Wingnuts are go!

[gordonzola]

OK folks, it’s definition time. Who would like to posit a definition for "wingnut" as it applies to a certain type of politico?

Here’s mine:

Wingnut: A person who has their mental health issues so intertwined with their "politics" that to them there is no difference. Paranoia, conspiracy theory, and poor social skills are necessary traits. In addition, ineffectiveness and failure are usually treated as signs that the Revolution is somehow coming closer to happening. The term originated in People’s Park, Berkeley, California and is usually used by slightly embarrassed anarchists and anti-authoritarians to distance themselves from "wingnut’ politics and activists who may also identify with those terms.

Sample sentence: Did you see the wingnuts protesting the "execution" of Rosebud Denovo when the cops shot her for breaking into the chancellor’s home with a machete?

Please feel free to add your own definitions or ask if someone you know fits the definition.

Comments

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

see, I don't buy all that. or rather, I think there's some truth to it, but it's treating symptoms not the real issues. Basically, it says that in areas with limited radical political organizing, there are few people with radical politics. QED.

that's why you almost never see wingnuts in, say, local Democratic Party meetings. It's too mainstream for them. And their craziness will be detected much sooner and ejected much quicker.

see, the thing about the Democrats is that they have actual standards and aren't so desperate for members that they'll allow obvious neediness and disruptive behavior to dominate an event. They'll call security or the cops and be done with it. I was talking to the facilitator of that workshop I wrote about yesterday and we agreed that a Left group is defined partly by what it does when confronted by wingnuts. Cuz they'll be at every event.

and yes, great story. But I still challenge anyone to find "wingnut" used to define a type of politico before People's Park. Show me, People.

[lapsed.livejournal.com]

It's going to depend on when you mean by "Peoples Park" if you mean the '60s I'm beat, but if you mean the Volleyball Riots I can just squeeze in there:

July 19, 1991 - The Ottawa Citizen

Headline reads "Kealey yells his way from wing nut to hero"

Also contains this gem: "Most of those who hadn't dismissed him as a wing-nut had come to regard Kealey as the mascot of the Great Canadian Revolution."

[felicks.livejournal.com]

Didn't William Saphire do a piece about wingnut recently?

[felicks.livejournal.com]

I think this is connected to the racial makeup of anarchist groups. I think white culture shuns direct confrontation in groups.

When I got married (a mostly white event), there was a friend of mine who made a kind of bizarre speech that was unintentionally insulting to me and my partner. My friend (who is black) was commenting that at a majority black event, someone would have calmly interupted him and shut him down in a nice polite way.

There's a good book about black and white communication styles I read once, can't remember the name, and one thing the author talked about was how white groups take turns talking, and see interuption as rude, with the idea that each person should get to say her piece. Black groups give more room to those who are the most invested in the issue. So if you are very angry, or invested in some other way, it is not considered rude to interupt or take more time than others.

Anyway, what I'm saying is just that one negative aspect of a general cultural value of anarchist (and related) groups is a fear of shutting down wingnut freaks when they first rear their ugly heads.