Transcript: Episode #256: Funding Freedom
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Host 0:15
May Allah for any Burmese language speakers tuning in today, we wanted to let you know that our better Burma mission has launched three Burmese language podcasts, Myanmar revolutionary tills, dark era of Burma, and Myanmar Peace, women and security. These programs can be found on our website, as well as on any of your preferred podcast platforms. We invite you to take a listen. But for now, let's get on with this episode
Brad 1:58
And welcome back, we're joined once again by Mike hawk. Frequent, frequent guest on our podcast, and we're going to be discussing the latest developments in the funding through the Burma bill. But before we get into that, Mike, thanks very much for sharing your time with us again. And for those who haven't heard your previous podcasts, would you mind quickly sort of introducing yourself and the work that you've been doing in the US? Cool?
Michael Haack 2:25
Yeah, absolutely. Hi, everyone. My name is Mike. I've been falling Burma sort of on and off since 2002. And I was a undergrad and went to Mesa spent the last three years pretty focused on what was going on and Capitol Hill. And to some degree, the administration, which means I spent about two years trying to get the Burma Act passed. Now that, you know, a pretty good version of it did pass. I then spent a year kind of tracking the appropriation around Burma trying to create as much grassroots pressure on that to make it robust. Just to repeat, if you didn't hear my last podcast, basically the US Congress works in two cycles authorization when they authorize things to happen, that appropriation when the appropriate money to do it. So the Burma Act authorized things, but it did not appropriate around that authorization. So we finally a year and a half later, due to a lot of partisan issues that have nothing to do with Burma. See a appropriations bill that was modeled after the authorizations and the Virbac.
Brad 3:43
Okay, I think that's a really good sort of overview. But I do want to jump in a little bit and take people back because things in the Myanmar space just move so quickly. Look at the Burma bill, because that that was such a slow slog for you and a lot of other people who are who are pushing for this. And what you're basically saying is that the Burma bill wasn't even a a tool of the US government saying that the US is actually going to take action. It's just the the government giving permission to itself to take some sort of action in the future, basically, so can you because it was quite a long document. Can Can you go through like what the Burma bill actually covers?
Michael Haack 4:31
Absolutely. And yeah, no, and I guess I'll take a super big step back about just like the legislative process in the United States. So the Vermont act is, you know, it is law. And what it does is it creates like for very big picture, a guide about what US policy toward Burma should be. The Congress like creates the sort of guides, and, you know, appropriates funding for federal agencies that then sort of execute these things. So from the second became law, it was still, like supposed to be and I think was like the guiding principle behind us policy toward Burma. You might ask, how is that enforced? Well, federal agencies are audited. You know, based on you know, how well they're following laws. And you can see that, you know, there's reference of the perma AG, like all over the place in US Myanmar policy, from pretty much right after it passes, if you watch some of the hearings, or the State Department appears in front of Congress, and talks about Burma, etc, etc. So that is it in a nutshell, but for really to kind of the parts of the vermaak, that may be sure to change in policy. You know, that for those who really like, at least it's helpful to have like a new appropriation to fund those changes. And we were really pushing for an increase in appropriation. We got that. So last year, or the last fiscal year, it was $136 million, was appropriated as a line item for Burma, the US added a lot more than that, depending on how you measure at the very minimum, we spent $235 million in Burma, although I would say we spent more because you have to also look at the spending on Bangladesh and a number of other places where we're taking care of Burma related issues, but it's not actually directly spent on Myanmar. So taking another step, like forward and then back, this year, the apples to apples comparison to the 130 6 million that was the sort earmarked was not exactly the correct term for Burma is 167 million. So that's a $30 million increase. Believe it's like 23 25% increase. You know, that might, you might think, Oh, my gosh, there's so much needed in Burma, that's hardly, very much. But if you take it within the kind of context of US politics, overall, where this budget cycle, we saw a 6%, cut to foreign aid in general. You know, it was a very tight year, like, basically, every office, we went to whether Democrat or Republican, would say the same thing, which is, you know, don't expect active expansion this year, expect that, if anything cut, those who follow us politics will know, there was a group of sort of right wing Republicans who wanted to just slash the US budget for everything. You know, their feeling is that the US spends much too much on all kinds of things from food stamps of poor people and poor children to you know, foreign aid. And so they that was definitely on the chopping block, and they did to some degree, get what they wanted, right, this is 6% decrease overall. And so, you know, it might not feel like much and I feel like but a 25% increase, or 20, whatever percent increase in Burma, ie the three $30 million increase. That that is significant. And I do believe it again, like had a lot to do with a lobbying effort. You know, the kind of grassroots campaigning that a number of different groups were involved in, but it also had to do with the act because the Burma act created political, you know, the second half passed, you know, that was the messaging that we switched to you. Okay, now funded, now funded, funded. So they were hearing that so many offices are hearing that from many different perspectives of the past year plus.
Brad 9:28
So that's a very interesting how should I put this like dynamic within the actual establishment because I don't necessarily want to put you in the position of, you know, naming names, but there were certain people within Congress specifically within the Senate, who were working to slow or block the passage of the Burma bill, it became quite it seemed to me not even to be particularly partisan, because, if I remember correctly, the House of Representatives were unanimously behind it, it was it was only in the Senate that you have this partisan split. So has that push back after the passage of the bill? Has that pushback going away? Or does it continue in this way? Well, we couldn't stop the bill from being passed. Let's lobby behind the scenes to stop the bill from being funded.
Michael Haack 10:21
Yeah, I'm actually no, I don't think we really saw that. That's a great question, though. I do think that like, you know, by the time the bill actually got put in the NDAA, you know, basically, you know, there are two senators who we needed to get on board to get it in there. And those are, you know, Mitch McConnell and Todd Young. And, you know, it was mostly I think, you know, the Senate is like, you know, this might sound petty, and it sort of is, but you have to just understand this as a framework that it works and like, the Senate is, you know, modeled after the House of Lords. It wasn't directly elected by the people until 1910. Right? Like, it's meant to be a body that shielded from the popular Well, that's like, why it was designed. And so you still have this very, like, sort of like, gentlemanly sort of Lord like attitude among senators where their honor is very important. And if something is their turf, they don't want other people standing on it. So we had a lot of problems. Like, unfortunately, because I do think in general, he's, he's, you know, over the last 30 years, like Mitch McConnell has championed robust aid to Burma. But because it was seen as his territory within his party, and because initially, his office and he himself are very afraid about some of the Ranga language, potentially, tarnishing knots on Soo Ji. He didn't want it to move, he wouldn't give the green light to the other Republicans. And the other Republicans didn't want to go around him. Again, like the Senate is the very sort of old school institution where things like, honor your name like matter. And I don't I don't even mean honor, in a good way. Right. I mean, like, you know, that sort of very individualized sort of politics. And so, you know, just didn't move. And we got lots of Democrats on in the Senate. We got, yeah, unanimous consent in the house. So all the Democrats and all the Republicans agreed to it in the house. But in the Senate, because you had this sort of personal issue. It just didn't move till the very last minute. And I do think it was grassroots organizing that got it done. I mean, before right before McConnell put it in the in the bill. He called the The churches in Kentucky that have been bugging him to put it in the bill and told them he was going to do it. You know, at the end of the day, you know, we have this thing in the US. And I think it's very true here. All politics is local. Mitch McConnell represents Kentucky, he doesn't represent anything else. At least his job this represent Kentucky and he takes it seriously. Like I think most people do take their constituencies seriously. And so lots of people in Kentucky, particularly Baptist churches, bothering him was what got that over the over the finish line.
Brad 13:38
I just found a very interesting because the perception that I have, and I think a lot of outsiders have of the United States is that, as you often have with these federalized systems and when you have these two party systems, that politics is anything but local, because you just have this this large number of constituencies that are so solidly one way or the other, that the representative is elected, even unopposed. And so that Representative then has no real motivation to care about the interests of the constituency, because the constituency is going to vote for them anyway. So they may as well invest their time in in climbing the ladder within their party infrastructure and, and serving the interests of the whatever the name is of the the overarching organization of each political party. But so it's very interesting to me that you're saying that Mitch McConnell, as a as a representative from Kentucky can actually be effectively lobbied by interests within Kentucky and tries to to focus on on making sure that the Kentuckians if that's the correct term, are happy with his performance?
Michael Haack 14:47
Yeah, and I think it's not just like, you know, any interest in Kentucky though, right? Like it's, it was the churches, the Baptist churches. He himself is a Baptist. You know, Baptists helped elect him And, you know, the Baptist Church in general, like, has a lot of sway with the Republican Party. So I'm sure he was concerned about that. I do also think the similar, you know, groups in Indiana sort of pushing hard young probably mattered, again, because Yang was concerned about, you know, that's a constituency that that supports him, you know, knocks on, you know, like, politically supports him. And so he wants to keep that in his I don't know, in his sphere of people who support him. And so I do think it matters, like, you know, not every constituency is going to be important to every senator, they're particularly worried about the ones that that come out and either support them or like McConnell, like being the head of the Republican Party of the Senate, up until very recently, there's going to be concerned about like Republicans all over the Senate, and then getting reelected. I'll give you one story, though, about how hilariously, local our politics can actually be. One of the senators from Wyoming, which, as you guys might know, is, is sort of a landmark. It's a smallest state by population in the United States, it's in the middle. It's even smaller than the District of Columbia, though it's a land is very, very large. It's a huge beef producing state. And the senator from there is on Foreign Relations. And you might think, like, why is this big state with a small population in the middle of the country, on Foreign Relations? And it's because the dude wants to export as much beef as possible. Like, if you go on his Twitter account, it's all about exporting beef? No, I mean, it is that, you know, that it's a federal system was meant to be, you know, localized. Like, that was sort of the whole idea. I mean, you know, I don't know, we could get into the costs and benefits of that. But I guess probably beyond the scope, beyond the scope of this podcast. Yeah.
Brad 17:16
But it is still very interesting to see that, you know, obviously, from the outside, we look at the United States, and the perception we get is that these people are focused on a national level strategy, and they're loyal, first and foremost, to their party and the interests of the leaders of that party. And then and then it turns out that in some cases, they're actually far more motivated by the interests of the major industries in their constituencies or their respective states. Oh,
Michael Haack 17:41
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think if you go to sorta like honest, Bob, yes. I mean, that's how you as much, and the absolutely, if you go into different Yeah, absolutely.
Brad 17:59
Okay, so then, let's, let's look at the next step in this thing, because you mentioned it, you mentioned the the NDAA. And they I remember, there was quite a bit of confusion about this, because everyone was talking about Burma Bill Batmobile. Bonville. And then the next big thing was the NDAA. It's like, oh, wow, look at look at this appropriation that was made for Myanmar within the NDA. Although, again, there was miscommunication. I remember having to, to answer for this as well. I go, you know, I got a I was contacted by by someone I'm not gonna say who, who was very excited wanted to make an announcement about this. Because the the way that the NDA is worded the structure of it, they highlighted a section and they said, look, the NDA is promising this much and this much for Myanmar. And then I had to explain that the beginning of that sentence is actually three pages back. And the beginning of the sentence is something along the lines of, you know, Congress authorizes the government to potentially make an acquisition that had, so it was written in a very miss, like non non misleading it was it was written in a standard legalese way, legislative way, but to the layman. It was very misleading. So what actually is the the NDA for? And what is the interaction between the NDA and the Bomag? Act?
Michael Haack 19:24
Yeah, awesome question. All around. So the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, is a law authorizing initially, you know, it was created in 1961 was authorized was authorizing basically US military spending. The US can spend on its military without authorizing it, but it was during the Cold War and everybody sort of wanted to line up and show that they supported a really, really big military by JIT. And so it's a very popular authorization bill that has passed every single year. Motivate 1963 Forgive me if I missed that, but early early 60s. And it it basically says, okay, the US is going to spend a, you know this much on the military. And we're going to, you know, put all these other like priorities for for foreign policy in there like that the longer time has gone on, the more has been stuffed into that bill. But initially, it was sort of just the show enthusiasm for US military spending it like sort of, again, just like a funny antidote, like in the past few years, like the Pentagon has asked for a certain amount of money. And then Congress has given them like $20 billion, more than they even asked for, because like, they everyone wants to kind of line up and say, Yeah, we really, like support a big US military, because it's just like a patriotism thing. And so, the, but because of that this bill always passes. And so the, so people want to just put as many different things, you know, everyone kind of wants to put their own, like, kind of pet project into the bill. So the bill is kind of become a vehicle for passing other bills. This last Congress, I believe, was the one that's currently going on, I believe, as the least productive Congress, like, for a very long time in US history. It doesn't, it didn't pass very many bills at all, because it's extremely divided, like the Speaker of the House was ousted a few months and Volvo. And so it's hard to get anything passed. So getting your bill in as part of the NDA is a way to get past. You know, I was at a talk with, you know, somebody in Congress, and somebody kind of brought up Oh, the Wehrmacht was part of the NDA. So I want to, you know, talk about how like the military, you know, how it affects like the military and the US military and how, basically, they tried to use it as like a rhetorical way to get the US military involved. And the person in Congress just sort of laughed, started laughing, because they're like, No, this is a vehicle to pass the bill. And so you know, that that's even this, this appropriations bill that just passed. It's where some of the US is supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills, every cycle, you know, one for foreign relations, one for the there's all kinds of different bills. But it never does it only or at least in recent years, it's only passed these massive budgets, because nobody can agree on small things. But if you have a big thing that gives a little bit to everybody, it's just much easier to get it through.
Brad 23:01
Interesting. Interesting. And so it's almost I don't want to say, Trojan horse, but yeah, it's, you use the term vehicle. Yeah, is what you're saying. So yeah, it's a way for ticket one thing. Okay. So okay, so let's, let's start moving into the actual money side of things. So So you say that the appropriations Was this the authorization was the appropriations 136 million?
Michael Haack 23:29
They answer preparation?
Brad 23:31
That's so that's the actual amount of money that was actually utilized for for the Myanmar purpose.
Michael Haack 23:41
Okay, no, so the actual amount of money that was actually utilized for the Myanmar purpose was 230, I believe, 2 million. So in the last budget cycle, in fiscal year 2023, the Congress appropriated 136 million, but the actual amount that was spent was about 100 million more.
Brad 24:19
Okay, um, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit confused. How do you spend money that you didn't appropriate?
Michael Haack 24:25
Yeah. Well, that's a great question. You take it from different buckets. The at the, at the extremely high level that federal legislation is passed that, you know, I think the best way to think about it is it's still an abstraction at that point. Even appropriations, bills are guides for how to appropriate not like, you know, when I was growing up, you know, my grandfather gave me like, $5 Every time I see him, you know, it's not like that. It's more like By me walking into the room and my grandfather being like, Hey, I think you should spend $5 on candy this week. And like, yeah, there is $5 in this jar over here, that could be used for candy. There's about, you know, $100 in the jar in general, but I'm recommending use $5 for candy. And, um, you know, I'm telling you, I'm appropriating it for the hat. And I won't be mad at you if you use it that way. And so maybe I want to buy $7 worth of candy. So I take the $5 for the candy out of the candy budget that my my grandfather has given me. But then I take two additional dollars out of let's say like the have enough calories to survive the week budget. And I also use that for candy, because candy is a good way to get calories. So I end up spending $7 on candy. It's the same with the with the budget, basically. So they can appropriate, they say, Okay, we want to spend at least $136 million on Burma. And so yeah, they spend that, but then they end up spending, you know, from different buckets, like humanitarian relief bucket, or, you know, the DRL or other, there's so many different buckets out there. Which is what makes us spending really hard to track. And, you know, everybody who tries to track this, like complaints about how hard it is, which I had a good pitch out there, if any of you are funders like that would be a good thing to fund the like somebody to track this stuff. Because it is, I think, very important, and there's nobody's job to watch it.
Brad 26:41
So let me get this straight, just wanna make sure that I understand this. So the conventional understanding is, I have a project, I need money for that project, I go to Congress, and I say, I would like to pass an authorization bill and subsequently an appropriations bill to raise X amount of money that I need for my project. And you seem to be saying that the reality is, I have a project, and I need X amount of money. So I should just shop around for appropriations that have already been made for projects that tangentially connected to the project that I'm on, that I can sort of argue sort of falls under the remit of the thing that they're already doing. Is that right?
Michael Haack 27:24
Kind of, um, so, okay, let's say I'm, you know, sitting at the Burma desk or something, or I don't even know if that's helpful. These things happen at like, very aggregate levels. So if you want like a particular project, right, like, let's say, I don't even know it was Burma, you could say like, you know, cross border aid, that goes through Thailand, there's various vehicles to get that aid across the border through Thailand. You know, ultimately, the US is working with probably some kind of implementing partner. That is some kind of like combination of people who are actually on the ground, there are people who are accountants here in the US, maybe people are accountants in Thailand, it's honestly probably a lot cheaper to pay an accountant in Thailand. And so you, you know, you give the money to this organization that sort of carries out your wishes, that you, you know, try and track the best you can now that spent that they usually like, there's some sort of report pack mechanism. And there's just various people like, sort of, like vying for this stuff. I mean, you know, it, you might get like sort of a phone call from a higher up, if you're in on the sort of preparation side to say, hey, like, you know, what are we doing in Myanmar this year? And then you're gonna say, Oh, we're doing these things for Myanmar. And yeah, it's a I'm sorry, to just like, kind of talk in abstractions, but that that is sort of how it works. I mean, there's no like, Myanmar bank account, you know, and we just like deposit money into that. I feel like that's the way most people conceptualize it. And I think that's why we get so much, or that's why people get so frustrated, because they're like, Oh, I heard there's $167 million in the Myanmar bank account this year, like, how do we get a piece of that? It's like, well, that's not really that's not really what's going on. I mean, it does show it and I believe, like an increase of priority recognition that that's a priority. And, you know, an increase in like, the sort of directionality of the spending. I mean, you also I have a constant fight between the federal agencies and the Congress about who really makes foreign policy. And the Congress is gonna say, Well, we're the buck stops with us, because we have the purse strings, we can decide what's funded, what isn't. The federal government will, you know, point to other things where they'll say no, like, this is our purview. And so that's like another just like constant sort of back and forth. And, and there's, there's a degree to which like, the squeaky wheel gets the grease like Congress. I know, for a fact like, you know, the house affairs committee, like called the State Department in front of the, like, yelled at them for not implementing the permit act, and like, not that long ago. So that like creates pressure within the State Department to like, do more and doing more mean spending more, there's no way it doesn't mean that because that at the very least staff time. And so then the budget sort of adds up that way.
Brad 31:14
Yeah. And so and so just even continuing the theme of the difficulty of tracking the actual government expenditure. So when you say 136 million was appropriated, although, obviously about 100 million extra was was spent, but you say the 130 6 million was appropriate, and the 200, something was spent? How like that? Again, I think in a lot of people's minds, what that means is, basically that cash was air dropped on to PDFs, NGOs, and ug that era. And, and that's not how it is like, is there any way of measuring how much of that money actually makes it to the ground, how much of the money is being spent on US government entities, US NGO partners, Myanmar based organizations, all this sort of stuff.
Michael Haack 31:58
I mean, honestly, there's probably a way to get a decent estimate, it's just that nobody's ever prioritized trying to figure that out, like, I don't know, like money from this is my own frustration, like having my contract recently ended or whatever, from Myanmar policies, it's you, but nobody wants to fund a study of that, you know, they all want to like be like, Oh, we have this. You know, we did this training and 35 people showed up, because then like, honestly, partly because they're going for their own grants. And that's what grants both the federal government and a lot of this sort of people want. So if that is an answerable question, you know, you go around talking to different people, and you kind of tally it, and you, you can square everything against the US sort of data, to make sure that everybody's being honest. But, you know, what you get basically from the State Department and other federal agencies is sort of like totals. So you'd have to go out there and do your own research and figure figure that out. But I would, I'm going to use the example of Ukraine spending just to sort of like, sort of paint a picture, like everybody's like, Oh, my God, we spent all this money on Ukraine, like that's actually a Republican talking point, these days, all your money is going to drain, all your money is not going to Ukraine, all your money is going to Lockheed Martin to these big giant arms manufacturers in the United States. And the US government is paying private sector arms, you know, builders to buy their arms, and then they're giving those arms to Ukraine, it's, it's the us dig money on itself. It's not like some kind of, we don't like give it to Zelinsky. And then he's like, which arms will you buy? Oh, maybe America is and then buys it from us like it. It's not, that's not how that works. I mean, like, the going back to the All politics is a local thing. It's like, you know, I do think so kind of in Vegas, because like one of my master's in political theory, but it's like, you know, you got to think about like, Where does power like, what are the what are the sort of nodes of power here and like, where, you know, who benefits from what and fly, you know, and you know, America spends its own money on it itself.
Brad 34:30
This is not like, this is an old scam. You know, we we do this a lot with aid with development aid. They will give you $100 million for this infrastructure project, but contractually, you're obliged to contract out to our people. So we're not injecting $100 million into your economy. But because we quote unquote, built you $100 million infrastructure project, you have to be grateful and you can't sort of complain about the fact that we've just priced out all of the low We'll call companies who couldn't handle this. It seems to be very old hat. Like, even if you gave the money to Zelinsky and Zelensky spent it on US companies, it would functionally be the same. It's still bouncing the money back. taxpayer to American private enterprise.
Michael Haack 35:15
Yeah, it's I mean, it's essentially. Yeah, right. I mean, it's a transfer of public money into private hands at its most fundamental,
Brad 35:26
Which is, again, a pretty old, an old trick that we've seen.
Michael Haack 35:31
Yeah, I mean, you know, I know, that's very cynical, but I think, you know, okay, you start with that. And then I mean, good is done within that framework. I mean, I do think that us has done, you know, a lot of, you know, good things. In the recent years around Burma, I mean, Saudi was one thing I think it doesn't get much credit for, which was evacuating tons and tons and tons of people after the coup, who we're, you know, in threat of dying, so. And, you know, and food aid and all sorts of things. I mean, it's not that these things aren't also getting done, it's that it's done within this framework. That is, you know, self serving to the state. Is
Brad 36:20
that what's the ratio of, of self serving to altruism here that I think that's really the question.
Michael Haack 36:27
I don't know, I would refer to that Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, where it's sort of like, you know, I don't know, at least it's sort of the like, unfortunately, I think for the government to actually do stuff, it has to kind of have a reason why it's like helping some sort of constituency that that, you know, keeps it afloat. And, you know, obviously, like, like, foreign policy is somewhat abstracted from this, right. I mean, like, the, I don't feel like there are like, like feeling. You know, as I'm saying, this, I'm feeling for some of the people that I kind of consider, like, global bureaucrats, like they are out there, and they are doing good work. And they are, like, making sure that things are distributed in a way that, you know, as good as possible. But But I think, you know, behind is, especially if you're looking at funding, and and you know, how, you know, it's sort of created and distributed. I mean, I think that it's important to think that way, disavowed the like, you know, self interest, allying. And, you know, that's why I focus so much on this sort of grassroots kind of work. Because that's a way that you do get, you know, the again, like, it's in the Baptists self interest to support port Burma these days, like, like lots and lots of white people have stopped going to churches stop going to church. And so the refugees, like, fill the pews. And so it's like, you know, it's in their interest. Is that bad? You know, is that a bad reason to be interested in Burma? I would say no, it's actually like a sustainable reason, you know, what I mean? It's caring about people in your community.
Brad 38:12
I mean, it almost comes back to that broader debate that you have everywhere, but especially within the United States of acts of generosity by millionaires and billionaires, and, and how they're self serving. And you I can't remember his name, the billionaire who gave the speech at, at the historically black college. And he announced that the speech that he was going to build his his family was going to be absolving all of the students of their student debt. And it was a big coup for him. And he made a lot of money. And someone points out very accurately that like, at the end of the day, though, if you're one of those students, and you're not going to be saddled with student debt for the next 30 years of your life, do you really care if the guy who did that for you managed to profit off the whole thing? Like he still alleviated your financial struggle? Whether it was self serving or not, so that I think there's a very complicated moral argument to be had on on. Do we condemn someone who does the right thing for perhaps questionable reasons? And it's like, well, you know, you put you put money in the Kapha. You know, there was another issue of like, just in Brazilian Jujitsu, the it's a combat sport, martial art. And there was a court case recently, and a very well known figure was paid a substantial sum of money to testify in the court case, and he basically argued in a way that everyone else in the sport considered to be almost perjury, to try to argue that one person had had acted inappropriately and had voluntarily injured somebody else. And then he was called out for this and it's an act of contrition. He don't needed the $100,000 that he that he had been paid to a foundation that works on on spinal injuries and spinal damage. And he was he was he was roundly criticized again, because people are saying, man, you're just doing this to save face. But again, you have the other people pointing out like if that $100,000 is going to help someone to get a surgery that they need so that they don't have to spend the rest of their life paralyzed. Do you really care? Why he donated it? Like? I don't know. It's it's a murky, murky topic. But the question is, is good coming out of this?
Michael Haack 40:36
Yeah, I mean, this is far flung from Burma, but I'll just indulge a question for a moment. And then maybe we can cycle it back in? I mean, do I think the way the funding of these sorts of things works? is good? Like, absolutely not, you know, like, do I think it's good to rely on billionaires like, No, I think billionaires shouldn't exist, you know, we have a much better world. And when you see the sort of, like, I don't know, dislike, the self flattery and all the things that happened within these foundations and that self aggrandizing it's, it's really genuinely disgusting. And like the end, you know, I don't know, I mean, I think, okay, if I'm fighting for Burma policy, you know, I see my job as to create, you know, as robust, the, you know, I saw my job over the last year and a half as to create as robust and appropriation for Burma as we could possibly get. You. So that's my Burma politics. But my personal politics, if I'm a Socialist, I mean, like, throw the bums out, you know, what I mean? Like, it's, this is a terrible way to organize a government. Like, I don't, I don't think it's, it's, it's really like the suffering in the United States is immense, you know. And anyway, but that's a completely different, that's a completely different thing. And, and to some degree, it weighs on me the amount of time I've spent with things like the Soros Foundation, which I think ultimately probably does. I don't know, they fund some good things, but the whole model is so terrible, you know, or like, the amount of time I've spent, like, kind of kissing the asses of like these sort of, like, powerful people in the Senate, so that they'd appropriate more for Burma or whatever. I mean, there's a real moral question about like, is that even is that is that bad? With the good that it does? And I don't honestly know the answer. I mean, I just think people need to support unions, and they need to like, kind of break the rule of the rich.
Brad 42:51
It is a lot of that. Working within a broken system to try to do the best that you can with the tools that you have available. It because, you know, there's that very cynical sort of response of like, oh, like, you think society is broken, and yet you participate in society? How curious like, yet well, there isn't exactly an alternative. But like, there is actually a meme that has been going around that I really, really like. And I've used a lot, it's a sort of parody on that the Drake meme where he's like, turning away from something and then turning towards an alternative to that. And it's, you know, he's, he's rejecting the mantra, society is broken and must be fixed. And he's leaning towards, although the system is broken, it must be fixed and he's leaning towards the system is working as intended, and must be completely replaced. And I think there is a lot of truth to that. It's like it's not like the rich getting richer and the government stagnating and no one caring about things like Myanmar, no one caring about, you know, people in far flung countries that we can't find on a map. This is not a failure of the system. The system was never designed to care about people outside of your voting constituencies outside of the key industries that that donate to your to your campaigns never intended for this.
Michael Haack 44:19
And I know I agree and I would say for individuals to it's like, I don't know if you're really stressed about your day to day you know, if you're kind of you know, in America like do you have low unemployment but but you just you don't have much job security and so people are all worried about keeping their jobs and and you know, just very day to day things like it does interfere. Yeah, their health their health benefits. I mean, yeah, there's like a guy that could tell you about my own is stressing you out so much, probably hearing it the it doesn't. You know, when people are when you have people so concerned and about those things, it does make it harder to care about things like Burma. I mean, I don't I don't think that's like a, an act. You know, it's just it's unfortunate. And I think that, you know, another thing that sometimes bothers me about the atmosphere is like, you have this sort of this very like, oh, we need to find exemplar people to be inspiring and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like that that whole attitude is like central to the problem. I think it's like, you know, why don't we just empower regular people to like live good lives and care about other people? Yeah, I think it's another problem. With a lot of the foundation funding, they're always looking for, like somebody to kind of grandstand.
Brad 45:52
And I think this is, I mean, we always we always get sidetracked whenever you and I have a conversation with Jack, but But I do agree with what you're saying. And I think that one of the big, big, big problems is image and one of the themes that I always bring up with my students, and I teach my students, predominantly, I teach academic writing skills and research skills, but I also teach a course on on history, politics, and identity. And one of the things that I keep coming back to my students is the issue of like narratives. We love telling narratives As humans, we need stories. And we're looking for good guy, bad guy. And when it comes to something like Russia and Ukraine, it's an easy story to sell. You're like, Hey, here's a country that was doing its own thing. And he has another country that invaded them. easy story to sell. And you go to Myanmar. And it's complex, like this is one of those countries where, hey, man, it's complicated, doesn't even begin to cover what we're dealing with. And everyone's hesitant to come in and fund the good guys. Even when behind closed doors. They'll say, Oh, my God, like this is such a one sided thing, like the military are evil. They're, they're murdering and torturing civilians and children in you know, broad daylight. You're all this sort of stuff. And, and then in public, they'll say, Well, you know, we can't necessarily support the NUJ who kind of solely support the PDF. They're untested, they're young, there's no oversight there, you know, questions of conduct by certain members of some of these groups. And it's like, you're never going to get that perfect. You know, candidate like onsen, su chi herself, was that shining beacon of hope. And then, in the last years before the coup, has started to fall, because people started asking questions and saying, Well, you know, even you didn't seem like you were doing everything you could have been doing about the Rohingya crisis. I know that's very controversial. Different people have different views. But it doesn't change the fact that the other shoe tends to drop. People love going off to these perfect characters, and no one is a perfect character, maybe very few people a perfect character. And I couldn't think of any dirt on Malala yousufzai, to be honest with you, like she seems pretty aboveboard. But most people who get who get turned into these symbols, we forget the fact that the symbol is an abstraction and an idea that that person represents. That is not the person. And the person is a complicated human being with good and bad in them, who's done things that they might be embarrassed about who's done things they might be ashamed of. And that's just what human beings are. And we have to learn to be comfortable accepting that maybe sometimes our friends have done things that we should chastise them for. And sometimes our enemies do things that we can probably not along to and go actually, you know what that was kind of, okay, that was pretty good. The rest of what you're doing No, but that one thing, all right, I can give you that. But it we are so obsessed with this, this complete absolutism, you have to either be an angel, or you have to be a devil. And I can't risk supporting you publicly. If there's any chance that someone in a in a town hall or in a panel discussion or in a media interview is going to say all but what about the time you supported this person? And then it turned out later on that, you know, they eat kittens or something like we need to move past that. And we need to be willing to stand up and say, Yeah, I condemn the kidney eating, but the person did what was best for the country at that particular time. And, you know, I made the best choice that I could make given the information I had and given the circumstances. And it just doesn't seem that there is the willingness and the strength and the resolve on the part of a lot of leaders in the West to do that when it comes to Myanmar and accept an imperfect, perhaps imperfect ally, publicly.
Michael Haack 49:55
Yeah, I would. Yeah. So I agree. I think a lot of the I mean, like It's like Twitter is toxic in every space. But I think part of the toxic pneus of the, like Myanmar Twitter is like sort of the back and forth about these particular issues. And I would, you know, I would say that, I think they're also because people recognize that I think they then feel compelled to try and sell sometimes narratives that aren't quite, you know, I would say like accurate, it because they think it's the way to sort of like, just get the global attention or get public attention or, you know, whatever, whatever audience they're trying to influence, like, via the funder via the media via, you know, the audience of the media. You know, I think there is, though, still space to sell things through complexity. You know, not through complexity, but just like, you know, people like really human stories, and I think you can have a great like news article that has a really human story, that's not so straightforward. You know, again, in Congress, like, I almost liked the transactional nature of it, because it does, you know, get you around the question of like, Ooh, what's the perfect narrative to sell Myanmar? I mean, I genuinely think the perfect narrative to sell Myanmar to Congress is that, hey, you've got a bunch of people in your state who care about it for this, this and that reason, and it's in your interest to support it like either because their fact is, because they're human rights activists, because they're all kinds of reasons like meditators, like that's a good way to get to California, people like that. You know, there's all sorts of when you take the local angle, I think you actually get it away from that, which I see as another just like, big problem, because then we're all trying to find this like perfect narrative, just solid Myanmar on and none of them really fit. That's why I think it's much better to actually go with the these, you know, you can really increase the funding through the more local angle. And that to some degree gets you out of that challenge there.
Brad 52:17
Absolutely. But it seems that there has been progress. So getting back to the actual meat of the interview. It seems that that momentum is building. In fact, I think the last time we spoke you even mentioned that there's there is now a Myanmar caucus within Congress. Yeah. So what is the actual congressional representatives themselves, not just lobbyists?
Michael Haack 52:41
Yeah, so the caucus is made up of congressional representatives. And so basically, they they got together and, you know, they'd said, okay, you know, we're gonna be, you know, publicly interested in Myanmar. You know, we want to be the people that you go to, you know, for Myanmar issues. And, yeah, I mean, it's starting small, and it's expanding. But, yeah, again, I mean, Bill has Hanga. He's the Republican lead on that, you know, he's got people from Myanmar in his district and the Democratic leader as well. You know, she's from St. Paul. Which is a place with a lot of refugees, including from Burma, a large Korean population. So. And I honestly think that's great. I mean, I think that that is a awesome, like, way to go about politics. Like, I'm glad that they've come together, I'm glad that there's, you know, an increasing group of people in Congress who, you know, at least there can be some focus to go through them. You know, to expand that is really going to take a lot of I think grassroots participation. Yeah, man, when you're saying that I'm thinking of all the different folks who could be working to expand that. I mean, it's sort of a poor point of frustration for me, too. It's, you know, I did get laid off by Myanmar policies. So I'm like, I can't really spend all my time building that caucus right now. But someone should, I don't know who because because I honestly, mostly in the job search these days, but it's, you know, this is a frustration to you. And this goes back to the funding issues. It's like, you know, for like, a small amount of money, you could just fund somebody to build a Myanmar caucus, you know, it wouldn't really, you know, it's literally just let's just, you know, you got to go around to different places, talk to different people, like, you know, get your communities excited to contact their member of Congress, and then the member of Congress feels good responding to their community and, and it's not rocket science, how to build these things. But it's really not The kind of thing Foundation's like the fund because it's like one step removed from like impact. You know? It's very weird to me that that's the way things are. But it is. Foundations want to fund the like really smart people with really great ideas. But that's really not how history is made. Sorry.
Brad 55:21
No, but that's how advertising material is made. And foundations need to bring in the money. Absolutely.
Michael Haack 55:26
And it's the way like ivy League's work and that foundations are all just like, you know, these sort of like, kids who went to those like really prestigious schools.
Brad 55:37
But nevertheless, like your end of the day, like the reason we're even having a discussion today is because you said that the number went from 136 to one. Yes, totally.
Michael Haack 55:47
It's something to celebrate. And not just that. So it's also it's also things have been focused, like there's 75 million for cross border aid, it mentions India and Thailand. It's the first time us legislation is also mentioned India for that kind of cross border aid, although I do think we're doing a tiny bit beforehand. You know, there's money for defectors, that's the first time that money's been allocated, particularly for that. There is and, you know, and this, this combined with the news from the ground, I mean, it's definitely there's almost no way you're not gonna see an expansion in USA toward Myanmar. And that's something I'd be super excited about. And, and yeah, and I think, as we've talked about, and everyone kind of knows, I mean, the future of Myanmar is going to be decided by Myanmar not like, you know, somebody sitting in Washington. But yeah, these are ways that are, like, helpful.
Brad 56:54
Absolutely. And I mean, again, just to highlight the point that you were making much earlier that the United States is currently going through, like a pretty, pretty severe cost of living crisis, a pretty severe inflation. Obviously, for reasons that are quite political with the election coming up, the inflation figures are being sort of widely shared on social media, and you know, prices of everyday commodities are being mentioned side by side. But, you know, whether this has been done for for political reasons or not, it's very much in the minds, I think of average, Americans that prices are increasing cost of living is increasing, salaries are not really increasing. And, and as you say, like people want to cut across the board, and there are always going to be people, the fiscal conservatives, who want to see government spending cut, and typically the first place they want to see government spending cut is on anything foreign. Because foreigners do not vote in elections, ultimately. So you still have seen a 22.8% increase at a time when when everyone was saying there was there was most likely going to be a reduction in that. Do you have any idea like, how like, who managed to swing that like who's pulling those strings? Someone, someone with power? had to have had some saying this?
Michael Haack 58:21
I think the fact that there is a consensus about it. I mean, we had, like so Okay, great. So the there are people in charge of appropriations committees. Kay Granger in the house was the was the person and she's a from Texas, we had people from Texas, contacting her and we had other people from her own party, Republican Party contacting her saying that they wanted, you know, the appropriation to be what it ended up being. We had people from the different states that were on the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, also contacting the senators about it. And so they all heard all the key people heard from their constituencies, and we had senators and Congress people who weren't in those constituencies, but maybe cared about Burma for one reason or another, call over pressure for that increase. The sort of more elite focus, people will say this, this guy Paul Grove had to do with it. I mean, he is the one who ultimately authored it. That is important to you know, I think, you know, that I have some frustration about the cert certain. I think he's the one who really kind of pushed this like non lethal aid. There's 25 million and non lethal aid in there, which is basically like, you know, a silent part of that is like non lethal aid for combatants, like I personally feel not great about that for a number of reasons, partly because it's just misleading, like People think that means that they're gonna get things that they're just not gonna get. You know, I don't necessarily know if the US quite is ready to like, try and pick like who it wants to fund in that way, it's probably going to be something very innocuous that that non easily goes to like, but, and so I'm sort of against that for for particular reasons. But and but, you know, he played a role in authoring it, but everybody else played a role in like, making sure it stayed in the bill. And and every one who worked to pass up Burma, I played a role because it's literally like referential to the Burma act. You know, the funding priorities. So, you know, a lot of different actors. So, you know, in the elite level, like, you know, everyone involved in the Wehrmacht, Ben Cardin having been an original author Gregory Meeks having been an original author. But then you know, that there are very many constituencies that work to make sure it was what it was at the end of the day.
Brad 1:01:09
Absolutely. And I mean, it's just on this topic of, you know, that eight, number one, how long does it typically take? Like, if Congress passes the law that says, hey, we're gonna make X amount of money available? How long does it take before that money actually manifests in the form of either money or in the form of, you know, goods in the hands of the people that need it? And number two, is there any way in which the US just sort of takes the money and just gives the money to a target group? It's like, oh, we've got like, let's say, we've got a charity, in Myanmar that focuses on on a refugee camp, let's say, is there any time that the US would just go to that refugee camp and say, okay, whatever organizations running the camp, he has just $10,000 Cash, go, go buy the food that you need, we don't know what your supply networks are, like, we don't know what kind of foods you need, we don't know what kind of supplies you need, you know, your needs better than we do. And we're not going to waste money trying to do an analysis on stuff that you already know. So here's just the cash Go, go do it the best you can like, what's, what's the timeframe for it? And does it ever actually come in, like a direct cash form?
Michael Haack 1:02:19
Yeah, so, um, regarding the timeframe, so. So as you know, we kind of discussed previously, like the the US is continually spending money on Myanmar and Myanmar related programs. And so this will be integrated into that spending. But it won't be in that like, easily trackable way, like, like, I can, you know, you put a timeline to it, you know, the Congress passes the budget, you know, you then have the sort of tallying of the budget, and then it'll pass another budget. And these things are sort of like, two spinning wheels that are like, spinning in relation to each other. But, you know, I don't know if that's the best analogy, but I think that paints a picture a little bit, but they're not. It's just, it's just there. Again, like, it's just not that straightforward. I mean, it there will be, it means there's more robust resources for those working on Burma programming to be able to utilize the US gives out money and all kinds of ways. I mean, it's largely the US spending money on it on on sort of these big contractors. You know, I don't know, like us Institute for Peace, like their amount of money, I think, double, like they got a really big grant last year, in addition to their spending that they already had, I believe they do like sub sub contracting from that, you know, it's still a tiny amount, like, compared to all the overall spending, I mean, a lot of money goes through. I mean, people complain about the World Food Program, but I actually, I don't necessarily agree with their complaints. Like I think even though they're, they have a memorandum of understanding with the junta they are actually like, doing a lot of really good work. There's, you know, and yeah, sometimes the US will kind of just give money, but it's always like in really small amounts. And I think it's less so these days, because of increasing awareness about ways money has been misused, not in reference to Burma, but just all over the world. If you talk to people who are involved in like, the, I don't know, your International Republican Institute, like in the 90s, like, they literally like fly in with like, you know, hands full of cash and like, give it out to people. I mean, part of the reason I think that happens less these days is just like just the technology is changed where the ability to care To track money is so much more than it used to be. But you know, I mean, not that I don't know what it is now. But when I were on this issue, like until eight and nine and 10, like the type remote border consortium and get, you know, I believe monies, I believe it was straight from the US. So it was definitely like, I remember them being very interested and concerned about how Congress was was doing spending, the US does all kinds of things from just sort of giving out money to you know, giving it to the UN to working with local partners to working with us based sort of institutions like justice to refuse comes to mind. It's weird, it's, it's when you really start getting into it, it's very weird, like, the US funds NGOs that do media training, so that people learn narratives that they then tell reporters that then end up in like the Washington Post, and then like, kind of inform us policy, but then at the same time, people started to, like, try and look around it to other sources. It's a really, the feedback loop is, is interesting.
Brad 1:06:31
And I mean, just just looking towards the future, because murky or not, clearly the money is doing something the money is is helping, and the increase in the money is a good thing. Right. And you spoke about towards the beginning, the symbolic value of this the basically the the fact that the US particularly at this time of comparative austerity, the US is looking to increase and like 22.8% is a very substantial increase. Under any circumstances, really the symbolic value of that, is that indicative that the US wants to continue its its commitment to Myanmar, and possibly even strengthen that commitment in Myanmar in the following financial years? Or is this something that we have to wait for the election to decide to determine whether US policy is going to follow this course? Or it's going to take a sharp turn in a different direction? Like, can we make any inferences about about what this increase means? As far as long term US policy regarding them?
Michael Haack 1:07:38
Yeah, I mean, I would say, absolutely. I think that I think it will increase in a new form. You know, and by that, but when I'm talking about is like, you know, when I got into this you know, it was all this sort of answered CG focused discourse around Burma and and it did really, you know, drive policy and the way the US thought about policy now that we have so many more, you know, people from Burma in America, almost all of them being from ethnic minority groups in Burma. That opens the possibility of a really different way of looking at the conflict and I think one that is more realistic. I mean, like, you know, whatever you think of Unseld, Soo Ji, she's literally one of something like 56 million people. I mean, it's it's, it's, I think we have the basis to drive a kind of us Myanmar policy that's much more realistic and much more robust. And yeah, the I think the expansion does show that the US is paying attention to Myanmar. It's, you know, people might notice it's like reemerged in the news once again around what's happened in Meo Adi and, and, and things like that. And I don't, you know, if Donald Trump wins the presidency is going to be bad for foreign aid in general. But it's possible then, I think, even likely, you know, Burma's there's enough constituencies like looking out for Burma that it will continue it's not big enough to view like Ukraine, which like Trump is going to run out and being a waste of money, but it's it's so it gets kind of misses that targeting I think it's things are looking good for Myanmar policy.
Brad 1:09:50
I mean, you do always have this this some desire to hedge your bets. I know this about you and when we do interviews you love you love to hedge your answers and and Be a little bit more conservative than then sort of unfettered optimism which, which I think is fair, because we've had, we've had unfortunate moments of miscommunication when people have been overly optimistic because they've misunderstood the implications of a policy document or an appropriations bill, or even just misunderstood the significance of a very sort of boilerplate. You know, Department of State statement or condemnation of something. And and I think it's fair, and I think it's appropriate to be restrained and to be reserved, and to be, you know, responsible without without answers. But every time you come on, at the end of the day, every time you come on, the fundamental message is always positive. It's like, the Burma back to go past the NDAA went through, like millions of dollars in in appropriations were made. And now, you know, we're seeing that 22% increase, almost 23% increase increased. So the outlook is not as bleak and dreary, as, as it could be. And, and I think that that's, that kind of summarizes the core of our discussion today.
Michael Haack 1:11:08
I think you're right, it really is, at the end of the day, a positive, positive thing, I mean, to increase funding in this environment is a big deal. I do think the targeting about the, you know, the, the money going over the border and things like that is also a really big deal. And, and you know what I would just say that, like, I think that the grassroots kind of activism is just extremely important. And I think that Burma is an example of that. And, you know, there are a lot of sort of elite focus, like analysts and things like that. And that's great. We need that too. But I think that yeah, people really should get out there and think about, you know, sort of what are the social forces behind getting this done? There is a pretty good article in The Atlantic the other day about it, but its basic thesis was that Burma was being ignored. And yes, there are things the US can do, what the US should do, is basically do cross border aid behind the, you know, that doesn't go through the junta and, and sort of local governance stuff. And I sort of laughed, and I was like that, that is what the US is doing. Just like critical article about, like, what should the US be doing is like, it's like that. That guy was like recommending exactly what we are doing. So, you know, I,
I think that like, there there is, yeah, there's a lot of reason to be optimistic. And I think, you know, the Burma movement in this stage should just be focused on building constituencies you know. And, yeah, grassroots power matters.
Host 1:13:10
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