“civilization,” you recall, is defined as the strong protecting the weak, a definition that explains both the original rise of the christian faith as well as its institutional continuation, warts and all, throughout the rise and fall of two millennia of history’s assorted empires. the opposite of this civilization is the new nazism that nike embodies so well. call it neo-nikeism: youth, beauty, and strength commingled with an absolute moral indifference—no second place, no fear, no mercy; you get the point the bumper sticker is making. espoused daily by cosmo (fun, fearless, female!) and maxim (sex-sports-beer-gadgets-sex)—the his-and-hers of the whole media array of five thousand channels owned by three major corporations in a ménage-à-trois with the government—these ideals are the essence of the übermensch’s will to power. they are the essence of what led to the rise and fall of rome, germany, and now—sooner rather than later, it would seem—america.

-metaphilm, xxx-