“Maybe in another few thousand years, the archeologists will find an ancient paddle board buried somewhere in Madison with a Clean Lakes Alliance sticker on it and an iPhone nearby–all miraculously preserved. Here is what they should conclude: We are a resourceful and happy people who tried hard to have fun while passing on a better world to them.”–WSJ Editors’ advice for how future historians should describe Madisonians, November 24, 2022 (Thanksgiving Day)
Photo above: “Resourceful and happy people” who are “trying hard to have fun” at the $100/plate, $1000/table Clean Lakes Alliance “Renew the Blue meeting on May 18, 2022 at the Edgewater Hotel.
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The Wisconsin’s State Journal Thanksgiving editorial is dripping with the same arrogant, self-congratulatory PR that the privileged powers-that-be in Madison have been spewing since the city’s founding in the mid-1800s by wealthy east-coast speculators, after the violent removal of the Ho-Chunk people. This genocide was followed by ecological destruction of the land and thorough poisoning of the lakes that the Ho-Chunk people and their ancestors thrived on for millennia, without polluting them.
The editorial gushes about how “Wisconsin’s economy–especially in the Madison region–is humming,” and commends Madisonians for all their United Way and holiday donations. Indeed, there are many economically privileged people here, with plenty of money to spare for philanthropy. As Madison’s economy “hums” along, and more privileged people move here, the number of less fortunate people without enough money to live well, including many people of color, also grows. So class and race disparities widen.
Ironically highlighting these disparities, WSJ editors commend Madisonians for their privilege, and then assure us that we are generous and kind people: “Madison is spoiled with great food, beer and farmers markets. And we’re doing more to ensure that everybody feels welcome and has a fair shot at more prosperity and happiness.”
Who is this “we”? How are “we” ensuring this? Is it working?
The editorial then touts the recent discovery of 1,200 and 3,000 year-old Indigenous canoes in Lake Mendota as if this discovery is somehow one of Madison’s many accomplishments. And now that we have found these canoes, editors seem to be suggesting, we can finally appreciate the Ho-Chunk history here. “We’ve come so far, yet we still respect the past, which is important.” The canoe discovery “helps us connect with, learn about, and appreciate the original people who called Wisconsin home.” We Madisonians are so just, learned, thoughtful and smart!
But the next sentence is befuddling: “We’re thankful their innovations and resilience led to today’s world.” Hmmm, what did editors mean by this? Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and wisdom certainly have much to teach us, and I agree they should be thanked for what they have contributed to our current world. But which “innovations” and what kinds of “resilience” of Wisconsin’s “original people” have “led to today’s world,” according to WSJ editors?
Hmmm. Is the answer in their next paragraph? “Maybe in another few thousand years, the archeologists will find an ancient paddle board buried somewhere in Madison with a Clean Lakes Alliance sticker on it and an iPhone nearby–all miraculously preserved. Here is what they should conclude: We are a resourceful and happy people who tried hard to have fun while passing on a better world to them.” [1]
What are they trying to say? What is it exactly that future historians “should conclude” about current-day Madisonians? Were the “innovation and resilience” passed on from Wisconsin’s “original people”–and what current Madisonians will pass on to future generations–how to athletically recreate on the lakes and entertain ourselves with iPhones?
Or did Indigenous peoples’ “innovations” teach us how to thoroughly poison the world with our toxic technologies (iPhones) and deny that these poisons are in our lakes and fish through corporate greenwashing (Clean Lakes Alliance)? How to eat, drink and be merry at our great restaurants and beer gardens after paddleboarding–err, I mean, “trying hard to have fun”–while believing that this is going to magically “pass on a better world” to our children, grandchildren, and beyond? [2]
Well, no. These are obviously not the kinds of “innovations” or “resilience” that allowed the Ho-Chunk people to survive genocide and removal from their homelands and then return to this place (some courageous Ho-Chunk refused to leave) and still thrive here today. They also clearly aren’t the kinds of “innovations” and “resilience” that will allow Madisonians to pass on a “better world” to future generations.** So what did WSJ editors mean by this? I’m still pondering…
How might Ho-Chunk people say we should live now to pass on “a better world”? I don’t know. I’m not Ho-Chunk so I cannot answer that. But I’m guessing that core aspects of Ho-Chunk’s survival and resilience here over millennia have been perseverance, humility, reverence for the earth, respect for elders, and trying to live in ways that leave clean air, waters, soils and healthy ecological systems for at least seven generations into the future.
The history of Madison–and the current state of its lakes and drinking water–clearly show that the city is not guided by these values. As the WSJ Thanksgiving editorial illustrates, and as I’ve written before, this city and its corporate media PR arms are guided by arrogance, hubris, and incessant drive for economic growth.
Things never change. This post is just another variation of one I wrote a year and a half ago.
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[1] I laughed when I read the editors’ smug advice about what historians thousands of years from now should conclude after discovering “miraculously preserved” paddle boards (with Clean Lakes stickers) and iPhones. Perhaps paddleboards, like other sporting equipment (such as skis, outdoor gear, etc.) are coated in PFAS so they will really last forever? Our beloved iPhones, made with plastics, numerous toxic metals (and requiring many toxic solvents and PFAS to manufacture)–and possibly also coated in PFAS–will be “miraculously preserved” indefinitely. But somehow I don’t think this is what WSJ editors meant.
[2] I am a 5th generation Madisonian. My English and German ancestors who settled in Madison in the mid-1800s, before the city was even incorporated, were part of ecologically ruining and poisoning this place. They definitely did not leave me “a better world,” if one considers the things most important to life–air, water, soils, healthy and functioning ecosystems. When they arrived here, thanks to the Ho-Chunk, my ancestors could drink the water and eat fish from the lakes without worrying about ingesting countless poisons (which at that point they couldn’t even conceive of). As for now…well, I could write a book. (Another article by Wisconsin Watch in the WSJ on Thanksgiving describes options for how we can filter our drinking water for PFAS. Of course, only relatively privileged people can afford to do this.)
