Indian Wars Reheating

by George A. Custer IV

In what has the potential to be an all out whooping, arrow zinging, spear chucking, finger pointing war, complete with scalpings, the Potowatomi Tribe has upped the ante in the Kenosha casino conflict. The Real Wisconsin News has discovered that the Potowatomi nation has been funding various groups in an effort to stem competition with it's casino in the Menominee Valley in Milwaukee. The most funny sounding and made-up of the groups, Wisconsin Gaming for Wisconsin, asserts that the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut will be taking over gaming in Wisconsin by building a Kenosha casino. In fact, in a recent television ad, Wisconsin Gaming for Wisconsin shows the Mohegans using a red glob to eat most of the Eastern United States including Wisconsin, until Wisconsin Gaming for Wisconsin beats them back with clever use of graphics.

Unusually, money does not appear to be at the center of this conflict. Despite the fact that the Potowatomi only have revenue of approximately three quarters of a billion dollars to support its approximately 1200 tribal members, half-bloods and quarter-bloods, the real conflict seems to be good old fashioned hate. Through intensive interviews with various members of the Forrest County Potowatomi Tribe it is apparent that the Potowatomi just don't like the Wisconsin tribe that stands to benefit from the Kenosha casino- the Menominee. Said Potowatomi quarter-share recipient spouse Bruce, "Them damn Menominee are just evil. And the Mohegan, they're east coast evil, we don't need them here neither. People think just because they're only getting 13% of the revenue from that new casino for seven years that they ain't evil, are just plain wrong. Didn't you see the red blob on TeeVee. Them Menominees up to something sneaky by partnering with those Mohicans... Mohegans...whoever the hell they are. They're all evil I tell ya."

Menominee member and basket weaving instructor Bob fired back, "Look, I was a young man when the Congress took our reservation and made us poor. But today, the Potowatomi are our enemy by not allowing us to regain our former glory and wealth. The Potowatomi are as bad as some of those bastards that gave our ancestors the flu a few hundred years ago. They're real greedy bastards." (It should be noted that fifteen years after the Congress took the Menominee reservation on grounds that they were well enough off to survive despite being uneducated at the time and without significant assets, the Congress gave them a reservation back in the 1970s, along with a lot of weed, which was the hippies idea.)

The hate between the two groups stems from years of animosity that culminated in the forceful lobbying of the Potowatomi to put their casino in the Menominee's valley in Milwaukee (which didn't please the Mohican's much either as nobody knows where their casino ended up) in the early 1990s. Since then, the two groups have been at each other's throats. The larger 8400 member Menominee tribe went so far recently as attempting to order a Russian MIG to fly over the Potowatomi casino and blow up their ugly torch, but couldn't come up with the down-payment. The Potowatomi have stuck with their strategy for a decade now of greasing politicians and making donations to local community groups.

There does however appear to be a new hope on the horizon in this galactic conflict. A recent marriage between a Potowatomi warrior and Menominee squaw has given rise to a thought that maybe the two tribes can live in harmony and prosper together, sharing the great wealth of the Chicago gambler trail (through a shared revenue agreement based on construction support which has yet to be suggested by any smart politician). All that stands in their way is the bureaucratic devil and a legal cluster-foo. But with a little help from the Governor on an agreement regarding a revenue transfer payment plan to the State (not technically a tax, but really it is) and an agreement to give at least 1% of their revenue to local causes, a new era might begin.