Introducing the Save America Foundation

“THIS IS NOT THE AMERICA I GREW UP IN”

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 10, 2011) — Approximately six weeks ago, The Post & Email began receiving newsletters from an organization called Save America Foundation, which is hosting a conference to announce major changes and future strategy as this article goes to press.

The Save America Foundation’s mission statement reads, in part:

The Save America Foundation (SAF), a not for profit organization, is intent on seeing the U.S. Constitution upheld by our elected officials.  The foundation informs and educates the public through free Public Forums and through the SAF Online Education Center.  The foundation is holding large scale nationwide conventions, establishing charter offices across the country.

The Constitution of the United States was created to be the bedrock of the nation and to lay out our rights as citizens.  As America’s most important document it provided the framework for our government and the means through which the people could keep the government in check.

Judge Andrew Napolitano and former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo have been featured guests at  past SAF events.

The organization’s founder, John Michael Chambers, is a businessman, songwriter, and entrepreneur.  A former financial adviser, he operates several businesses and hosts his own radio show on WGUL in Tampa, FL.  A prolific writer, Chambers has spoken out about the Obama eligibility issue, quoting from George Orwell’s book 1984 as he did so.

Videos from previous SAF events are here.  A set of five DVDs from the May 10 public forum can be purchased here.

The Post & Email was able to conduct a telephone interview with Mr. Chambers on May 10, 2011, shortly before his  public forum was to be held.

MRS. RONDEAU: Who conceived of the idea of the Save America Foundation, and when was it started?

MR. CHAMBERS: I conceived it.  Everything starts as an idea, so the idea was probably formed in the summer of 2009.  Officially, for LLC documents and getting approval from the IRS for non-profit status, it was November 2009.

MRS. RONDEAU: What inspired you to start an organization such as this?

MR. CHAMBERS: I’ve always been passionate about the country and patriotic, not necessarily on my sleeve every day, but in my heart.  Once I saw what was starting to happen to America, I thought, “Well, do something or do nothing,” so I decided to do something.  Then the Tea Party sprouted up from Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC and Glenn Beck started the 9-12 Project. I was invited to a meeting and attended.  I started to recognize that this is happening all across America:  regular “Ma & Pa USA,” getting off the couch and trying to make a difference, just the way we started the country.

I went to a Tea Party, then we held our foundation out briefly, just holding some meetings, until I decided that I would form the Save America Foundation to take a bit of a different approach.  However, it had the same goal, which is restoring our freedoms and restoring our Republic.

MRS. RONDEAU: What do you think has happened to America such that you needed to start the Save America Foundation?

MR. CHAMBERS: Well, it started in 1913.  With the Federal Reserve Act, we socialized and nationalized our currency.  We gave it away to private, for-profit international bankers, and it’s been all downhill ever since.  I’ve known about this since the mid-1990s, when I began to locate this type of information.  I’m also a song-writer, and I have plenty of copyrighted songs from the mid-to-late 90s about our freedom.  So I saw this long before there was a 9/11, long before Hank Paulsen came out in September 2008 on a sheet of paper from Goldman Sachs asking us, the taxpayers, for $1 trillion and got it.  There are so many ways to connect the dots; let me count the ways.  The dollar is about to completely collapse, and there goes our sovereignty.  We’re going into hyperinflation soon.  They’re molesting us at the airports; they’re taping this conversation.  That’s not the America I grew up in.  Much of what’s happening is unconstitutional, including going to war the way we do these days, under both administrations, for that matter.  So it goes on and on and on.  There’s voter fraud everywhere…there are so many problems that you don’t even know where to start.

For the record, I’m no longer a voting director of the foundation.  I’m officially a founder, and I stepped off the Board and I now serve as an adviser to the Board and public spokesman.

We’re focusing on two different things, and the foundation is based on three pillars.  Pillar #1 is education; Pillar #2 is forming and strengthening strategic alliances, groups of like minds in the common cause of freedom, and third is implementation.  It’s nice to be educated and to have friends, but what do you do with it?  You have to act.  You have to get results or it’s a waste of time.

So we have a defense and an offense.  Our defensive strategy is to protect and preserve assets.  Individuals need to protect and preserve from the coming economic catastrophe that is upon us, and we have ways we provide through our education that we provide for people to do that.  The second is to protect life, such as food, gardens, water, firearms and ammunition to protect when social unrest hits when hyperinflation arrives and the system breaks down.  Then there are barter items and barter communities.  Now we have “community watch” programs.  This is something that’s being spearheaded by the Oath Keepers which we think is extremely important:  reactivating retired law enforcement and military in community watch programs.

There is already significant damage and more which is unstoppable on its way in, so we need to protect and defend ourselves.  Break no laws and pay your taxes, but protect life.

Then we have our offensive strategy, which again is to educate, form strategic alliances with groups, and implementing.  Some of the groups with which we’ve formed alliances are Oath Keepers (Stewart Rhodes, Yale University scholar and attorney); Campaign for Liberty, in support of some of their efforts in the cause for liberty; Patriots Storm and Legal Storm is an organization that is suing the banks and the Federal Reserve through a class-action lawsuit, taking the fight for freedom to the legal system; then the Tenth Amendment Center is a group that’s fighting for our states’ rights and works closely with Sheriff Richard Mack; Christian Action Network, in exposing Sharia law and fighting that battle; GOOOH (Get Out of Our House), Tim Cox’s revolution, a workable system; then the Alternative Market Movement, a new group formed by Brandon Smith.  Then, of course, the tea parties in general.  I go out as a public speaker and I speak before freedom-minded groups, 9-12s and Tea Parties in several states.  It’s very well-received, and we provide additional tools for tea parties, forming relationships and alliances.

Then, finally, some of the Save America Foundation initiatives that we’re putting forward will focus on five specific initiatives and programs to move us through 2012.  They’re titled this way:  “Get the Voter Fraud Out.”  The next one is “Treason:  Not on Our Watch,” and that speaks about when was the last time someone in office was held on trial for treason?

MRS. RONDEAU: I was just speaking with someone this morning about that.

MR. CHAMBERS: And they’re not prejudiced; they’re Republicans and Democrats.  It’s all treason.  And we’re going to find out who they are from the top down, and why, and we will also go after those in the Federal Reserve for their treasonous and fraudulent acts; but treason against the Constitution from the elected officials.  We’re going to create the list of who these people are, and we’re going to learn from the best about what we can do about it and make that known.

The next initiative is “Sheriffs of the World, Unite.”  This is an extremely important program we have going with Sheriff Mack, and this ties into the subject of Chemtrails.  The fourth initiative is “God’s Economy is not Man’s Economy.”  Here, we’re going to tell the truth about the lies on the state of the economy so people can fix it; they can fix their own economies individually; fix their community; fix their state, and through getting rid of the Federal Reserve, fix the nation.

The fifth one is “Operation Leadership Coalition,” finding the leaders to like-minded groups to meet in four different regions in the country and together, we can support each others’ programs.

We’ve pretty-much already lost America, and we’re in the stage of two things:  protesting and defending ourselves as individuals, and taking America back, and these are the methods we choose to do it:  no violence, nothing illegal, education, unification, and some of the programs I’ve outlined.  We don’t have the answers; there are answers all over the place.  These are just some of the things we’re cutting our teeth on to try to make a difference.

MRS. RONDEAU: The person I was speaking with earlier asked me, “Is there anything left to save?”  What would you say to that question?

MR. CHAMBERS: Yes, there is something left to save; it’s called “hope.”  Save hope.  Restore the promise of hope, look for an actionable battle plan that can get measurable results, and never give up.  Put smiles back on the American people’s faces and their spirit and rejuvenate everyone.  Get this country back.  What’s this alternative?  Tyranny.  It’s not an option.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you think we’re already on the way to tyranny?

MR. CHAMBERS: Absolutely.  We’re there.  There’s a police state; there are FEMA camps; they’re recording all of the sessions; everything is monitored; they have the “internet kill” switch through the Patriot Act, which is unpatriotic.  Then you have people – I don’t want to start naming names – but these tea party favorites, some of whom I like very much, but who voted for the Patriot Act.  We have problems, big problems.

Some people say I’m an idealist or an alarmist; actually, I’m just looking at the facts.  I’m open to a healthy debate.

MRS. RONDEAU: How have  you proposed to get your message out to the people and get them involved in what you’re doing?

MR. CHAMBERS: Technology.  The foundation is growing up.  I’m not trying to make us out to be something we’re not; we’re grassroots people with two nickels in our pocket that took the tea party movement one step farther.  We didn’t get co-opted by anyone in Washington, and never will.  Initially, you’re born, and then you crawl, and then you walk, and then you run.  You go through young childhood and adolescence.  We’re just leaving adolescence now and beginning to become young adults at the foundation.

We’re making an announcement, and you’re the first person outside of the Board who is hearing this, but we are no longer holding our monthly local public forums, which are our cornerstone and trademark for which we’ve been well-known because they’re value-packed and incredibly professional.  But we’re not trying to save Pinellas County; we’re trying to save America.  So what we’re doing is taking the successful action from what we’ve done locally and expanding it nationally and then embellishing it, and thanks to these technologies, we can do this.

In 60 days, the new website will be launched, and our monthly forums will be delivered to anyone in the country in the comfort of their home.  We’re producing a documentary which will be out in 90 days and will go viral on the internet for free.  It’s  all of these other mediums that we can deliver and reach more and more people.  I’ve also been contacted because of our big convention in Tampa where we had Judge Napolitano and 20-something speakers, including G. Edward Griffin.  We attracted a lot of interest from a lot of people, and we’ve been asked to help put on a one-day event in northern Florida in September.  We’ve been asked to put on a large-scale event for two days in Pennsylvania.  The short answer is that we’re going to expand in numbers, membership, and participation and awareness through the internet and social media and search engine optimization and a site that has so much interactive use from the public and then membership whereby you can pay for a newsletter and additional benefits, including online education.  We’re about to make this announcement tonight, work on it in the next 60 days, and fully launch it after that.

MRS. RONDEAU: How are the American people reacting to what you’re doing?  Do they seem to understand what this is all about?

MR. CHAMBERS: America is in apathy.  I see two things on the negative side, although I see a lot of positive things coming.  I see an apathetic America, which is exactly where they want you; it’s called the cycle of democracy.  You know…a great nation that goes back to England, and you think of how we formed our nation.  Are you familiar with that from Alexander Tytler?

MRS. RONDEAU: Yes.

MR. CHAMBERS: From apathy to dependence, from dependence to bondage.  So there’s a lot of apathy out there.  There are also a lot of ostriches out there.  The eternal optimist is someone who has his head in the sand and says, “Everything’s fine; it’s not as bad as they say; they say we’re recovering.”  This is typical; they don’t see the frog in the water boiling.

On the other hand, you also have a lot of patriots.  There has been a decline in not all, but most of the tea party movement around the country.  When I go out and speak to these leaders every day from the top of the national level down to the grass roots – and I have a lot more fun with the grass roots level than I do with the top – what I see is that a lot of them have significant drop-off in attendance, drop-off in participation.  Some don’t.  But I think you still have enough people out there that, if they were given real tools to effect real change, if they were awakened to the real issues, not just business as usual…don’t get me wrong.  The school board stuff is important; the county budget, the county commission, the high-speed rail issue in your town or whatever it may be.  All these things are important; someone has to do them.  But we’re in the heat of a major battle that we’re losing; it’s the second half of the eleventh hour.  Millions of people focusing on those issues, in my opinion, is foolish.  The real issues need to be looked at.  So I think that a short answer is that there are enough people assembled to make a difference if we can channel the activities into the things that count before it’s too late.  That’s what I would say.  I’d say overwhelmingly, outside of people who are already awake, they’re asleep; they’re dumbed-down; they’re numbed-down; they’re apathetic, and they just don’t want to look at it.

Initially, the model we were using was setting up charter offices.  We were going to go to each state, hold a convention, gather the people who would show up and participate in the process, and then form relationships, expand membership, and leave a charter office there.  That was the plan in all 50 states to plant ourselves firmly.  But we don’t have the time that it takes to do that, because it involves offices, the infrastructure…right now, the fastest way to reach the largest amount of people effectively and efficiently is through technology, through film production on the internet, through search engines, social media, through an unbelievable website, and through the public speaking and media interviews like we’re doing right now.  All of these things are how we’re shifting the model.

We might have something called “field groups” out there, because people are looking for leadership.  Not everyone can organize well.  So we may have to answer that call, but it won’t be structured offices in rental real estate in 50 states.  The convention was exhausting to our limited staff of unpaid volunteers, so now that that’s behind us and we make our big announcement tonight – they’re “fundamentally transforming America…” well, we’re “fundamentally transforming” the foundation.

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Editor’s Note: Anyone wishing to join the Save America Foundation may do so here.