The latest book published by Camp Constitution Press “Gems from the Gem Years:  Are You Missing in Action” by Bettina Dobbs.  The following is the foreword written by Sam Blumenfeld:

GEM is indeed a gem. It

was started in 1978 by two patriotic American women—Bettina Dobbs,

a retired teacher and registered nurse, and Charlotte Iserbyt, Camden

School Board Member and later Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S.

Department of Education. They will go down in history as two Americans

who epitomize the stamina, courage, and intelligence of American women

(with the unstinting help of their husbands). This account of their work to

save American schoolchildren from the evils of progressive education will

be a lasting monument to remind future patriots what it takes to preserve

and sustain the America we love.

Those of us who have fought in this ongoing war understand the kind

of dedication and stick-to-it-iveness that was necessary to make GEM

the kind of organization that informed thousands of parents of the truth

about what was going on in the public schools. It was not easy finding out

what the educators would not have wanted us to know. So it took hours

of dogged research to get the facts and then convey them to parents who

needed to know.

GEM also aimed its informational arrows at those in power: state and local

legislators, school superintendents and administrators, and teachers. They

had to know that there was a watchdog aware of their every move and that

the public was not deaf, dumb, and blind to their mischief.

In this way, GEM did all in its power to save Maine’s children from the

worst programs the progressive educators were determined to inflict

on their students. And GEM did this without the help of those great

foundations that finance all sorts of liberal education projects. They did

this knowing that the progressives were also receiving millions of federal

dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

Indeed, it was Charlotte Iserbyt, as Senior Policy Advisor at the

Department of Education in Washington, who blew the whistle

and exposed what was going on in the department in her massive

documentary book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. That

book will go down in American history as one of the most remarkable

accounts of governmental treachery ever written by anyone. Only

in America could a citizen freely expose the wrong doings of its top

officials and survive.

Which means that we can still win this war. Truth is more powerful than

deception. We now know that it was John Dewey, the socialist educator,

who concocted the plan to dumb down America by changing the primary

school curriculum. His essay, written in 1898, The Primary Education

Fetch, outlined the progressive plan in detail. And he and his colleagues

knew that it would take deception to put it over. Indeed, he wrote:

“Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its

final success by favoring a violent reaction.”

If what the progressives were advocating was so good, why would it have

provoked a “violent reaction”? The plan worked. It was put over on us

so gradually, that we did not see the complete picture until the 1970s. But

by then, our side did not have the power to stop the decline in literacy, the

increase in school violence, the massacres, the drugging of students to cure

school-induced ADD and ADHD, the increase in student promiscuity and

depression, the campaign against biblical religion and its replacement with

secular humanism, atheism, and nihilism. All of these manifestations of

the progressive education philosophy have made public education a royal,

unhealthy mess.

In April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education

produced its famous report, A Nation at Risk. It said: “If an unfriendly

foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre

educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an

act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”

In other words, our progressive educators are guilty of treason. And they

are still at it!

While GEM made us aware of what was going on, it could not stop the

evil, but it did provide many parents with the incentive to seek alternatives

in homeschooling and private education. Thus GEM was instrumental in

saving thousands of children from psychological and academic harm at

the hands of the progressives.

Bettina Dobbs tells the story of GEM in a way that will inspire future

patriots to pursue the truth with the same energy and devotion. Their

aim should be to restore the public schools

controlled by local school boards, elected by local tax-payers. The present

drive by progressives is to federalize the schools through the Common

Core Curriculum. Americans must oppose this imposition of federal

control over our local schools. We must also elect members of Congress

who will shut down the U.S. Department of Education. Federal control of

the schools means national brainwashing to suit the government. If “We

the People” are to prevail, we must return the control of education to the

parents.

Meanwhile, Bettina Dobbs and Charlotte Iserbyt have shown the way and

are passing the torch on to the next generation. At stake is the future of

our beloved country and the health and safety of American children. And

only dedicated patriots will be able to preserve the great legacy of freedom

bequeathed us by our Founding Fathers.

to their local communities

Sam Blumenfeld

Copies of the book may be ordered from the Camp Constitution Book Store: https://campconstitution.net/store/products/gems-from-the-gem-years-are-you-missing-in-action-by-bettina-dobbs/

For orders of 10 or more, please call (857) 498-1309