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Ref. 22: War conference Kirk and Madsen were not the kind of drooling activists that would burst into churches and throw condoms in the air. They were smart guys very smart. Kirk, a Harvard-educated researcher in neuropsychiatry, worked with the Johns Hopkins Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth and designed aptitude tests for adults with 200+ IQs. Madsen, with a doctorate in politics from Harvard, was an expert on public persuasion tactics and social marketing. Together they wrote "After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s." "As cynical as it may seem." they explained at the outset, "AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of America's special protection and care. At the same time," they warned, "it generates mass hysteria of precisely the sort that has brought about public stoning and leper colonies since the Dark Ages and before. … How can we maximize the sympathy and minimize the fear? How, given the horrid hand that AIDS has dealt us, can we best play it?" The bottom line of Kirk and Madsen's master plan? "The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising." For a look at the original text in English click here (file size: 496 k) |