Dr. Steve Porter, Pennsylvania's Independent Candidate For Congress

Dr. Steve Porter has been a good friend of Blue America's since we got started in 2005. At that time he ran for Congress in northwestern Pennsylvania as a Democrat. I was somewhat naïve back then and couldn't understand why the DCCC wouldn't help such an independent-minded stalwart progressive. Now I understand that the DCCC isn't looking for stalwart progressives and absolutely hates independent-minded thinkers. Steve ran again-- but as an independent. I've invited him to join me on a panel at Netroots Nation in June to help people understand how antithetical to the progressive movement an organization like the DCCC, built as part of a vast incumbent protection racket and imbued with values that extol corruption. truly is. Should be fun. I've asked the Netroots Nation folks to invite Chairman Israel as well. Meanwhile, Steve is, once again-- and as an independent, running for the Erie-based House seat in Pennsylvania. I asked him to give us an idea of what it's all about.

Why I Am Running For Congress As An Independent

-by Steven Porter, Ph.D.
 
For most of my 68 years, I, like millions of my fellow citizens, have fallen prey to the myth that our two-party system would further the American democracy.
 
But I was wrong. I didn't heed the warnings of our first President, George Washington, who begged us in his farewell address of 1796 to avoid turning the reins of government over to political parties.
 
Listen, dear God, listen to his words.
 
"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties to the state," he said. "The alternate domination of one faction over another... serves to distract the public...enfeeble the administration... agitate with jealousies, kindle animosity, and foment riot."
 
And as our seats of government were turned over in every state legislature and almost every court to our two-party duopoly, the tenets of our Constitution and sources of our very freedom were prostituted by greed and the desire for power to the point where service to the people has now become a governmental impossibility.
 
In 1976 with the Buckley vs. Valeo ruling which equated money with free speech and in 2010 when the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court made political contributions virtually unlimited and virtually anonymous, we allowed the nails of our democratic coffin to be driven tight.
 
In the last twenty years, the wealthy who lust for profits and control have spent an incredible $25 trillion  to put into Congress their own lapdogs. People thus owned-- no matter how they once might have wished to serve the nation-- now serve their financial masters. So our legislators squabble over party power and fail term after term to deal with the crises which face us.
 
If you go to www.opensecrets.org, you will find the statistics of the Center for Responsive Politics.  Don't believe me. See the flow of money for yourselves. Look, for example, at the $5 trillion used by the financial industry to buy Congress since 1990. Then ask yourselves how our representatives can serve those of us who have lost our homes and our jobs when their first order of business is to bail out the banks which put them in office.
 
Well, they can't. Nor can they provide affordable health care before profits to the insurance carriers, nor clean air before oil leases, nor peace before feeding the industries of war.
 
Confused and misled by corporatized news and under-educated by a continually failed school system, our public has been paralyzed by ignorance and distracted by a media whose profits rely on prurience rather than meaningful information.
 
Consider this: 37% of American voters are registered independents, yet only 2 of the 535 members of Congress are independents. That is because state-by-state, in ways often patently unconstitutional, everyone but a Republican or a Democrat is denied equal access to the ballot  [see Grand Illusion by lawyer Theresa Amato]. For example, here, now, in the state of Pennsylvania, while a Republican or Democrat needs only 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot, I-- an unaffiliated independent-- must get 2% of the total of the winning congressional candidate's vote in the 2010 election. That is far more than 1,000 signatures. And that in spite of Pennsylvania's own constitution which says that elections shall be "free and equal." It also violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states that all Americans shall have the equal protection of the laws of the land.
 
I wish I could put all of my research into this one post. I can't. But it is there for you to see in my books. I beg you to read Preserving America and check the references for yourselves. I urge you to listen to my internet broadcasts on http://webtalkradio.net/shows/preserving-america/. I ask you to visit my campaign website, www.porter4congress.com. You will find the truth there, waiting for you to verify, waiting for our nation to hear.
 
I run with an easily understood platform which-- as I look to our future-- I do not see changing.
 
1.  Leave Afghanistan now.

2.  Remove the Social Security earnings cap.

3.  Replace Obamacare with HR 676,  the Physicians National Health Program.

4.  Restore the tax rates on corporations and the wealthiest 1% of Americans so that they generate one-half of what they did in 1960 when corporations accounted for 25% of federal revenues rather than the 9% they yield today, and when the wealthiest 1% were taxed on rates close to 80% instead of the approximately 30% rate of today.

5.  With the monies derived from these steps, institute public works projects in solar power generation, wind power generation, and building a national watershed program.


6.  Fund all elections with taxes already paid and equally distributed to candidates who are allowed to gain ballot access by laws applied equally to all.
 
This simple six-item platform will pay off our debts, make us energy independent, put millions to work now and into the future, and end the bribery of our government.
 
For years we have been brainwashed by the major parties and a press designed to control us instead of inform us.  We have been brainwashed to think that if we do not vote either for a Republican or a Democrat, we throw our votes away. And so we leap from the frying pan of the Republicans to the fire of the Democrats and throw our democracy away.
 
I beg you to support my campaign. Get me elected and see what an honest, un-owned voice in Congress will do. Give me the chance to speak for us. I will not fail you, and-- if I do--cut me loose. You lose very little if you respond to me in mass. Maybe $100. Maybe 2 years. You might, however, gain back the promise of your nation.