The New Yorker featured perennial Congressional candidate Ro Khanna in an article titled “The Disruption Candidate. Right. Disruption – aka moving fast and breaking sh*t – is how we got the Patriot Act.
Also this last line: The last page of ‘The Great Gatsby’—I forget the line, about looking at the dock and moving toward the future and all that. The Valley is the representation of what Fitzgerald was writing about, that sense of American promise and exceptionalism. It’s tinged with the same excesses, at times, as the Roaring Twenties, but there’s also a sense of pure Americana. And the challenge for representing this place is: How do you do so in a way that’s humble?”
Isn’t it funny that he mentions Gatsby and that he glosses over the “same excesses, at times, as the roaring twenties,” when income inequality is reaching the same levels as the pre-depression era?
I mean, we don’t need a congressman to represent Tech, they are doing fine. More than fine. We need someone who represents the rest of us in Silicon Valley. The half of Latinos in San Jose who don’t have a paid sick day, the 1 in 3 households that can’t afford to be self sufficient in the county, and the service sector workers who have to work two jobs just to afford skyrocketing rent…with a roommate. But Khanna’s worried about being “humble” while comparing himself to Athenians with democracy.
“Think of great civilizations,” Khanna said. “Ancient Greece—you think of Athens. Italian Renaissance—you think of Florence. When people look at America and our contribution to human history, they’ll look to Silicon Valley and innovation and technology as one of the pinnacles of what the nation has contributed.”
Great nations don’t let billion dollar companies abuse workers for the sake of disruption.
Dennis Raj is the Political Director at the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council
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