This came up on a disability list serve I am on. Agreement was that "mad", "crazy", etc. are used as pejoratives and the utterer should be more specific as to what s/he means. As I have said before the worst crimes against humanity have been carried out by clinically "normal" people but these words seem to be used in politics all too often. It is a slur but then what is the slurrer really trying to say badly?
For instance, the current issue of In These Times, a left political mag -- on the cover, Resident George W, in straightjacket, looking "crazy." Headline, "Inside the Asylum."
This is an insult to every psychiatric survivor I know.
>The BBC is sadly not lacking in dimwits,
now you regress. Why use dimwit? That is another pejorative of the kind you complain being used against Castro.
Marta
-- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.martarussell.com/