Americans For Prosperity Places Fake Eviction Notices On Detroit Homeowners’ Doors To Scare Up Support
These notices were posted on homes in Detroit.
The Michigan chapter of the Koch-backed conservative activist group Americans For Prosperity (AFP) has been campaigning against a new bridge project called the New International Trade Crossing (NITC) that the state is considering. While there may be some merit to some of the arguments against the NITC project, the tactics AFP has just been found to be using in campaigning against it are revolting.
Yesterday, numerous residents in the Delray area of Detroit came back to their homes to find eviction notices. The problem was that these notices were not authorized by any sort of local government authorities. Rather, they were mocked up by AFP to look like actual eviction notices. The “notices” sensationally claimed to homeowners that their property may be seized if the NITC is constructed. Some residents, particularly elderly ones, were physically shaken by the tactic:
Residents and a state legislator lambasted the circulars, saying they were a scare tactic by opponents of the bridge. Dolores Toth, 81, who has heart problems, began to shake after reading the notice, said her son, Steve. “How low can you go?” Steve Toth said. “This isn’t something you do, I don’t care who you are.”
“It was meant to startle people,” said AFP Michigan director Scott Hagerstrom, defending the notices. “We really wanted people to take notice. This is the time that their opinions need to be heard. We wanted people to read it.” The Detroit Free Press put together a video report covering AFP’s scare tactics and the local area’s response. Watch it:
AFP’s tactics are bad enough by themselves, but they are even worse when you consider where the fake eviction notices were delivered. Michigan has the country’s highest foreclosure rate, and Detroit in particular is perhaps the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis.
UPDATE:
Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)Americans for Prosperity won't name donors but denies Moroun behind anti-bridge eviction notices--
http://www.mlive.com/news/
...but...
Moroun steps up propaganda campaign as new bridge inches toward becoming a reality
--
http://bloggingformichigan
"Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun is pulling out all the stops in order to keep his monopoly on the busiest commercial border crossing in all of North America.
His TV commercials, that the Michigan Truth Squad has debunked, are running almost non-stop, and he hired Faux "news" pundit Dick Morris in April. It seems the only people who are against the DRIC bridge are those paid to be gait it.
That includes the Washington, D.C.-based rightwing think tank "Americans for Prosperity" that organized and financed the teabaggers a few years ago. We will never know how much cash the Moroun family donated to them because they do not reveal their donors, but it has to be considerable. In April the AFP sent out glossy, full-color direct-mail pieces and radio ads against three Republican senators who have not taken a position on DRIC."
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