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| Steve Tisch |
Steve Tisch, are you being taken for a ride by a con
man?
I think that the answer is ‘yes’ but don’t take my
word for it. (I am sure you won’t!)
Take all that I
write here with a grain of salt. Work on the presumption that I am, as Neeson
will surely tell you, a nutter who is jealous of his success; who is a failed
filmmaker etc.
Nonetheless, even nutters and failed filmmakers can
sometimes ask pertinent questions.
It is pertinent questions you will find, if you ask, that
Neeson does not want to answer. With good reason. Honest answers would reveal
what a rascal he is - the Bernie Madoff of Cambodian charity scams.
I am sure that you must have, within your family
foundation, someone with a few hours to spare to ask the questions I have asked
on the CCF board in the last four blog entries; questions that members of
the CCF board refuse to answer; someone within your organisation who is not
going to be baffled by whatever spin explanations Neeson comes up with.
I suggest that you task someone with the job of
getting answers before you pour more money into CCF’s coffers:
“Yes,
Scott, Mr Ricketson may be all the things you say he is but could you please just
answer my questions!”
These are the questions, Steve, that Cambodian based
journalists will not ask. This is why you will never read, in a Cambodian
newspaper (either Khmer or English language) anything other about Neeson and
CCF than press releases presented as news stories. Why, you might ask, is this
so?
In the case of the Phnom Penh Post you might like to
ask:
“Are you,
Scott, or were you until recently, a part owner of the Phnom Penh Post?”
And given your generosity towards CCF you might also
ask:
“Was any
of the money I gave CCF to help impoverished families spent buying into the
Phnom Penh Post?”
Followed by:
“Have you
ever given direction to the editor, Chad Williams, regarding what to publish
and what not to publish?”
And whilst trying to find out just how your money has
been spent you might also like to ask:
“Was any
of my money spent on the $300,000 it cost to renovate Black Bamboo – the up
market restaurant in Phnom Penh in which you wine and dine Cambodian
officials?”
And:
“Of what
value is an upmarket restaurant to the impoverished families you are, with my
money (and that of many others) supposed to be helping?
I am sure, Steve, once you get into the swing of it,
that you will be able to think up many more questions. And if Neeson can give
you good answers, answers that you find credible, then your money is probably being
well spent and you can dismiss me as a failed filmmaker nutter, jealous of
Neeson’s success etc. If not, perhaps the money you give to CCF could be better,
and more effectively, be spent elsewhere.
cheers
James Ricketson
No comments Rickets. Becuse no one cares about your bullshit cunt.
ReplyDeleteDid the fund raiser happen in New York? Did CCF register?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. James Sheehan stopped responding to my emails.
DeleteCambodian Press
ReplyDeleteYour silence on this matter is
reprehensible , and is an indictment on the power brokers,owners
and compliant journalist of the so called free press in Cambodia
You have clearly been bought off and are disgrace to the profession of journalism
Whether the Cambodian press has been bought off with literal cash or silenced in some other is an open question. I don't believe that this is a choice made by journalists themselves or even, necessarily, but editors. I think it more likely that the decision to remain silent about CCF's scams has been made by the owners of newspapers. In the case of the Phnom Penh Post the reason is clear.In the case of the Cambodian Daily the reason is less clear.
DeleteScott Neeson’s Gala fund-raising event did take place in New York last week.
ReplyDeleteThe Cambodian Childrens Fund is still not registered, according to the New York database.
Scott took with him a few child stars to be the public face of CCF.
There ARE laws for nonprofits in the US but little to no accountability or enforcement of them.
Scott has not posted on Facebook photos of young men (in suits) and women (in W clothes) hanging out with Heather Graham this time around so we should be grateful for that!
41 states have registration requirements for NGO's that solicit funding via the internet! It would appear that CCF violates all of them except California. I would believe that CCF would also need to file tax returns for each of those states and that donors who claim tax deductions (for sponsoring a child, for example) would be doing so illegally.
DeleteCharity fraud is rife in the US, where it is incredibly easy for anyone to start up a charity.
DeleteThere are 1.1 million charities in the United States
The charitable sector employs approximately 13 million people.
Charities take in over $1.5 trillion each year in revenues I have assets approaching 3 trillion.
The US Government also provides an enormous amount of indirect support by exempting charities from income and property taxes and providing deductions for charitable donations.
Market incentives of the nonprofit world push charities like the Cambodian Children's towards happy anecdote and inspiring narrative rather than toward careful planning, research, and evidence-based investments.
So it is that NGOs like Neeson's Cambodian Children's Fund rely on public relations, press releases, happy photos of smiling kids etc to sell the feel-good stories that keep the dollars flowing in. There is no-one (literally no-one) to ask Neeson for any evidence at all of the effectiveness of his programs. All he needs to do is tell sponsors and donors that CCF is a success story and they lap it up and open their wallets.
Sponsors and donors should not be so lazy. They should ask questions. They do not want to,by and large. They get a warm fuzzy feeling from saving kids from poverty and maybe know that this warm fuzzy feeling would not be available to them if they looked too closely at what actually goes of as opposed to what they would like to think goes on.
For the high end players in this game, like Steve Tisch, John and Cammie Rice, the advantages are many. Firstly, they get a huge tax break as a result of giving money to CCF. They also get the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies doing 'good' in a third world country. And, of course, they get to meet and hang out with celebrities like Heather Graham and Salman Rushdie. "As I was saying to Salman a few weeks ago..."
Scott Neeson is a master at pulling off this public relations exercise - shipping in good looking young Khmer men and women, dressing them up for the occasion and getting them to tell their own rags to riches stories - only to be returned to their dormitories in Phnom Penh when all the fun and games are over.
That human rights groups in Cambodia, along with the media, turn a blind eye to all this makes them complicit in the human and legal rights abuses that occur as a result. When the history of this era of unrestrained NGO exploitation of impoverished Cambodian families is written, human rights organisations, along with the media, will quite rightly,come in for their fair share of the blame.