Jhwygirl writes about a political discussion hosted by the Policy Insitute last week. The event was not recorded so that the candidates could speak freely. Not kidding. That’s how we roll.
During the event Rep Kim Gillan of Billings is said to have remarked that last year’s oil spill on the Yellowstone River was a benefit. Her words, as cited by jhwygirl:
…there are people in Billings that think the oil spill was a good thing, that it was good for business. They are looking at their watches and asking can we do this again next year?”
It’s not clear from that brief remark whether she is being sarcastic. I doubt it. I ran for legislature in Billings in 1996 and Gillan was a fellow candidate, one of two or three successful ones. I was terribly unimpressed with her at the time, not sensing any progressive impulses in her. She struck me as a right wing Democrat. I would not fully comprehend until the year 2000 how much the Democratic Party leadership despises progressives**.
I am going on memory here now, but as I remember, Gillan, the wife on a physician, had gotten a later-life masters in economics. Most likely she studied neoclassical economics, and credulously sponged it up – I was not impressed by her intellectual firepower. But she learned duckspeak, and was thereby set to go into politics properly trained in right wing economics.
I believe in public education, and that our brains and grades should be the guide by which we advance, and not our bank accounts. I wonder if Gillan would survive in a merit-based system. The remark above, if cited correctly, is testimony to the Carolyn Kennedy* syndrome: too much education wasted on too little brain.
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*To avoid the tinge of sexism, this could also be called the “Steve Forbes Syndrome.” It is not gender-based, but rather a phenomenon of
privilege, where people like Gillan, Forbes, and George W. Bush have access to higher education without meriting it. They are taught the words, but never quite grasp the music. In Bush’s case, it made him a dangerous man. The others are just annoying.
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**I hasten to add that I brought about my own electoral defeat without assistance from anyone.
Piece of Mindful 
I think you’re a bit harsh and off base on Gillan. You are right that she does not see the world through the same lense as you (or I) on a lot of things but she ain’t THAT bad. She is actually pretty intelligent and she does understand tax issues pretty in depth. You would probably get along with her if you knew her better (speculation as I dont really know you). I think I said this somewhere else too but she isn’t even saying ‘she’ thought the spill was good but that there are some people in Billings who did because they made a lot of money off it. Its completely true.
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I considered taking this down because it is harsh, but my memories of her tax attitudes were pretty much in line with neoclassical economics, that taxes are essentially a negative force. I think it is impossible to study right wing economics and be a progressive person.
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