‘Tis to be seen. Just a shame...
Russell Means: Welcome To The Reservation
I came upon this video a few days ago with Russell Means being interviewed by Infowars about a year ago.
First, a little history. Russell Means was one of the founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) during the 60′s. At the time from the late 60′s to late 70′s AIM was considered to be a violent radical group on a par with the Weathermen, SDS and the Black Panthers. Having grown up in South Dakota during that time the fights for equality were no different than the struggles of Blacks endured in the segregated South. The difference being that the Freedom Riders would turn the other cheek in the face of dogs and fire hoses. The Indians would unhesitatingly pull a gun or a rifle and just start shooting. Remember during this time we in South Dakota had the Custer County Courthouse Riots, the cold-blooded execution of two FBI agents, the Wounded Knee occupation plus dozens of shootings, assaults and murders on and off the reservations during the 70′s. It wasn’t uncommon for a crime to occur and the suspect escape on to tribal land. Local and state law enforcement was forbidden to cross into the reservation under any circumstances, even during a pursuit. Only Federal agents could and they were loath to go in unless it was in strength (federal agents in South Dakota were some of the first in the nation to get body armor).
Group self-imposed segregation was alive and well in Western South Dakota and in some parts of the east. Whites knew where they could and couldn’t go and Indians knew the same. If two groups did meet then the cops would come in with riot gear and bash anyone and everyone’s head in with usally thousands of dollars in damages. High school basketball games were a particular enticing place for fights to break out. To say that the leaders of AIM were hated was an understatement. Dennis Banks was given sanctuary in California by then Governor Jerry Brown after the Custer Riots. Western states retaliated by paroling criminals to California.
This was the world that Russell Means lived and in part created.
Now to the video below. I was shocked to watch Means say the things is video knowing the reputation that he had. I won’t go into a lot of what he’s says (some I don’t agree with) but he does speak as a Ron Paul Libertarian without the loonyness. The crux of his theses’ is that the white man confined the Indian to the reservation but starting with Lincolns’ actions on Federalism vice the States rights and culminating with Wilsons Progressivism to the Great Society to the Corporation/Wall Street/Lobbyist/political parties WE as Americans have willing confined ourselves to our own reservation called America regardless of which party is in control. This Russell Means finds sad, terrifing and avoidable. His fear is the real fear that, like the Indian reservations that have failed, this reservation is also doomed to failure and there is no way out.
Again it’s not the message that is being presented because others have been saying for years but what makes this even more freighting is WHO is presenting it. If Russell Means is terrified by the decline and fall of America, then we all better be…and we’d better change our current course of history…fast.
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Awesome! Well impressed by that!
LC cmblake6, Imperial Black Ops Technician recently posted..Found this at WND,
eh. It’s Alex Jones/infowars.
which makes it entirely suspect
Ugh, I got 20 minutes in… it’s typical Alex Jones crap (conspiracy! Money is Evil! The Federal reserve is… ) smeared with a huge helping of racist smarm( white men stupid evil bad), and eurocentric leg humping.
LC Roguetek @ #:
Yes, I know Alex Jones does have his lunatic moments (ok quite often) but then again a broken clock is right twice a day. Plus, this isn’t a one-on-one interview. It’s just Means stating his opinion of the facts as he sees them.
You don’t see Jones screeching ala’ Howard Beale about the deadly effects of fluoride and how the government is killing us with childhood immunizations. It’s just Means and the camera.
I have to confess I do have new found respect for Russell Means
You did actually -listen- to that steaming pile out of ‘Chief Sitting Bull(shit)’ right?
on and on about how everyone who -isnt- an indian is just so lazy, and irrisponsable, and how wonderful europe is, and how -fiscally sound and wise- they are.
So… I”m irrisponsible and lazy because I’m white. (racism. that fucking card works both ways, bitches.)
And Europe is fiscally sound….
Aaaaand you respect this man? -why-?
As I said there are some things that I don’t agree with, but he does have many good points:
1. Were printing money so fast that nobody will buy our financial instruments.
2. The unions, starting in the 50′s, became corrupt.
3. We have been irresponsible with our freedom.
4. Yes, we DID fuck over the Indians. Some reservations make Tijuana look like Sandals resorts.
5. We have allowed our freedoms to be taken away slowly over the decades.
6. He calls the Constitution “a near perfect document” and yes the Iroquois Confederation did have an influence on the Founders just as English Common Law did.
7. Starting in 1913 we gave away the power of the economy to the banks.
This is just the first ten minutes
One other point he makes regarding Europe that they don’t have the mega corporations like WalMart taking up entire city blocks like we do. They still have the local coffee shops, the news stand, the tailor that makes your suits, the street market. The local pub. He and I both believe in that way of life. I grew up in small town America where you had a local grocer. You had the local hardware store. The local cafe with rot gut coffee. And they all knew you, the same as they still do in Europe (until of course the Muzzies finish killing it off).
Again, Rogue I don’t agree with everything he says. But he has good points and yes he has some bias against whites and overbearing pride being Sioux Indian. But he also sees what America has become and he doesn’t like it anymore than we do.
LC Light29ID says:
I’m sorry, but that’s a load of horseshit. Walmart and the rest don’t rip you off like the mom and pop stores do, one of the reasons why Americans are much better off than Europeans. That part sounded like something you’d hear from DJ Allyn or some clown at the Huffington Post rather than the Rott.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/11/turkey-meal-for-ten-only-3403-at.html
LC Alric @ #:
Pardon me but, WHAT THE FUCK kind of ignorant stoopid is that? Mom and pop stores were the business backbone of this nation for 200+ years and never once did I, my family or friends ever get ripped off. If anything it was the opposite. They would go out of their way to help you and build customer relations because you and they were all part of the community. I have nothing against WalMart (love their ammo prices) but from where I came from you went in to buy your groceries and the cashier would usually know you personally. You go to WalMart and the clerks have all the personality of Joy Behar and a Terminator.
LC Light29ID says:
You must not remember how much more expensive it was to buy from the small-time stores (hell, they’re still around, and they are good at getting local/specialty stuff you might want). They weren’t technically ripping you off, but they had to charge higher prices to make a profit – the benefit of a large supply chain is that you can charge less for the same goods. There’s a reason why Walmart and the like took off, and it was because they could do the same thing local stores could but for much less. Check the link I posted.
Yes I know it’s a fact that mega stores cost less, but (maybe I’m getting old) I like/want the personal service that you get from a local store with local owner who has a stake in his community. Example, my mother was a single parent who didn’t know fan belt from a torque converter. She always bought Fords (hell I don’t why but she did) but she never went to the dealer for repairs but to a little garage on the corner. Did he cost more, of course he did he had to. He was a small business who had to compete with the dealers, other garages and do-it-yourselves types. Why did she go to him instead of the dealer (who was literally next door)? She trusted him. He would explain, in plain English, what was wrong with car, what was needed to fix it, how long it would take and what it would cost. It was the personal service built over the years gaining an honest reputation for good work and good service. Go to a dealer to today is like getting a proctology exam…from Rotor Rooter.
Who would you trust more with your life? A doctor that you know on a first name basis, gone to for years, trust his opinion (even if you hate it) or some ObongoCare drone with the efficiency and attitude of the DMV?
That turkey may cost less but if it tastes like shit your stuck, whereas your local store may apologize and give you a replacement.
Service does not equal goods.
Services are one area where ‘mom and pop’ can, and do, still compete.
Goods is where the megacorps pound the shit out of mom and pop. the solution on goods for mom and pop is to go for ‘niche goods’.
Now, as for Chief Sitting Bullshit…
“1. Were printing money so fast that nobody will buy our financial instruments.”
Absolutely true. Sadly, the people who make these decisions are -not elected-.
“2. The unions, starting in the 50?s, became corrupt.”
This isn’t news.
“3. We have been irresponsible with our freedom.”
Speak for yourself. I served, and I vote. and I exercise my freedoms, often as possible. and encourage others to do likewise.
“4. Yes, we DID fuck over the Indians. Some reservations make Tijuana look like Sandals resorts.”
Fuck the Indians. They’ve been having their cake and eating it too for a long time. Did they get treated poorly in the past? oh fuck yes. News flash, there isn’t a cultural group around that hasn’t had to eat some shit. The Rez looks like shit, because the inhabitants -choose- to make it that way.
“5. We have allowed our freedoms to be taken away slowly over the decades.”
Other people might have allowed it, I’ve fought tooth and nail.
“6. He calls the Constitution “a near perfect document” and yes the Iroquois Confederation did have an influence on the Founders just as English Common Law did.”
I’d like to see some cites on that, from an actual historian, with primary sources.
“7. Starting in 1913 we gave away the power of the economy to the banks.”
Largely true. cant argue with that one.
And he’s still a eurocentric, racist asshole, who likes to preach, and has nothing of substance to say.
“We have armies and police so the patriarch at the top of the pyramid can stay there. He’s fearful of being deposed, that’s why we have armies and police…”
snerk…Wish I had the stomach to do a full on fisking.
LC Light29ID says:
I give you, just from memory, Tesco, and Aldi, look em up yourself.
I have found those with a little effort in American towns and cities that I have never been in before.
Yes, mega stores like WalMart are great and have so much to offer than “mom and pop” stores.
Is Wal-Mart Destroying America? Facts About Wal-Mart That Will Absolutely Shock You
How many “mom and pop” stores were closed and people forced out of a job?
Yep, progress. Meanwhile America loses because bigger ain’t always better. Remember that when the bottom falls out of the economy and there’s nothing to replace them because “mom and pop” left town.
LC Light29ID says:
when the bottom falls out, it wont fucking -matter- if Mom-n-Pom are around or not. They’re not going to be able to help, because they’re not going to be able to get product to sell. Nor will wal-mart, for that matter.
Oh I dunno about that. I know how skin an elk, shoe a horse, plant a garden, rough frame a house, reload ammo, kill, pluck and cook a chicken. We’ll have to go back to basics BEFORE there were mega everything. Yes America and the world are going to have a serious, brutal kick-in-the-nuts wake up call when they no longer can drive to Starbucks for a $5 cup of coffee. Horrors, they might have to make their own, WITH A PERCOLATOR!!! God forbid they might have to relie themselves and their neighbors. There will always be products produced and sold, it just won’t have “Made in China by slave labor” on the tag. America was self-reliant ever since the Pilgrims landed and we will be again. My Grandparents didn’t get electricity until just before the war, a phone until 1947, propane gas until the 60′s and rural water until 1976 (oh yeah she gave birth to three kids in her house during the 20′s). They didn’t depend on WalMart. They relied on a little grocery store that sold meat, eggs, milk and other basic staples that were, for the most part produced in the same county. What else did they need? They didn’t even have TV until 1969 and the only reason they got it was because my cousin went to Vietnam. Anybody know how to butcher a cow? I do, I hate but I can do it. Can your local WalMart crack addict do it? It’ll be fun to watch
Yes America will have a brutal time but it nothing we haven’t done before and that is what Means is trying to tell us. We need to go back to what made us great and that includes both Indian and customs from the Old Country. Our self-reliance, our determination and our spirit. I may be middle age but I remember how to hitch up a horse team. America is not going to go full Mad Max. We’ll go back to the days of wood stoves and scythes like during the depression. Will go back to cars that don’t have electronic crap in’em. Kids will go back to walking to school instead of mom or a school bus taking them there.
Russell Means is right. America has grown fat, dumb and lazy. We became so full of ourselves that we pissed away what made us great. The tiny minority (people like us) yelled stop at the top of our lungs but nobody listened over the sound of their iPads and cell phones. One day the sheeple are going to have to learn all over again of how and what made America. A good percentage won’t be able to, but a greater percentage will. It won’t be easy but until now America never had it easy.
Ah, yes, The Economic Collapse Blog…written by a complete lunatic who strings together random, unsourced factoids to make some sort of a point. That guy needs to learn some economics and learn about “creative destruction.”
I’ll take my old econ professor Dr. Don Boudreaux over his ranting, thank you very much:
http://cafehayek.com/2011/07/15380.html
LC Light29ID says:
Wait, where are you getting all this from? Sounds like you’re describing a post-apocalyptic scenario of the worst type. I sure as shit don’t want to go back to the Dark Ages, and nobody will willingly go back to that, no matter what some burned out left wing Native American radical says. Dying at age 85 from cancer beats dying at age 8 from cholera.
LC Alric @ #:
Well you better get used to it because the great American Ponzi Scheme is coming to an end. 16 Trillion debt, a government lives only to feed itself, entitlements that WILL NEVER be paid and nation that for the first time in it’s history imports more then it exports. We don’t even make TVs anymore for fucks sake. America and the world can’t sustain this lifestyle anymore and it’s starting to come apart. Looked at Greece lately? Their economy is swirling down the shitter but people are starting to remember how to do things for themselves, like grow a garden and make homemade bread. They’ve come to the hard realization that the government ain’t going to help and they’re on their own and their just the beginning. All the European economies are starting to fall like dominoes. Don’t believe me? How about Nigel Ferage? Our house of cards is going to come down and there’s not a Goddamn thing you, me or Mittens can do about it. What we can do is remember who we are as people, start over and learn from our mistakes. What are you going to do when we no longer can afford luxuries let alone even get them? What you gonna do when all the WalMarts become nothing more than bird sanctuary’s? What you gonna do when the Almighty Federal Sugar Daddy no longer can provide all the free goodies and shit that we’re used to, huh? You gonna grab a rifle, climb a mountain and play Jeremiah Fucking Johnson? Good luck with all that. Your going to have a lot of fucking company.
And it ain’t just a burned out left wing Native American radical that’s saying this. Art Laffer, economic adviser to Reagen is saying the same thing, and he’s one among many. We’re all in for a fucking fall, the only thing we can do is to try and lessen the damage.
It ain’t going to be the Dark Ages but you will probably have to get up in the morning, put on boots and walk out in the snow to take a shit. It’s called an outhouse. Learn how to build one…and it wouldn’t hurt to start saving up old phone books. There won’t be any Charmin to squeeze.
LC Light29ID –
Sir, I ask this with all seriousness, and I mean it in a polite, and non insulting way.
Are you on medication? and have you perhaps forgotten to take it?
Your argument, which I call it out of pure charity, wanders all over the map. When confronted with an opposing argument, you simply jump to a new, barely related point, and make no effort to address replies or rebuttals.
this is not an argument, this is liberal style ‘SHUT UP’ type ‘debating’. While I might expect this sort of cheese from DJ, I expect better from you. If you’re unable to create a cogent argument in defense of your hero, -perhaps you might be wrong.-… Just something to consider.
Light,
I’ve seen that stupid posting on Facebook about the differences between mom-and-pops, and wal-mart, and how wal-mart is evil, etc…how wal-mart is taking money away from your kid’s dance lessons, taking gas from your car, making it harder to feed your family, etc.
I see it from both sides. Yes, the m&p gives you personalized (but not necessarily better) service. However, they usually charge more. Wal-mart’s service usually sucks big time, but products are more affordable. How many people does an m&p employ? How many does wal-mart employ? Can an m&p afford to pay any sorts of benefits (not usually)? Can wal-mart? If I were to invest, which would give me the better ROI? How many products are available at a mom-and-pop? How many are at Wal-mart? Why should I have to drive all over town (wasting gasoline) to buy food at one store, hardware at another store, clothes at another store?
Capitalism is about competition. People go where they get the best bang for their buck. Why should *I* spend more money to feed YOUR family by shopping at YOUR mom-and-pop, when shopping at wal-mart will help ME save money to feed MY family?
As for your analogy about the doctor? Yes, I know my doctor by name, as I have been his patient for close to 30 years. He’s good at being a family practice doc. But, for neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, kidney surgery, etc., I want the doctors with the expertise. I don’t need to know their names.
Tough crowd huh, Light?
That’s what I love about this place: No quarters given, and I have the scars to prove it.
Now, to drag my reluctant Imperial Arse back to the whole topic of the post, I’d say that Means makes at least one good point, which is that we, as a nation (not as individual Rotties), have raised several generations of useless sacks of skin who wouldn’t survive for five minutes if the electricity went out, much less make it through the Zombie Apocalypse.
Why he thinks Europe is any better is a mystery, though, but I’ll just pretend that’s the peyote speaking, because I know a thing or two about Europe.
As to the apocalypse seemingly right ahead of us, I’m not too sure. Oh, I’m absolutely sure that we’re headed for some rough waters ahead of us no matter who wins in November, the rot is simply too deep for that to be avoided altogether, and I do know that the hipster liberal wankers are in for some seriously nasty surprises when their freebies run out, which they will.
What can’t go on, won’t go on. And I’ll be laughing my arse off as their whiny arses get caught in the shredder. No sympathy there. They brought that on this nation, they’ve earned every bit of suffering that will come from it and I’m not going to spend one second of my time on making it easier for them, seconds that I can better spend on helping out people who actually deserve it.
But we’re not going Mad Max here.
You see, one thing that this nation has, one of the many things I should say, because I can’t count the ways in which I admire this nation that I have been generously adopted as a child of, is guts. And the ability to say “what the fuck?” as well as “ain’t happening on my shift.” What it also has is an advantage that my native stomping grounds never had, because they’re as full of guts and glory as anybody here and they have the history to prove it, is the shock treatment that the Ogabe misadministration has been.
I’ll elaborate a bit: The devolution of the United States starting in the 60s and Europe starting in the 1919-1939 ceasefire are perfect parallels in every way. Socialism’s sneaky, long march through the institutions and the incremental increasing of the temperature under the pot — I’ve seen that movie before.
Where this nation and Europe parts ways is when the Obamessiah was elected. Europe had a better, smarter set of socialist totalitarians. They increased the temperature alright, but they were always very careful to never increase it too much at one time, and the result is what Europe is today, which is “too late to remedy with anything less than a cataclysmic upheaval.”
And the United States was all set to go down the same route. The socialists here had been carefully calibrating their approach and they would have succeeded eventually. Until they, in their hubris, went all in on the inept, malignant narcissist clown that sits in the White House today. I guess they got tired of waiting.
Big mistake.
You all know the allegory for creeping totalitarianism, the one about feral hogs.
You start by dropping food in the same place for a while. Then, when the hogs get used to eating there and learn that they’re in no danger, you build one side of a fence. When they get used to that, you build the second, then the third, and then you build the fourth side and put a gate in it, at which point you start the slaughter.
What the National Socialist Democrat Workers’ Party did in this country was close. Only when they’d built the three sides they went for Obama, which is the equivalent of storming into the not yet completed pen with cleavers, screaming like banshees. Now you’ve got a bunch of frightened feral hogs with a way out and that is across your dumb arses.
So that’s why I’m not overly concerned that we’ll ultimately survive. But it will be nasty.
Ogabe may just have killed socialism’s future in this nation through his and his party’s overreach and impatience, and if that’s the case, then at least he’ll have that to be remembered for.
As to the mom and pop vs. Wal*Mart, it’s a matter of reality. Yes, I prefer the personalized service of mom and pop businesses, even if I have to pay a bit extra at times and yes, if I want good eating that I haven’t made myself, I’ll find a good hole-in-the-wall. Not to mention mechanics. Give me a small family business over a chain any day of the week and twice on Sundays. And there’s more, but I won’t bore you.
Where reality kicks in is that we simply cannot, would never have become what we are today without the big businesses. You can’t run the greatest, strongest nation in the history of our planet based on small businesses. We would have never become the automotive powerhouse of the world, for instance, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Ford.
It’s not a matter of “one way is better than the other”, it’s a matter of “one way works better than the other in some respects” and, more than everything else, it’s a matter of something as American as kicking lesser people’s arses which is CHOICE.
I can choose to eat at Olive Garden or I can choose to eat at “Aunt Martha’s BBQ.” And I can keep choosing. Just because I choose A one day doesn’t mean that I can’t choose B the next. Both are important. They both feed a need, and that’s the real secret behind a successful free market: Feeding the need. If there’s a demand, then a supply will spring up. If there is no demand, then it would be the height of folly to suggest that society should still offer a supply.
Is it a fact that small businesses die out as a result of this? Sure it is. Am I sad to see a small business close because the competition killed it? Sure I am, particularly if I happened to know the business owners. But what’s the alternative.
A whole freaking lot of horse buggy makers went out of business when Henry Ford came up with the Model T and the assembly line, but is anybody seriously going to suggest that this was the end of civilization, that this wasn’t part of what made this nation great? The buggy owners found other stuff to do, I’m sure, and if they didn’t, then I still say that we, as a nation, are stronger for the fact that we’re not still bumbling long in horse-drawn carriages.
Our problem in this nation isn’t that we have too many big businesses providing more shit for less, it’s that government regulation has made it well nigh impossible for a small business to start up. It’s not that the market for horse buggies has grown too small, it’s that it’s almost impossible for a former buggy maker to start out making something else.
Society is always in flux, things will change and we will all have to adopt to change and there is no country on Earth with a larger pool of ingenious people with new ideas than ours. We don’t need to strike down the mega-corps, we need to make it easier for the small start-ups to, well, start up. After all, each and every single one of the Big Ones started out small. Microsoft started out as one nerd in a garage.
And that nerd, Bill Gates, would not stand a snowball’s chance in Hell today. He’d never be able to afford the red tape, fees, approvals, G-d knows what to even hire his first employee in the statist hell that we’ve built since then.
You want to fix something? Shut down Washington DC for a decade or two and we’ll be just fucking fine.
Emperor Misha I recently posted..Texas, Don’t Mess With It
Emperor Misha I @ #:
You didn’t know my ex-wife. This is ‘nuthin. Maybe when I’m dead and dust somebody will publish my divorce. It’ll make a great horror story that would scare the shit out of Stephen King. Give yea hint, my ex mother-in-law was married and divorced eight times.
I guess the overall point I was trying to get across is I want the America that I grew up in back. When I see the what we’ve become I want to laugh, cry and chew through railroad tracks all at the same time. I feel that we as a people failed you, Nat and Nicki. All of you escaped socialist/communist shitholes to come to America and for what? The chance to relive the nightmare squeal.
Do I want to America to fail? No, I love this country or I wouldn’t have put 22 years active/reserve service in to it but then again sometimes you have to completely gut a house in order to remodel it and that’s what America needs. The system needs to be gutted and then we need to put it back together, this time the way the original framers intended and that’s going to be hard and brutal.
Now to answer a couple of questions from Rouge: No and no. And yes my thoughts do sometimes wander off the track and into the woods. I ain’t fucking Twain, Chaucer or Shakespeare so if your looking for them go to the fucking library.
And as for DJ. He’s a left wing loon, but he’s here. He comes in, gets clobbered and what does he do? He get up off the turf, brushes off the dirt and gets back up to the line to take another snap of the ball. All the time realizing he going to get pounded again and again but still he doesn’t run off the field. You may not agree with what he says but the son of bitch stays in the fight and you gotta admire him for that.
LC Light29ID says:
Now to answer a couple of questions from Rouge: No and no. And yes my thoughts do sometimes wander off the track and into the woods. I ain’t fucking Twain, Chaucer or Shakespeare so if your looking for them go to the fucking library.
And as for DJ. He’s a left wing loon, but he’s here. He comes in, gets clobbered and what does he do? He get up off the turf, brushes off the dirt and gets back up to the line to take another snap of the ball. All the time realizing he going to get pounded again and again but still he doesn’t run off the field. You may not agree with what he says but the son of bitch stays in the fight and you gotta admire him for that.
No offense to you personally, but I don’t have to admire DJ for -shit-. And I don’t. From my POV, he has two saving graces. He keeps this digital asylum operational, and he serves as a perfectly good example of how -not- to have a logical debate or argument.
One of his most infuriating habits is refusing to engage a rebuttle. Here’s a made up example.
Person A: “the sky is purple.”
Person B: “no it’s not, here’s a picture, you need to -prove- your assertion that the sky is blue”
Person A: “That’s irellevant, and grass is blue, so you’re wrong.”
note that A never actually engaged B. he just talked -at- him. That’s DJ’s normal ‘debate’ process in a nutshell, and the same thing that you did as well just now.
Capitalism is brutal. It is a fact, not an opinion. It is the ultimate representation of “survival of the fittest.” Some businesses (No matter how much I can’t stand them) such as Sprawl mart (which started as a 5 and dime in Arkansas) have crushed the competition because of product availability and price points. Others have come and gone due to the lack of those very things (Montgomery Wards, Service Merchandise etc..). The point being is that is how our economy works.
If we didn’t have the mega stores, we could not support our population. Try servicing even a relatively small city like Tulsa with just m&ps and see how long the population, much less the city survives. The supply chain couldn’t support it, the infrastructure couldn’t support it, and something as simple as square footage coudn’t support the foot traffic.
M&Ps work in small towns with small populations. One deciding factor for any mega store is just that, “will the population be able to support and grow the business?” If the answer is yes then the M&Ps days were likely numbered to begin with.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned is that mega stores are rarely stand alone ventures. When a mega store begins development the area around it is developed as well. leading to smaller satellite businesses that use the mega store to draw traffic. Without the mega store they likely would never exist.