Wal-Mart Uber Alles

I'm reading "Fascism and Big Business" by Daniel Guerin. It describes fascism in Italy and Germany during the Depression. The book is "red", but it has a lot of interesting information about governments doing some really bad things.

Here's a really interesting bit, on page 250 about how fascists treated stores.

Rudolf Hess announced, in Hitler's name, that "in view of the economic situation, the party leadership considers undesirable any action that would ruin the big stores... It therefore prohibits members of the NSDAP from undertaking any action whatever against them..."

And a little later in the paragraph:

The figures for the business done by the department and "one-price" stores have constantly grown, while 16,000 small tradesmen (7,000 in Berlin alone) have been forced to close up shop.

The supreme insult to the small merchants was that they were one of the core groups supporting Hitler and the Nazi party. Once in power, the party and the government sided with big business, against small business.

Wal-Mart and The Boss

And, speaking of Wal-Mart, Bruce Springsteen admitted to egg on the face when his fans called him out for signing his exclusive distribution agreement with Wal-Mart. Gotta give him credit for admitting a mistake, although it's not like he's trying to get out of the deal, is it? Still, that's more than I can say for Don Henley and The Eagles.