Congratulations!
If you were never young and stupid
When Cousin Johan and your Humble Bloggeur were pre-schoolers, we thought it advisable to slather cousin’s basement (and ourselves, as it transpired) in green paint. Aunt Laura was not amused, to put it kindly.
Seemed like a good idea at the time. Which is to say young people make stupid mistakes. Especially high school boys in Baraboo WI appearing to fly the Nazi salute. Heaven help most of them if they’re ever nominated to the supreme court!
The photograph is a political Rohrsach test. Some viewers profess to see only high schoolers waving to the viewer. Indeed, some elbows ARE bent. But others appear to be doing the evil salute: arm straight out at 135 degrees, palms down and fingers tight. Or were they caught in mid-motion? (Which is why this blog ran what we believe to be an actual, unretouched photo of Hillary Clinton detailing in a similarly ambiguous wave.)
Even Baraboo students with hands down on their sides are laughing. It seemed funny at the time. Maybe you had to be there? Or just young and foolish?
The small city of Baraboo is roiled with guilt and recrimination these days. Where did we go wrong as parents, as educators, as a community? How did we raise future Waffen SS Oberstgruppenführers?
Police are investigating counter threats. The community is meeting in auditoriums where the loudest voices and the most-shrill accusations will dominate.
To easily triggered grievance mongerers, Baraboo’s Nazi salute is photographic proof of Trump-inspired, white power revanchism in fly-over country.
On slim evidence. For one thing, Sauk County went Democrat in the November 6 election.
Those who excuse Antifa’s broken windows and tolerate Freedom Inc.’s shout-down of elected Madison liberals would have a stronger case if Baraboo has been plastered in swastikas. The nights disturbed by the sound of broken windows. Illuminated by crosses burning and bull whips cracking. But no. Nothing to corroborate the presumed sudden outbreak of hate. No separate but unequal drinking fountains in Baraboo. No stars and bars. No one assaulted or battered.
They just didn’t teach enough history in the classroom. But those who crave outrage have found their fix for the week, at least. For a counterpoint, we except from Baraboo resident Dan Gunderson‘s affirmation:
“I stand with our Baraboo boys”
It was a tough week in Baraboo … Our boys were captured in a horrific picture that spread to national news outlets and seemed to reveal the underbelly of racist sentiments running rampant in small town America. Maybe that’s true in some small towns. Maybe, and very likely, Baraboo has a ways to go in being more sensitive to diversity.
But it’s also true that the image of widespread racism in rural Wisconsin fits well with a narrative many would like to believe about towns like Baraboo. Fortunately, most of us do not believe this story even remotely represents Baraboo High School students, their parents, our school system or the broader Baraboo community.
… We know our boys. We know them.They are not racists and we need to stand behind them right now. They are being attacked and intimidated. They will remember whether their community stood beside them as they faced ruthless attacks on social media, merciless characterizations on news publications, and terrifying treats through personal contacts. …
So, how did it happen? How did that disgusting picture come about? Many, many boys, along with their prom dates and many dozens of parents present, have all shared a very similar story. They were posing for prom pictures. Among other poses, they were asked to make a “hi sign.” I don’t know what a “hi sign” is or if it’s a “high” sign.
The boys say they didn’t know either, but as the goofy one-handed, straight-arm wave was demonstrated the boys complied. And yes, in that moment, it became clear to some, if not many of the boys, that they had ended up in a group pose that was bizarrely similar to something truly outrageous and, indeed, very inappropriate. And as teenage boys in such situations can do, they responded in a variety of ways. Some put their hands down. Others made silly faces or laughed nervously. Still others, yes, went for the pose with overkill. It was a spontaneous moment that was arrived at in innocence, participated in with stupidity, and finished in a blink of the eye—and with the snap of a camera.
Why do I believe them? First of all, I know the boys. I don’t know all the boys, but I know many of them, and I know some very well. And the ones I know very well would never identify with Nazi sentiments, racial discrimination, or hate. They would not have been coaxed by a call to Hail Hitler. This was not a mob frenzy similar to what happened in the Holocaust. Come on!
The whole situation has been pretty outrageous. The national media spotlight has been out of control. Death threats, boycotts from colleges, and sweeping characterizations of our community have run wild.
But nothing seems so outrageous, and indeed dangerous, as the many, many who seem disinterested in the context of the photo or intent of the students. Those who want to condemn these boys are stuck on vague statements like, “They knew what they were doing,” or “There’s a culture of hate at the high school.”
I have yet to have anybody offer an actual theory for just how the boys were instructed, or spontaneously decided, in mass numbers to honor Hitler, make a Nazi salute, or show their contempt for the Jewish people. …
Sorry, it didn’t happen. Nobody claims it happened. No witnesses say it happened. But apparently for many, it simply doesn’t matter. The boys were captured in the pose, the picture has its own meaning, and the mob is calling for justice. …
Another take from Ms. Kim Hirsch, “Virtue Signalers Swoop Down on Baraboo WI.”
There’s a picture floating around the internet of Baraboo High School boys performing a Nazi Sieg Heil salute. And you know that if it’s on the internet, it’s got to be true.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
67 responses to “Did Baraboo WI suddenly turn Nazi?”
FAIR WARNING: The Lord High Commissioner of the Policy Werkes will NOT tolerate personal attacks. The Orkin man will retire wealthy from disinfecting the mail slot here at the Stately Manor. The polluters — two in particular — are warned that the next time will result in the permanent banning of both. I am tired of this Schitt.
LikeLike
Everyone outside of the Dairy State now knows where the only Town of Baraboo in the known Universe resides, its correct pronunciation be damned.
And while it remains to be seen who the real losers are in all this, there will definitely be some entities that will, if only tangentially, benefit.
Enabling grief counselor billables, safe space arrangers/micro-aggression identifiers, soothing hot cocoa, & plush stuffed animal sales will see quantifiable upticks.
But the real winners? Baraboo Chamber of Commerce members, whom I suspect have done little if anything to stem the tide of non-stop attention.
So long as they spell the name correctly, and their servers can handle the tsunami of added traffic, what’s not to like, am I right?
If The Baraboo News Republic page views/ad clicks haven’t burst the mortal confines of the Milky Way yet, they will soon.
Things To Do In Baraboo WI? Fuggedaboudit!!
They’ll likely all have the most excellent Holiday Season EVAH!!!
And all because of some small town photographer’s inadvertently (?) scheduled release of a months old shot.
Now that I think about it, not unlike Shelia Stubbs waiting OVER five weeks to become incensed over Campaigning while Black.
Timing!
The Gotch
LikeLike
ABob. I don’t doubt you heard hate in the legislature. I DO doubt you listened.
LikeLike
Correct. Why would I listen to conservative hate and embrace it or explain it away? That’s your role.
LikeLike
AnonyBob,
The problem is that you refuse to listen to a Conservative, that’s showing off your prejudice and bigotry. Liberals/Progressives are bonafide hypocrites.
LikeLike
Oh, I’ve listened to plenty of conservatives, I just think they’re wrong in their evaluations of society’s problems and in their public policy prescriptions. Prejudice, bigotry and hypocrisy and all in their bailiwick and ultra-personified by Trump. No wonder you guys got pasted in the House midterms and have to do everything you can to keep people from voting.
LikeLike
@AnonyBob;
If Righty got “pasted” in the 2018 midterms, we’ll require a new reference to accurately describe the monumental PUMMELING Lefty was administered in 2010, 2014, and 2016, am I right?
And if you’s Lefties have such a broad base, why do you’s have to stuff the ballot box with illegal/double/triple/quadruple votes?
The Gotch
LikeLike
Gootch babble. Fewer misspellings, though, so that’s an improvement.
LikeLike
@AnonyBob;
I speak the truth about Lefty getting B***CSL**P**D and that’s all youse got?
That’s less than Hopey Changey, am I right?
To wit:
‘Why we got shellacked in the 2014 elections’
From the Daily Kos, no less.
Wait a minute.
They were talking about 2010?
Never mind.
You’s couldn’t swing a dead cat in the last 8 years where Lefty hasn’t gotten their collective/over-sized @$$e$ handed to ’em.
The kicker?
They’re blissfully unaware.
Like YOUSE!
The Gotch
LikeLike
madisonexpat wrote, “ABob. I don’t doubt you heard hate in the legislature. I DO doubt you listened.”
Liberal Critical Thinking
LikeLike
You can stop the ego trip of linking to Urban Dictionary and citing yourself, I don’t bother opening them anymore. If you have a point to make, make it.
LikeLike
AnonyBob wrote, “You can stop the ego trip of linking to Urban Dictionary…”
Now you’re just acting like an jerk. It’s not an ego trip, it’s a tool.
Get over yourself.
FYI…
Liberal Critical Thinking
Conservatives are wrong; thus ends Liberal critical thinking.
Two steps to Liberal critical thinking,
1. Pretend to listen to a Conservative.
2. Declare the Conservative wrong.
LikeLike
If you linked to definitions by others, it would be a tool. Citing yourself is an ego trip. It doesn’t carry any weight.
LikeLike
madisonexpat wrote, “I don’t doubt you heard hate in the legislature.”
Let’s be real clear here, AnonyBob is not claiming that there is simple hate from those with opposing opinions in the legislature he’s claiming that he actually heard a pattern of KKK or anti-Semitism coming from Conservatives while he was part of the legislature, that is exactly what he is saying when he wrote this “I listened to it for years in the legislature”; furthermore, he isn’t willing to offer one shred of evidence to support his claim, nothing, nada, nil, just unsupportable accusations from an everyday average Progressive political hack.
Bob is a typical Progressive lying all the time with hyperbole, innuendo, unsupportable accusations, etc. After the last couple of years, I’m beginning to think that all Progressives are willful liars.
LikeLike
I said conservatives are oppressive, linked to KKK, etc. I didn’t say conservatives in the legislature were; those boys have to maintain a slight degree of public respectability. They still managed to come up with pretty appalling statements. You want a specific? How about when the Senate GOP members Mary Lasich and Glenn Grothman crowed in closed caucus (as testified to by leadership staff under oath) that voter ID would completely screw Milwaukee black voters and drive down votes for Dems. This state, as a healthy democracy, used to do everything it could to encourage higher turnout. And. There. Is. No. Evidence. Of. Voter. Fraud.
LikeLike
AnonyBob wrote, “I said conservatives are oppressive, linked to KKK, etc. I didn’t say conservatives in the legislature were”
I call BS again! Now you’re doing what Progressives do best trying to move the goalposts by lying. The conversation is still present above to read, that is not what you said. Were you a typical Progressive liar the entire 25+ years you were in the Legislature?
AnonyBob wrote, “those boys have to maintain a slight degree of public respectability”
That’s why I called BS on your original statement because it was literally BS!
AnonyBob wrote, “They still managed to come up with pretty appalling statements.”
Sure they do. Appalling statements are routine when statements are put under the partisan microscope of partisan hacks who’s only purpose is to gin up faux outrage at rhetorical twisted versions of actual statements is the norm these days; both sides do it.
AnonyBob wrote, “How about when the Senate GOP members Mary Lasich and Glenn Grothman crowed in closed caucus (as testified to by leadership staff under oath) that voter ID would completely screw Milwaukee black voters and drive down votes for Dems.”
For the record, BJ, Allbaugh said that the Republicans appeared “giddy” at the prospects of Voter ID disproportionately affecting the opposition because the opposition was (in my humble opinion) too damned partisan blind to get the required ID’s, not having ID’s was a battle cry of the left and it didn’t work, did it BJ. Allbaugh was exaggerating when he testified under oath, much like that liar Christine Blasey Ford did when she was under oath – under oath does not automatically imply truth it only implies consequences for being caught at lying while under oath. Allbaugh said that Lazich told her colleagues to consider its impact [Voter ID] in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and the state’s college campuses; furthermore, Allbaugh also said that Grothman said “that he supported voter ID because it would help Republicans win elections”. Neither of those statements support your argument that there was a pattern of KKK or anti-Semitism coming from Conservatives, in fact you haven’t even proven that 1) those statements actually took place and 2) that you haven’t proven that you actually heard them.
You’re going to have to do better than that attempt at goalpost shifting and providing comments that don’t support your claim.
Try again?
LikeLiked by 1 person
@AnonyBob;
“And. There. Is. No. Evidence. Of. Voter. Fraud.”
Do tell!
Formerly employed Lefty scumbag (forgive the redundancy) Scottie Foval: “It’s a very easy thing for Republicans to say they’re bussing people in. Well you know what? We’ve been bussing people in to deal with you f**kin’ assholes for fifty years and WE’RE NOT GOING TO STOP NOW. WE’RE JUST GOING TO FIND A DIFFERENT WAY TO DO IT. (bolds/caps mine)
“I think backwards from how they would prosecute if they could, and then try to build out the method to avoid that,” (Foval) says about organizing voter fraud by bringing people from state to state to vote illegally. “Let’s just say, in theory, if a major investigation came up of major vote fraud that way, how would they prove it? And who would they charge? Are they going to charge each individual with voter fraud? Or are they going to go after the facilitator for conspiracy, which they could prove? It’s one thing if all these people drive up in their personal cars. If there’s a bus involved, that changes the dynamic… You can prove conspiracy if there’s a bus, but if there are cars, it is much harder to prove.”
BUSTED! Just a couple of nice Lefty morons (forgive the redundancy 2.0) bragging about the…um…size…of their influence, am I right?
Anywho: “Scott Foval and Robert Creamer, two little-known but influential Democratic political operatives, have left their (Lefty) jobs after video investigations by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action found Foval entertaining dark notions about how to win elections. Foval was laid off Monday by Americans United for Change, where he had been national field director; Creamer announced Tuesday night that he was ‘stepping back’ from the work he was doing for the unified Democratic campaign for Hillary Clinton.”
It gets worse.
Lefty miscreant (forgive the redundancy 3.0) Bobby Creamer was a WH guest over 340 times (close to every ~ 10 days Hopey Changey was in office), 47 (~ once every 2 months) of those with a personal audience with the self-anointed 4th Greatest President EVAH who was tasked with overseeing the Most Transparent Administration EVAH!
Oh my Gunny Sacks (H/T @GOOD DOG HAPPY MAN), sometimes this stuff just kinda writes itself, doesn’t it?
The Gotch
LikeLiked by 1 person
AnonyBob wrote, “There. Is. No. Evidence. Of. Voter. Fraud.”
Does that prove there is no voter fraud; No it doesn’t!
That my friend is the bonafide irresponsible brain-damaged argument that the political left uses all the time. The system is wrought with loopholes for fraud and Voter ID “removes” just one of those loopholes.
The fact is that the political left doesn’t care about the possibility of corrupting out elections with fraud.
LikeLike
Rats, typo…
The fact is that the political left doesn’t care about the possibility of corrupting our elections with fraud.
LikeLike
“that voter ID would completely screw Milwaukee black voters and drive down votes for Dems. This state, as a healthy democracy, used to do everything it could to encourage higher turnout.”
Let’s just say for the sake of argument that bobo speaks the truth, although Zoltar has already demonstrated he massages the truth at best.
If a given demographic has a history of not bothering with something as simple as obtaining a voter ID, it does not follow that republicans recognizing such is somehow a bigoted thing. Moreover, voter ID is to insure honest elections and has nothing to do with voter turnout other than unmotivated citizens won’t bother.
LikeLike
No wonder you boys are confused by Todd’s testimony. He has a conscious.
LikeLike
@AnonyBob;
I’m not confused by the unforced, and rather damning, testimony of Scottie Foval & Bobbie Creamer?
You…?
The Gotch
LikeLike
“If you linked to definitions by others, it would be a tool. Citing yourself is an ego trip. It doesn’t carry any weight.”
Actually, the origin of a specific definition is irrelevant to it being a tool.
Flawed logic bobo and likely projection of your disdain for Zoltar.
If you are able to calm your ego, you will recognize that Zoltar is your gift. He is helping with your reasoning and writing skills, like a tutor. And he does this voluntarily without pay.
You should thank him.
LikeLike
Peter Lorre speaks.
(Dave, is that a personal attack?)
LikeLike
@AnonyBob;
“(Dave, is that a personal attack?)”
@Batman selflessly throws youse a freakin’ lifeline intended to lead youse to Salvation and it’s seen as a personal attack?
Oy gevalt!!!!!
The Gotch
LikeLike
@AnonyBob;
The WORLD (including the 25th District of the State of Wisconsin) accepts Voter ID.
Yet Lefty balks…
Anywho, it’s not like you’s NEED an I.D. to do much of anything else?, like vote in a Lefty Union election, am I right?
Ah Lefty; so MUCH hypocrisy, so little time!
The Gotch
LikeLiked by 1 person
More babble
LikeLike
If the fact-based Reality averse @AnonyBob says there ain’t no Stinkin’ Voter Fraud…welp…then there just ain’t no Stinkin’ Voter Fraud
Capisce??
Ah Lefty; so MUCH ignominy, so little time!
The Gotch
LikeLike
NO Stinkin’ Voter Fraud, especially NOT right here in America’s Dairyland….Nosirree@AnonyBob!!!!
The Gotch
LikeLike