BOOK REVIEW: Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age, Dr. Naomi Wolf, (Chelsea Green Publishing, November 9, 2023) 240 pages, ISBN: 9781645022367
Acclaimed journalist Dr. Naomi Wolf’s Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age is a story of a quest for understanding and truth-telling during the COVID lockdown and subsequent tyranny. Her bold dedication to exposing the impact on women’s health of untested vaccines and the Biden Administration’s stonewalling of disclosing adverse reactions even to this day is jaw-dropping, reported succinctly and thoroughly in her newest book.
Wolf is a leading feminist, for decades supporting the concept of “my body, my choice” as an elite member of Progressives in Washington DC, and within academia and media. This soul-searching journal of her political about-face when confronted with hypocritical, power-hungry edicts from her previous professional and personal circle demonstrates tremendous courage and integrity to her faith, her country, and her fellow silenced resisters.
I respect her for speaking out and admitting she was wrong. I hope you do, too.
The Shunning
In early 2021 as the vaccines were being rolled out worldwide, Wolf’s female fan base contacted her about bad reactions and unexpected side-effects of the shot. Wolf, who had always advocated for reproductive health and battled the too-frequent dismissiveness of the medical and drug establishment to women’s concerns, started asking questions publicly a few months later—and was soon silenced; deplatformed for daring to listen to women, not experts.
She rightfully asks: Where were other leading women questioning mandates in the face of these adverse side affects, specifically Supreme Court Justices Kagan and Sotomayor who had staunchly defended the right of women to have control over their bodies?
I ask: Did Wolf’s censorship and deplatforming keep them in the dark?
Relying on years of critical thinking and deep understanding of Western history and literature, she came to recognize the totalitarian nature of Progressivism. In this book she puts it into context, likening this era to 1930s Germany, when the Nazis rose to power and split society into “us” and “others” which led to the gruesome Holocaust. What shocked Wolf is how many women pushed for power not over themselves, but over others.
Even today, with the mainstream media finally admitting that perhaps there are consequences to wholesale vaccination mandates, Wolf finds herself ignored by former colleagues through long-held editorial stances of which voices should be heard or not, which narrative amplified. By writing this book and embracing new platforms and media outlets, she has reached an audience eager to learn how women, mothers, and babies may have been harmed.
The Pfizer Documents and Facing the Beast
Forced by a lawsuit to distribute documents relating to the vaccines, Pfizer began a slow and purposefully haphazard release of trial data and research. Incensed, Wolf corralled over 3,000 volunteers to find confirmation of what had been reported to her by countless women over the months, that, indeed, the vaccines were known to directly impact the menstrual cycle of women of all ages; the health of the placenta for pregnant women; miscarriages and early births; and even breastmilk for new mothers.
The facts she presents are stunning, clear and concise. Her co-workers on this project were experts and researchers in the medical field, too, and her collaborators in presenting the information in a meaningful way are some of the well-known signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, now re-gaining their collective voice warning of the dangers of the non-vaccine, mRNA shots.
In addition, Wolf notes that her alma mater Yale, as well as many other universities, did not require faculty and staff to prove vaccination status, only students. Were parents aware of this when they encouraged compliance from their children? Following the money trail, Wolf discloses that Yale receives more in funding from US Department of Health & Human Services than it does from tuition, and wonders if decisions are warped accordingly.
Daringly, Wolf points out that it was so often affluent ladies of her former elite circle demanding compliance in eager fashion, almost as if they liked the power that conformity and obedience bestowed upon them, hungry for a common cause to contribute to the greater good and give their lives meaning. She discusses sociological, psychological, philosophical, and anthropological ideas, and the impact on societies of mass neuroses leading to totalitarianism.
The beast which must be faced is that these reckless mandates were directed by the unaccountable World Health Organization and World Economic Forum, both which Wolf unhesitatingly calls out as the face of evil. To cope, she has returned to her faith and relies on new friends and conservative allies for courage and hope.
Forgiveness, Apologies, and Accountability
Wolf walks the walk of her new-found Truths, and lists those she forgives who shunned her. More importantly, she fervently and authentically publicly apologizes to conservatives for her closed-mindedness on so many issues of our time.
(Apology accepted.)
From gun rights to Russia collusion to January 6 protests, she admits to blindly accepting whatever her Progressive colleagues had reported. After all, why would they lie? Now, believing that there is a greater power at work than simple human incompetence, she understands she was the ignorant one, the naïve one, the non-expert in the realities of life … and death.
Rather than wallowing in grief over the damage done to our country, or “moving on” as so many encourage, she is furious, demanding accountability and apologies from others who made these terrible decisions. She also encourages open dialog and embrace of the Western Civilization/Judeo-Christian values that created the uniqueness that is America.
Without the arms-length objectivity of a non-fiction treatise, nor the mask of a fictional narrative, Wolf unabashedly opens her life to scrutiny via her story, sometimes trivial in personal detail, but always gripping and well written.
Silicon Valley author Ann Bridges is a native of Chicago and graduate of Stanford University, and serves as a policy advisor at The Heartland Institute for energy and technology policy.
