported it a few decades ago. A citizen of one nation can send by email a message which is transmitted virtually instantaneously and at no real cost per message to a citizen of another nation. The leaders of the nations can hold live video conferences, thus experiencing the enhancement to their communication of the subtleties of visual and auditory perceptions formerly available only in physically born meetings. The economies of the nations of the world are also much more liable to intermeshing by the sheer power of the World Wide Web whereby businesses can enjoy internationally gained leverage by the movement of goods and services across borders invisibly through cyberspace. The goods transacted in the retail trade can be as simple as business-to-business advertising or the downloading of an e-book for a cost. An e-business can employ citizens of foreign nations across the Internet with the flash of the mouse, a flicker on the screen. In fact, this geo-political economy which is evolving with the information revolution of cybernetics features a microeconomic component that is unique for its power to influence trade by dint of the power of advertising itself. This real fact of the power of advertising is only a correlate of the newfound place of information; indeed, information constitutes the actual currency of the microchip that directs technological advancement as we are now witnessing it. This exchange of information directs from an almost invisible lever a certain and as yet vaguely understood component to the economic prosperity of the technologically developed and advanced countries. One has only to surf the Internet to hear tell of the phenomenal "Silicon Rush" which has swept into the lives and hopes of many entrepreneurs who are active in seeking their fortunes on the Internet.

As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, "If we would become acquainted with the legislation and the manners of a nation, therefore, we must begin by the study of its social condition." In view of the foregoing observations upon the contemporary condition of mankind itself whereupon nations can share knowledge of one another's events and how those events reflect and influence social condition in such an immediate and transparent mode in our state of technological advancement there is dawning a new political venue. This new political venue is characterized by a world-level body politic whose potential is as yet to be determined. And how we guard that potential of a world-level body politic so as to honor the individuated borders of our nations and certainly those borders of our own individual nation will become more critical to us as the global village in a sense expands further as the world shrinks. This fundamental truth is more profound than what it may appear to be in the abstract sense, for the global village is indeed being spawned by the close intermeshing of the economies of the expanded practical world in the Age of Cybernetics.

Now today we in America are gripped by the inner terrorism which has struck our nation by dint of horrific massacres. We are further gripped by the recent acts of terrorist war on September 11, 2001 whereupon both a rich financial district in our leading geopolitical city was mercilessly attacked, as well as our own Pentagon; so was a plane felled in Pennslvania. Therefore, the tranquility which had once characterized our politically born social condition, our civility in everyday living itself, is under careful scrutiny by ourselves and by the other nations. Yes, we can strike back in declared war on terrorism and guard more carefully the criminal element which has infused the mindset of our youth as they are by the decade now left open to suspect use and/or trafficking in the realm of drugs by an ever-growing police element in our society; it is their warrior duty to try to modify and curtail the outlaw cult formed by the drug people. However, the underlying factors which are grossly changing our concept that we are indeed a peaceful-living people are such that the people themselves must look for answers beyond any correctional place the police might occupy. These factors have arisen partly out of the influence of global-level politicking. In the outlaw deeds of the drug underworld, for example, there exists a great international vector of trafficking of chemical substance contraband which can begin to convince a given foreign nation that it can dominate the American socio-political venue remarkably; indeed, this can be carried even sufficiently so as to ideate conquering us. Such diffuse perils as these must be coherently and democratically addressed in the legislative issue-forming processes and forums of this Republic. We Americans as a people might be ethnically and racially homogenized by the power of the democratic melting pot of which we as better people conceive. However, when a people are prey to terrorist massacre from within and terrorist massacre from without, then the place of leadership in the nation becomes vital to the preservation of the people.

Knowing the vital place of leadership in times of war to steer a nation correctly, then the question becomes moot: is the process of the selection of our high-level American leaders immune to the increasing power of foreign governments and people to exert their influence across our borders? As we observed earlier in this discussion, this is the global village of nearly instantaneous relay of information throughout the world. What better way to sway the self-determination and then even destiny itself of a powerful giant like the United States than to interrupt the citizens in their cognitive choice of, say, a president, for example? Or, even worse, to indoctrinate and then subjugate the American people into lack of ability to cognize a promising leader when one arises in the world-level forum.

If we are to surrender to this point of possible truth that the process of the selection of our nation's leaders must be guarded and made immune to foreign influence for our own preservation, then there must be some guiding thoughts which will make it possible to secure our social fiber and our governing system. The first impulse intellectually in unraveling any possible source of gross level interference with the process of the selection of our top leaders would be to blame corruption, and the second might be to blame cowardice in the existing leaders who were daunted in the Cold War and knew not how to fend from a purist stand.

Let us not slip into an uncharacteristic determinism unto the Machiavellian vision that the problem of the democratically determined selection of our nation's top leaders must be doomed even if such instance of its failure had occurred as to anyone's insightful knowledge. We trace our great Republic's political heritage to a philosophical precept of the worth of the individual, the sanctity of the individual, and from there we draw forth the collective social good as naturally inhering in the people to honor the greatness of their leaders insofar as they are responsible and believing in the destiny of each citizen to pursue happiness. Furthermore, that pursuit is by legal right. And if there is doubt and fear that we might as a people have been robbed or might be still robbed of the finest among us to so lead, then one last analysis of strict worth must be pursued herein as a way to lend a measure of hope if not by guiding hand. We must value our leaders as they in turn value us as a people; however, changing the social condition might be challenging to those leaders. On the other hand, if one understands well the battle between good and evil, then even corruption itself may not daunt one in the prospects of one's very hopes for the just continuation of a great democracy such as ours. The greatness of our democracy is in truth measured by the inherent state of its social condition as good or wanting. Still, America can survive a past transgression of its own political power in the people to elect the leader of choice due to foreign subversion if only America will retain her invaluable, sound social condition as prevailing in perceivably good status. 

If the many and teeming peoples of this world had been processed politically by the threat of nuclear disaster as was thought to have been possible in the locked horns of the Cold War era between this nation and the USSR, then a recognizably great level of universality of concern in the political arena had occurred. When once this universal level of political unrest has taken its stature as platform, then the strife between good and evil has been intensified; that strife has been magnified greatly. This is perceived as imperilment by the leaders who are reviewing the issues and the questions of their respective national security or likely militant aggressions. Self-defense is justifiable. Outgoing blank-minded attack is not even tolerable. These fine lines between what is allowed and what might be likely became even indefinable in the power of the nuclear threat during the Cold War. It is indeed the element of surprise behind which any commander measures up to a fight in his scientifically directed analysis of strategy and logistics; however, the element of surprise was obliterated as according to the MAD Doctrine (Doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction.) The information available to both sides in the Cold War due to satellite espionage pre-empted any aggression by nuclear materiel from either side; however, the strange if not paradoxical empowerment of war lived on between the two posturing nations, the Soviet Union and the United States throughout the Cold War.

Since no physical resolution was possible or became possible between the two nations during the Cold War, a beautiful unfolding of the freedom of the Russian people occurred instead. We as American defenders of freedom had won. We had patiently made our point, and then we were privy to see its truth blossom into a new day for the Russians. The arms were felled to a philosophical wisdom, and that felling occurred no matter how impossibly powerful those arms.