John Murphy For Congress - - - 16th District of Pennsylvania

Why I'm Running
for Congress in 2008
by John Murphy
"The Corporate-Free Candidate"

© 2006 merlehaggard.com

In the 2006 congressional election eight thousand people in the 16th District had the courage to say "NO" to the two factions of the Corporate Party. I just can’t thank those folks enough for the courage they displayed and the confidence they placed in me. Interestingly, now there are more voters in the United States who identify themselves as independent of the Corporate Party. 42% of all Americans now consider themselves either as Independents or as a member of one of the newer parties. That means the independent voter in this country will play a larger and larger role in our political life. In fact it will be up to the independent voter to save our Republic.

We have become an imperialist nation. We have troops stationed in 127 nations throughout the world and your tax dollars are paying for that. If another nation gives any one of our corporations a problem, we threaten them with the sixth Fleet and you pay for that as well. History has shown that no country can survive as a Democratic Republic at home while maintaining an empire abroad. Greece tried and failed. Rome tried and failed. England tried and, to her credit, realized that if she did not dismantle her empire her Republic would fall. The British Empire is gone but a Democratic Republic in England still remains. Unless the United States dismantles its empire abroad, rebuilds its economic base at home, replaces "free trade" with balanced trade and drastically cuts the Pentagon budget in order to reduce the national debt, the United States will no more be a Republic than Rome was under Nero.

There are no longer two major political parties in the United States. There is, indeed, only one political party in the United States. Some have been calling it the "War Party", others the "Business Party" but I prefer to call it the "Corporate Party" since both factions, the Democrat and Republican, are financed by the same 1500 corporations. Because the candidates of the two factions are dependent on these corporate contributions the American people are no longer seen as the real constituencies but simply as consumers who are persuaded each year to choose between Coke and Pepsi.

It takes real courage to vote for a candidate who is not a Democrat or Republican and I hope that in 2008 many more will find that courage. The combined forces of the Democrat and Republican candidates in the 16th District spent over $1 million on the 2006 campaign. My campaign spent approximately 1% of that amount. I was even prevented from participating in two out of three of the major debates in which the Corporate Candidates participated. Still, 8,000 people declared their independence from the Corporate Party and voted for a candidate who had been endorsed by liberals, conservatives and centrists representing the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Reform Party and the New American Independent Party.

The 2006 congressional election has come and gone and here, in 2008, we can see that Democrat Congress made no significant changes with respect to our foreign or domestic policy. Instead of ending the war which is now opposed by 70% of Americans, all they have done is issue a nonbinding resolution and voted time after time to continue funding the war. The Democrat Party leader Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is off the table even though George Bush is the most impeachable President in United States history. Yes, George Bush is a problem but George Bush is not THE problem. The real problem is a political system which no longer represents the will of the voter.

The USA Patriot Act which has destroyed our civil liberties remains in place, the national debt is over $9 trillion, the bogus war on terrorism continues with both parties now talking about the possibility of attacking Iran, Pakistan and Syria. The same types of lies which were told by the Democrats and Republicans in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq are now being told about these other nations. The Democrat Congress did nothing to end the bogus war on drugs; to stem the tide of corporate crime, fraud and abuse; to end corporate welfare and corporate personhood or to make elections fair and equal throughout this nation. READ MORE...

The Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, promised President Bush that the war and impeachment were "off the table". She made a deal and Bush got rid of Donald Rumsfeld while the American people wanted to get rid of the war and George Bush. Quite a deal! The"fight" between the Democratic and Republican Parties is no more significant than a professional wrestling match. The only winners are the promoters: the corporations which finance the campaigns of both factions of the Corporate Party. The losers are the American voters.