This evening I was looking at another website I frequent and saw a large ad for something called
angryrenter.com which depicted a screaming person (presumably a renter).
I'm currently renting, so I thought - "let's see what I'm supposed to be angry about" - and clicked on it.
I ended up on a page filled with charts and figures and videos and a link to a petition that I could sign. At the top was this:
All we hear these days is whining from reckless home borrowers and their banks.
But did you know that renters are 32 percent of American households? And that homes in foreclosure are less than 2 percent?
So why is Congress rushing to bailout high-flying borrowers and their lenders with our tax dollars?
Unfortunately, renters aren't as good at politics as the small minority of homeowners (and their bankers) who are in trouble. We don't have lobbyists in Washington, DC. We don't get a tax deduction for our rent and we don't get sweetheart government loans.
Quite simply, we are just Angry Renters. And now it is our time to be heard: no government bailouts!
Why, i wondered, should I be so concerned about the possibility of Congress trying to do something about the mortgage crisis? How are my rights being so egregiously violated? Why should I try flexing political muscle to prevent any Congressional action on this?
So what is going on here? Is there really a group of angry renters who are so livid that they formed an organization, created a website, and organized a petition? Do they have meetup groups meeting the second Wednesday of every month to fight this egregious violation of our rights? Should I get involved in this movement to protect my rights as a renter?
I mean - God forbid that Congress should try to help out those evil homeowners. How dare they do that to me and my fellow renters!
Okay, not exactly. I hope the sarcasm smiley wasn't needed for the above. This website was obviously nonsense and it didn't take much research to find out who was behind it. Poking around the website, I found that angryrenter is a project of
FreedomWorks. A little Googling showed a direct connection between FreedomWorks and a group called Citizens for a Sound Economy.
Sourcewatch has a page on CSE:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_EconomyCSE is often described as a "consumer group," but according to internal documents leaked to the Washington Post, 85 percent of its 1998 funding came from major corporations. "The 'citizens' in question are companies like Amoco, Bell Atlantic, Citibank, General Electric and General Motors", Washington Babylon explains (p. 15). "During recent years, the CSE, headed by C. Boyden Gray, who acted as counsel to the president under George W. Bush, has opposed health care reform and a rise in the minimum wage, while championing corporate tax cuts, deregulation and a balanced budget."
So it looks like Citibank has taken pity on the plight of us poor mistreated renters and decided to champion our cause! :sarcasm:
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