January 29, 2007 at 21:57:40

JASON MILLER INTERVIEWED BY CAROLYN BAKER

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3) You describe yourself as a "wage slave" who has freed himself from intellectually and spiritually. Tell us about your choosing that description for yourself.

I have not stopped to count, but over the last couple of years I have probably composed over one hundred essays which have been published on a variety of alternative media sites. The description you mention in your question is my bio which I include at the end of each of my articles. I tinkered with that little blurb quite a number of times before I came up with that one. I feel comfortable with it because it is simple and apt.

In the United States, if one is not born into the de facto aristocracy, one has few realistic choices beyond working for someone else (wage slavery), becoming a professional (i.e. doctor or lawyer), joining the military, or entrepreneurialism. A relative few have the means or discipline to complete an advanced degree, not everyone is willing to endure harsh indentured servitude to expand the reach of an empire, and a vast majority of small businesses fail.

Through a combination of factors, including birth, extenuating circumstances, and my own poor choices, I wound up working as a corporate "wage slave". While the system is much less rigid and well-defined, there are a number of parallels between the feudal system and American Capitalism, which as many readers have so accurately pointed out to me is not the Capitalism that Adam Smith and his contemporaries had envisioned. Within the framework of that analogy, those people who earn their livings as middle management or non-exempt employees are modern day serfs or wage slaves. Compound that with Noam Chomsky's accurate observation that corporations (which dominate the economic, political, and cultural spheres of our existences in the United States) are structured as tyrannies, the wretched state of publicly funded social services in the wealthiest nation on the planet, and the looming specters of hunger and homelessness, and you have a serious set of impediments to pulling a Johnny Paycheck.

Telling the boss to "take this job and shove it" sounds extremely gratifying and simple enough, but with family, food, shelter, and medical care in the balance, few rational individuals are prepared to take such a drastic step without powerfully compelling reasons or financial security to fall back upon.

Choosing to remain a wage slave has a moral consequence. By working, paying taxes, and consuming, one becomes complicit in the innumerable horrendous war crimes and egregious exploitation committed by the United States. Yet unless one "drops off the grid" or expatriates, one is inevitably culpable in America's crimes to some degree. And there are numerous ways to mitigate one's complicity and atone for it.

To answer your question about freeing myself intellectually and spiritually, I will state quite succinctly that while I choose to conform to certain aspects of an incredibly depraved socioeconomic system, those who metaphorically own me on the physical plane don't possess an iota of either my mind or my soul. I have studied too hard, suffered too much, and striven too painstakingly to let them have an ounce of either.

4) What motivated you to begin your blog? I notice that among the interests listed in your personal profile are: Rights of Minorities; Rights of the Mentally Ill; Gay Rights; Thomas Paine; Volunteer Work for the Homeless; and Human Rights Watch. Can you say more about why you are passionate about the rights of these groups?

One of my teachers from high school with whom I still communicate actually encouraged me to start Thomas Paine's Corner. Writing had been a passion of mine for years. About two years ago, I started writing essays and submitting them to other sites for publication. Initially, I started my blog as a means to self-publish so I could submit links to sites that do not publish full articles, but my little site has evolved into much, much more. My writing only accounts for about 5% of the content now and my site meter has registered nearly 700,000 hits.

I have been fortunate to have forged alliances and struck up friendships with some incredibly brilliant thinkers and writers who graciously include Thomas Paine's Corner amongst their syndication of original publishers. Steve Jonas, Stephen Lendman, Gary Corseri, Don Robertson, Phil Rockstroh, John Andrews, Ramzy Baroud, Andrew Taylor, Gene DeVaux, Rowan Wolf, and of course, Carolyn Baker, each contribute their work directly to my little site. It has also been my distinct pleasure to publish one-time submissions by several authors of note and quite a few talented aspiring writers.

As far as my passion for human rights, apparently I have an innate sensitivity to injustice and abuse that just won't quit. However, there are a number of life experiences that have contributed to my ardor. I grew up in the Methodist Church which was founded by John Wesley, an ardent abolitionist and prison reformer. While the Methodist religion didn't stick, apparently some of its founder's redeeming aspects did. My grandmother was, and my grandfather is, very compassionate, just and fair-minded. As a youth, I often felt like a pariah because my family moved often, I was very studious, and until my senior year in high school I was seriously overweight. My experiences related to my bipolar condition, about which I have written before, have blessed me with a deep capacity (and need) to empathize with the suffering and down-trodden.

I do want to add that I have withdrawn my support for Human Rights Watch. Thank you for noticing that they were still on my profile. After becoming disgusted with their pro-Israeli bias, I removed the graphic/link I had on my site which promoted HRW. They are no longer on my profile.

5) If you are comfortable answering this question, can you say more about being in recovery? How has that affected your concern about the above issues?

I feel quite comfortable elaborating upon my recovery. I consider my bipolar condition to be a blessing for a multitude of reasons. I alluded to the empathy component above. My condition also endows me with a mind that works very rapidly and the capacity to persist relentlessly. Of course, if I don't manage myself, each of the aforementioned gifts can become wretched curses. I learned that the hard way.

On the surface, I was relatively stable until I got into my third year of college. It was about that time that the proverbial wheels started coming off. For the next four years, I went on a roller-coaster ride to Hell. I became heavily addicted to alcohol. I quit school and started working in entry level manufacturing jobs. A serious industrial accident left me with severe burns on both of my legs. I got involved in a very toxic marriage in which my partner and I were very cruel to one another. Eventually I went on a two year "bender" that involved abandoning my marriage and six month-old twins, partnering with a woman who was equally unstable, financial bankruptcy, homelessness, joblessness, self-harming, hospitalization in the state psychiatric facility, multiple fights, bouts of rage, theft and vandalism, thoughts of parenticide followed by suicide, and estrangement and isolation. My rock bottom was at Western Missouri Mental Health where a delusional woman followed me around because she thought I was Jesus, a man twice my size with severe rage issues threatened to kill me because I sat in his chair, a patient tied to his bed with restraints screamed incessantly day and night, the highlight of my day was when an old man came to sing Christian hymns with us for about ten minutes. When I was released, I could not find a soul to give me a ride home, I had no money, no job, and owned virtually nothing.

About that time, a therapist named Lynn Barnett, AA, and a powerful devotion to reclaiming my lost soul and intellect came into my life. It was a slow process, but I gradually stabilized as I learned to work with my racing mind and raging emotions. Eventually, I made amends and reparations to those I had harmed, including my children. If there is someone out there to whom I have forgotten to apologize or repay, I am genuinely sorry.

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Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. is author of U.S. HISTORY UNCENSORED: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You. Her forthcoming book is SACRED DEMISE: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. She also (more...)

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