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The Real 5G Agenda and How Covid-19 Is Helping to Achieve It. “Humanity is in extreme and imminent danger” – Claire Edwards

<p class="has-text-align-justify"><strong>There has always been a lingering question as to why 5G is being hyped up as the panacea for all things with communications and especially the Internet of Things.  In October 2020 Claire Edwards issued a statement to the people of the world warning that wireless technologies supress the immune system, of the many purposes of 5G technology, how 5G is implicated in Covid-19 and that Covid-19 is genocide.</strong></p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">To give some background information we use some points Edwards discussed ten months prior in an interview with Greenplanet FM: <a href="https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/claire-edwards-what-is-the-real-5g-agenda-and-why-the-frantic-hurry-to-deploy-it">‘Claire Edwards: What Is The Real 5G Agenda And Why The Frantic Hurry To Deploy It?’</a></p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Edwards, an editor on drugs, crime and anti-terrorism, had worked at the United Nations (“UN”), Austria, for 18 years.  She especially worked on documents regarding space and worked on the <a href="https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/copuos/index.html">UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space</a> which has a legal subcommittee and a scientific and technical subcommittee.  Edwards has a good understanding of <a href="https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/index.html">Space Law</a> as well as some of the issues regarding space.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">What brought Edwards to an in-depth understanding of 5G and its effect on human health is when, in December 2015, the UN installed Wi-Fi and cell phone boosters along the ceilings in “public access areas.” She decided to take some readings using her radiation meter.  She discovered that in areas where the ceilings were lower, in the corridors where most of the staff worked, the radiation exposure was “off the scale.”</p>
<figure class="wp-block-video aligncenter wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-videopress">
<figcaption><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTKMpQrqfek">Claire Edwards Addresses the United Nations</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Read more:</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">First generation wireless was voice. Second generation wireless, 2G, allowed both talk and text. Third generation, 3G, the internet, in a limited way. And today’s internet using fourth generation wireless, 4G, completed that digital migration. Fifth generation, 5G, will connect the <a href="https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/digital-world/the-internet-of-everything-ioe/">Internet of Everything (“IoE”)</a>.  </p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The IoE with four pillars – people, process, data, and things – builds on top of the Internet of Things (“IoT”) with one pillar – things. With IoE, if something can be connected it will be connected – hundreds of billions of microchips connected in products from pill bottles to plant water, requiring massive deployment of <a href="https://www.smallcellforum.org/5g-product-definition-report/">small cells</a>.  Small cells, which may not be all that small size-wise, are low-cost radio access points delivering coverage indoors and out.  In the 5G era small cells will be deployed in a far wider range of scenarios.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“Putting tens of millions of 5G antennae without a single biological test of safety has to be about the stupidest idea anyone has had in the history of the world,” said <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Pall">Martin Pall</a>, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Medical Sciences at Washington State University.</p>
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<p><span class="embed-youtube">[embedded content]</span></p>
<figcaption>‘Totally insane’: Telecomm Industry ignores 5G dangers, RT America, 6 March 2019</figcaption>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/what-is-the-internet-of-things/">According to the World Economic Forum</a>, “robotics, the IoT and artificial intelligence, is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution – and COVID-19 has accelerated the use of these technologies.”</p>
<p>Read more:</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Edwards claims there have been over 28,000 studies of the effects of 5G but regulatory agencies have been co-opted by corporations and so the public is not made aware of these studies, the information is being suppressed. </p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">In 1976 there was a document emanating from the US military stating that it’s not desirable to have adequate public exposure limits because this would impede the development of weapons and also impede the profit of industry. </p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">For proof that these studies exist we need only look at what is published about microwaves.  For example, Edwards said, in the 1970/80s the United States military compiled a whole series of compendia of the body’s biological effects from microwave radiation; and, in 1973 the World Health Organisation held a symposium: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1775882/">Biological Effects and Health Hazards of Microwave Radiation</a>.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Why would militaries want to develop microwave radiation weapons?  In order to kill.  And, it is not only the United States military that has microwave weapons.  An internet search will reveal that these weapons are now being regularly reported on, even by corporate media, whether as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/02/microwave-weapons-havana-syndrome-experts">cause of Havana Syndrome</a> or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2021/06/23/the-us-military-wants-a-better--microwave-weapon-will-the-police-also-use-it/">questioning if the police will also use microwave weapons</a>.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">5G is to going to supersede 3G and 4G but we are going to be exposed to all of them at the same time as 3G and 4G will continue to be used.</p>
<p>Read more:</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">You can listen to Edwards’ full one-hour January 2020 interview with Greenplanet FM <a href="https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/claire-edwards-what-is-the-real-5g-agenda-and-why-the-frantic-hurry-to-deploy-it">HERE</a>.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">In October 2020, Edwards issued an important video message for the sovereign peoples of this world: ‘The Covid-19 Genocide of 2020’.  Now, a year after she issued her message, a lot more information is known and it is worth revisiting it as it seems more relevant than ever.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“5G is implicated in COVID-19 through correlations between the locations of the 5G rollout and morbidity/mortality, as well as the prior administration of flu vaccinations in Wuhan and Milan.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“The symptoms of “COVID” are virtually identical to the symptoms of exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR).</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“Extensive military research over many decades was kept secret and regulatory agencies were co-opted in order to prevent the public learning about the extreme dangers of electromagnetic radiation.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“Doctors receive no training on the risks to health of exposure to EMR and therefore misdiagnose EMR symptoms. Hospitals are extensively equipped with 5G, putting patients’ lives at risk …</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">“… Humanity is in extreme and imminent danger,” Edwards warned.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-video aligncenter wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-videopress">
<figcaption><a href="https://www.bitchute.com/video/JpJcjFyGx6Wr/">The Covid-19 Genocide Of 2020 by Claire Edwards</a>, October 2020 (20 mins)</figcaption>
</figure>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The transcript for ‘The Covid-19 Genocide Of 2020’ and links to supporting documents are in the PDF below:</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Read more:</p>
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<div class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__content" readability="17.755555555556"><time datetime="2021-10-08T13:00:00+01:00" class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__date">October 8, 2021</time><a href="https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/08/15-year-old-boy-died-suddenly-just-2-days-after-second-dose-of-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine/" alt="15-Year-Old Boy Died Suddenly Just 2 Days After Second Dose of Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine">15-Year-Old Boy Died Suddenly Just 2 Days After Second Dose of Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine</a>
<p>A 15-year-old boy in Sonoma County, California, died suddenly just two days …</p>
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<h3 class="jp-relatedposts-headline"><em>Related</em></h3>
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source <a href="https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/09/the-real-5g-agenda-and-how-covid-19-is-helping-to-achieve-it-humanity-is-in-extreme-and-imminent-danger-claire-edwards/">https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/09/the-real-5g-agenda-and-how-covid-19-is-helping-to-achieve-it-humanity-is-in-extreme-and-imminent-danger-claire-edwards/</a>

revolution The Real 5G Agenda and How Covid-19 Is Helping to Achieve It. “Humanity is in extreme and imminent danger” – Claire Edwards

There has always been a lingering question as to why 5G is being hyped up as the panacea for all things with communications and especially t...

Five-year-old Girl left bleeding from the eye after being forced to take Covid-19 PCR test to return to school – Hospital says “this is normal”

<a href="https://theexpose.uk/category/breaking-news/" class="post-lead-category">Breaking News</a>
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<p><strong>A five-year-old girl was left bleeding from the eyes after being forced to have a Covid-19 PCR test which involved a nasal swab being inserted up her nose in order to be allowed back to school, and the hospital then told the mother that “this was normal”.</strong></p>
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<p>There has always been a lingering question as to why 5G is …</p>
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<p>A World Health Organisation database called 'VigiAccess' has revealed that the number …</p>
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<div class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__content" readability="19.596899224806"><time datetime="2021-10-09T14:00:00+01:00" class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__date">October 9, 2021</time><a href="https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/09/how-many-people-are-the-covid-19-vaccines-killing/" alt="How many people are the Covid-19 Vaccines killing?">How many people are the Covid-19 Vaccines killing?</a>
<p>No one knows how many people the vaccines are killing – or …</p>
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<p>Around 80% of the adult population of Vermont, USA is fully vaccinated …</p>
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<p>Since March 7th 2020 there have been 250,725 deaths that have occurred …</p>
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<p>Covid-19 has disproportionately affected the elderly and vulnerable with other underlying conditions, …</p>
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<div class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__content" readability="13.076923076923"><time datetime="2021-10-08T21:30:00+01:00" class="wp-block-coblocks-post-carousel__date">October 8, 2021</time><a href="https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/08/melissa-ciummei-we-have-been-fooled-into-believing-that-currency-is-money-people-have-this-idea-that-thats-my-money-in-the-bank-its-not/" alt="Melissa Ciummei – “We have been fooled into believing that currency is money. People have this idea that ‘that’s my money in the bank’, it’s not.”">Melissa Ciummei – “We have been fooled into believing that currency is money. People have this idea that ‘that’s my money in the bank’, it’s not.”</a>
<p>During an interview with EMeRgent Sea, Melissa Ciummei, a Northern Irish investor …</p>
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<p>There is a rumour going around that Governments in the UK and …</p>
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<p>A 15-year-old boy in Sonoma County, California, died suddenly just two days …</p>
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<h3 class="jp-relatedposts-headline"><em>Related</em></h3>
</section>
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source <a href="https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/09/five-year-old-girl-left-bleeding-from-the-eye-after-being-forced-to-take-covid-19-pcr-test-to-return-to-school-hospital-says-this-is-normal/">https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/09/five-year-old-girl-left-bleeding-from-the-eye-after-being-forced-to-take-covid-19-pcr-test-to-return-to-school-hospital-says-this-is-normal/</a>

revolution Five-year-old Girl left bleeding from the eye after being forced to take Covid-19 PCR test to return to school – Hospital says “this is normal”

Breaking News A five-year-old girl was left bleeding from the eyes after being forced to have a Covid-19 PCR test which involved a nasal s...

Texas’s anti-abortion law was halted. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YBSQ0YmqK3tAK5YsZSw5h357K74=/0x0:4215x2207/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22913021/1235651292.jpg" /></div>
<p>A <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB00008I.pdf#navpanes=0">Texas law</a> severely restricting abortion access by allowing citizens to sue abortion providers has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/us/texas-abortion-ban.html">reinstated</a> after a two-day pause.</p>
<p>On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an <a href="https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/11abafa62a7e026327fad3adcf2914b3/5th-circuit-appeal-granted-doj-abortion.pdf?_ga=2.249613071.802210073.1633718010-712022363.1632082932">administrative stay</a> on a <a href="https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/73e53780-c1e8-4957-a3cf-c47afd9d9134/note/ac66d137-76b0-49b0-a407-ba5218976d7a.#page=1">previous ruling</a> halting <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott">SB 8</a>, which effectively bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, in response to a <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21081293/us-v-texas-emergency-appeal-to-5th-circuit.pdf">request by the state of Texas</a> for a temporary stay. That stay blocks a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/federal-judge-blocks-enforcement-of-texas-abortion-law/c7ef9f50-f906-4b10-8463-797f94264051/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9">Wednesday injunction</a> by a federal district court in Texas, which briefly halted the law on the grounds that it violated the constitutional right to abortion access.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Now: Texas's 6-week abortion ban law, SB 8, is in effect again for now — the 5th Circuit has granted a temporary, administrative stay of this week's preliminary injunction (which halted enforcement of SB 8) to consider the state's request for a longer stay pending appeal <a href="https://t.co/wdTIH5emjm">pic.twitter.com/wdTIH5emjm</a></p>
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1446649275325243395?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<p>That temporary stay is just the latest development in a September lawsuit filed by the Biden <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-delivers-remarks-announcing-lawsuit-against-state-0">Justice Department</a> against the state of Texas, which argues that SB 8 is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/09/1035467999/justice-department-sues-texas-over-new-abortion-ban">unconstitutional</a>.</p>
<p>The suit has resulted in a <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/texas-fifth-circuit-reproductive-rights-abortion-ban">whiplash-inducing back-and-forth</a> by the courts this week, with the status of reproductive health care in Texas hanging in the balance. For now, Friday’s stay has blocked the district court injunction — but it’s still undecided whether it will remain in place in the long term.</p>
<p>According to Friday’s <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21081292/us-v-texas-5th-cir-order-oct-9.pdf">court order</a>, the Biden Justice Department has until Tuesday to respond to Texas’s emergency motion to stay the district court’s injunction. The Fifth Circuit panel could then decide to extend the stay.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.vox.com/22683839/texas-abortion-law-2021-new-ban-bounty">Vox’s Anna North</a> explained last month, SB 8 has dramatically affected the lives of pregnant people in Texas since it was enacted on September 1, forcing them to carry unwanted pregnancies or leave the state to receive care while potentially incurring significant costs for travel, lodging, and childcare, in addition to lost wages from missed work.</p>
<p>Already, according to a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/texas-clinics-resume-abortions-past-6-week-mark-but-women-fear-access-may-be-temporary?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2010.8.21&utm_term=Sentences">PBS NewsHour report</a>, at least 300 Texans seeking abortions have sought care in Oklahoma, putting a strain not only on them but on the resources of the Oklahoma providers and patients, too.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, <a href="https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/73e53780-c1e8-4957-a3cf-c47afd9d9134/note/ac66d137-76b0-49b0-a407-ba5218976d7a.#page=1">Judge Robert Pitman’s pointed, 113-page ruling</a> temporarily brought a halt to SB 8, granting a two-day reprieve to patients seeking abortions and facilities performing them.</p>
<p>Pitman’s decision, which describes SB 8 as an “unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme,” offered a clear-cut defense of abortion rights, and for a brief period following Wednesday’s injunction, some abortion providers resumed <a href="https://twitter.com/WholeWomans/status/1446186981365587978?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2010.8.21&utm_term=Sentences">performing abortions past the six-week mark</a> — albeit with a sense of trepidation, according to the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/07/Texas-abortion-law-providers/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sentences%2010.8.21&utm_term=Sentences">Texas Tribune</a>.</p>
<p>Texas abortion opponents <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-appeals-abortion-ruling/2021/10/08/56b9fe9e-2774-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html">wasted no time in requesting a stay</a> to the Pitman ruling. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the state’s request as part of its appeal of the ruling on Friday, on the grounds that the DOJ can’t sue the state in this case, since SB 8 depends on citizens — not law enforcement officials — to carry it out.</p>
<p>The Fifth Circuit panel that granted the administrative stay includes conservative, anti-abortion <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-judges-abortion-access-legal-challenge">Judge James Ho</a>, a Trump appointee who has <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-judges-abortion-access-legal-challenge">previously called</a> abortion “a moral tragedy.”</p>
<p>As lawsuits against SB 8 go forward, the law’s unique enforcement mechanism continues to complicate those challenges.</p>
<p>Specifically, the measure is designed so that state officials don’t enforce the law — citizens do, by bringing civil suits against those they accuse of “<a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB00008I.pdf#navpanes=0">aiding or abetting</a>” the obtaining of an abortion after medical professionals detect cardiac activity in the embryo. This makes it incredibly complicated to mount a judicial challenge to the law.</p>
<p>As Vox’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott">Ian Millhiser</a> explains, that’s not by accident:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The law appears to have been drafted to intentionally frustrate lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. And Texas, with an assist from a right-wing appellate court, has thus far manipulated the litigation process to prevent any judge from considering whether SB 8 is lawful.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ordinarily, if abortion rights advocates wanted to challenge to the constitutionality of a law, they would bring a case against an officer of the state enforcing the law.</p>
<p>But since no state officer is <em>allowed</em> to enforce SB 8, opponents of the law can’t, for example, sue a police officer or a state health authority. Instead, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott">according to Millhiser</a>, challenges to SB 8 will come from abortion providers, who will “be able to argue in court that they should not be required to pay this bounty because it is unconstitutional.”</p>
<p>Specifically, under SB 8, abortion providers and anyone who assists a patient in obtaining abortion care are now potentially liable for a <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB00008F.pdf#navpanes=0"><em>minimum</em> of $10,000 in damages</a> — which, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22653779/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-whole-womans-health-jackson-roe-wade">as Millhiser points out</a>, could range far higher if the bounty is decided by “a judge with particularly strong anti-abortion views.”</p>
<p>And the law could have a long-term chilling affect on abortion access in Texas too, even if the injunction is once again allowed to take effect pending appeal. The <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/html/SB00008F.htm">statute of limitations</a> for bringing such a civil suit under SB 8 extends for four years, and many providers chose not to offer later-term care during the brief period this week that SB 8 wasn’t in effect <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/07/texas-abortion-injunction-reaction/">out of fear that they could be sued retroactively</a></p>
<p>The success of Texas’s law in blocking abortion access has also inspired at least one copycat bill: In <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/23/1040132587/florida-abortion-restriction-bill-texas-ban">Florida</a>, Republican state Rep. Webster Barnaby has introduced anti-abortion legislation using a similar framework to SB 8 that would make the proposed law difficult to challenge in court.</p>
<p>The Fifth Circuit’s decision to grant an administrative stay of Pitman’s injunction is only temporary, but it could be a sign of what’s to come as the court considers Texas’s appeal.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/us/texas-abortion-ban.html">New York Times</a> reported on Friday, some legal experts believe that this temporary order is just a prelude to a full stay, allowing SB 8 to remain in effect, and that the conservative Fifth Circuit is likely to side with Texas.</p>
<p>Texas’s appeal itself hinges on three arguments: The Justice Department doesn’t have the right to sue the state of Texas, due to the way SB 8 is written and enforced; the government’s suit won’t succeed on the merits of the case; and the federal district court violated precedent by blocking the state of Texas itself from enforcing the law, when according to the text of the law, the state doesn’t enforce it — private citizens do.</p>
<p>Texas has asked for an expedited review of the appeal, and depending on the outcome, the case could end with the Fifth Circuit’s decision. Specifically, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/us/politics/texas-abortion-law.html">according to the New York Times</a>, “there is no guarantee that the Justice Department’s civil suit against Texas will make its way to the Supreme Court” if the Fifth Circuit sides with Texas. Instead, it’s possible that the Court’s conservative majority would decline to hear the appeal, allowing the Fifth Circuit’s decision to stand.</p>
<p>The DOJ lawsuit isn’t the the only avenue currently testing SB 8’s constitutionality, however. Two lawsuits are also pending against Dr. Alan Braid, who admitted in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/18/texas-abortion-provider-alan-braid/">Washington Post op-ed</a> last month that he had provided abortion care after Texas’ legal timeframe. Anti-abortion groups <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-texas-abortion-opponents-arent-suing-dr-alan-braid-over-new-law-11632262448">aren’t among the plaintiffs</a>, but <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/texas-abortion-lawsuits-felipe-gomez-oscar-stilley">two disbarred lawyers</a>, neither of whom are Texas residents, have filed suit against Braid. One of the plaintiffs, Felipe Gomez, isn’t seeking damages, <a href="https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/09/20/san-antonio-doctor-who-openly-flouted-texas-abortion-ban-sued-by-disbarred-illinois-lawyer/">according to the San Antonio-area ABC affiliate KSAT</a> — instead, Gomez’s suit calls for SB 8 to be declared unconstitutional.</p>
<br />
<br />
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/10/9/22717731/texas-abortion-ban-sb8-circuit-court-appeal">https://www.vox.com/2021/10/9/22717731/texas-abortion-ban-sb8-circuit-court-appeal</a>

vox Texas’s anti-abortion law was halted. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

A Texas law severely restricting abortion access by allowing citizens to sue abortion providers has been reinstated after a two-day pause...

The many signals China is sending with its Taiwan flyovers

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<p>On October 1, the Chinese military sent a batch of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/01/asia/china-taiwan-warplane-incursion-record-intl-hnk-ml/index.html">38 warplanes</a> to bother Taiwan. Over the next four days, Taiwan says that the Chinese military <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043640597/china-taiwan-tensions-us-aircraft-defense-military">deployed about 150</a> aircraft into its air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, an area that extends past Taiwan’s airspace within which aircraft still have to identify themselves. Taiwan’s defense minister called the provocation the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-defence-minister-says-china-will-have-ability-mount-full-scale-invasion-2021-10-06/">most serious</a>” in 40 years.</p>
<p>While this was a record number of incursions in such a short time frame — the Chinese military <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094">sent 56 planes on Monday alone</a> — it fits into a larger trend of bubbling tensions in the region. <a href="https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4306541">According to the Taiwanese government</a>, China has sent more than 600 incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ so far in 2021, up from a total of 380 in 2020.</p>
<p>China’s provocations underscore a long history, and maybe a more complicated geopolitical future. Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China, was established in 1949 when US-backed Chinese nationalists fled after the Communist Party took control of mainland China. While the US has only formal ties with the People’s Republic of China and has recognized it as the “sole legal government” of China since 1979, Washington has also maintained informal <a href="https://www.vox.com/22405553/taiwan-china-war-joe-biden-strategic-ambiguity">economic and securities ties with Taiwan</a>.</p>
<p>This was always <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/06/21/us-and-china-nearly-came-to-blows-in-96/926d105f-1fd8-404c-9995-90984f86a613/">an uneasy status quo</a>, especially as the Chinese Community Party <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/china-unify-taiwan-within-30-years-analyst-1585279">has never abandoned the idea of bringing Taiwan back under its full control</a> and reunifying China. In the meantime, Taiwan itself forged its own identity and economic power on the world stage, and has been, since the 1990s, a democracy.</p>
<p>Of course, the “<a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2021/10/05/bidens-era-of-strategic-competition-494588">strategic competition</a>” (as we’re calling it now) between the US and China has put the region in focus, making the question of Taiwan’s future more urgent. Chinese President Xi Jinping has tried to consolidate power and bring restive parts of the country — the Xinjiang region, Hong Kong — under his control. The question now is: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/magazine/taiwan-china.html">Is Taiwan next?</a> And if it is, what happens now?</p>
<p>China’s warplanes are forcing officials and experts to think about these challenges. The provocations are an effort by the Chinese government to reiterate to a global audience its view of Taiwan as essential to China’s national security interests. Internationally, it’s also a response to the US’s own coalition-building the region, said Raymond Kuo, an expert on international security and East Asia who will be a political scientist at the RAND Corporation. [Author’s note: Kuo’s views are his own and do not reflect the positions of the RAND Corporation.]</p>
<p>“A lot of the countries in the region — Japan, South Korea, Philippines, probably — they look at Taiwan as a litmus test for US commitment and Chinese assertiveness, which just puts China’s back up,” Kuo said.</p>
<p>Kuo has worked in foreign policy for years, including with Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the left-leaning and typically more pro-Taiwanese independence party. Vox spoke with him about what’s going on in the region, why the Chinese military is carrying out these flyovers, and what it means for Taiwan and US-China relations.</p>
<p>A transcript of our conversation, edited and condensed for length and clarity, is below.</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>It seems the big headline is that China’s military is flying an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58794094">unusually large number of planes over</a> Taiwan’s “air identification defense zone.” What’s going on there?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>There have been an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043640597/china-taiwan-tensions-us-aircraft-defense-military">unusually large number of incursions this year</a>. In the five days [starting October 1], there was an unusually high concentration of them, as well.</p>
<p>The important thing to recognize is that they’re entering the air identification defense zone, the AIDZ, but not Taiwanese airspace. Under international law, your airspace extends 12 nautical miles outside your land boundary, for lack of a better term. AIDZ — I think <a href="https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2939&context=ils">about 20 countries have declared AIDZ</a> — is, essentially, when you enter this zone, we want you to identify yourself to give our air defenses more time to figure out who you are. So [China’s military] has been entering in this southwestern corner, they’ve been vectoring around Taiwan, so kind of parallel to the Taiwanese territorial waters and airspace.</p>
<p>But where it used to be intel planes, now it’s bombers escorted by fighters and electronic warfare planes. It’s much more about how, “We [the Chinese military] have the ability to launch a large strike, we can do it successively over many days. And we’re not just using strike aircraft like bombers, but also supporting them with the fighters that you need to defend those bombers, as well as electronic warfare planes to jam signals.”</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>What is the Chinese government trying to accomplish with these incursions?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>We’ve got a couple different signaling audiences.</p>
<p>There’s Chinese domestic politics. National Day was October 1. It’s often <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Full-text-of-Xi-Jinping-s-speech-on-the-CCP-s-100th-anniversary">a day for the Chinese government to emphasize their nationalist credentials</a> and project hope for the future about reunifying China, whether that means Taiwan or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/28/21333345/uighurs-china-internment-camps-forced-labor-xinjiang">suppressing the Uyghurs</a> or that kind of thing.</p>
<p>There’s a Taiwanese politics component, specifically an attempt to demoralize the public that China is stronger and you can’t win. The quote-unquote pragmatic choice is just to unify with us. Those tend to backfire. In 1996, China <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/03/08/china-fires-3-missiles-into-sea-near-taiwan/bf5aa0eb-6078-4b3b-a0b6-fc547ef36127/">launched a couple missiles across the Taiwan Strait</a>. It ended up — there was an election in Taiwan at the time — <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-third-taiwan-strait-crisis-the-forgotten-showdown-19742">boosting the less pro-China candidate</a>. And recently, with the protests and <a href="https://www.vox.com/22554120/hong-kong-national-security-law-tong-ying-kit-trial">the crackdown in Hong Kong</a>, going into this most recent election the current president, Tsai Ing-wen [of the pro-Taiwan independence Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP], was looking a little bit shaky, especially among youth. But <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2020/1/10/21060135/taiwan-election-hong-kong-china-tsai-han">when all that happened in Hong Kong</a>, it was like, “Nope, we don’t want this to happen to Taiwan.”</p>
<p>It also feeds into Taiwanese party politics. The Kuomintang Party [Taiwan’s other major political party, which favors closer ties with mainland China] talking point is to say things like, “Well, the DPP can’t stabilize Taiwanese-Chinese relations. This is clearly an example of that — look at China’s belligerence, we’re better caretakers of the cross-strait relations.”</p>
<p>Then there’s international politics. The US, the UK, and <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/05/uk-taiwan-china">four other countries</a> are doing military exercises <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-05/dueling-u-s-china-military-drills-highlight-rising-taiwan-risk">in the East Philippine Sea</a>. So it’s partly as a demonstration of, “Stay out, we have a dog in this fight as well, we have the ability to strike too.”</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>As you said, the Chinese military has increased the number of flyovers in the past couple of years, and it is using different types of aircraft. Broadly, is there a sense of why the Chinese government is escalating this show in recent months?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>There has been a recent push this year, but also last year. I think, in part, that’s a response to US foreign policy. Just talking about 2020. Last year, the Donald Trump administration took kind of a <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-china-policy-special-report-154fa5c2-469d-4238-8d72-f0641abc0dfa.html">much harder turn against China</a>, whereas even up until late 2019, there was hope that you could have strategic dialogue, and we’ve worked with China on, say, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50327998">opioids</a>. Instead, you start seeing a nosedive in US-China cooperation, so part of this is also a signal to say, “Look, when our relationship goes bad, we will start not working with you on a variety of things. And also we’re going to be more interested in asserting our interests over Taiwan, in the South China Sea, and other areas.”</p>
<p>I think recently — not just this October, but the previous few months — has been a response to the broader tightening of US alliances in the region. The Joe Biden administration has, kind of surprisingly to me, quickly <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/22/biden-europe-summit-nato-g-7-eu-allies-alliances-trans-atlantic-china/">coalesced a coalition</a> against China and tightened those alliance relationships that have been atrophying a bit under the Trump administration.</p>
<p>A lot of the countries in the region — Japan, South Korea, Philippines probably — they look at Taiwan as a litmus test for US commitment and Chinese assertiveness, which just puts China’s back up.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Oh, that’s interesting about Biden’s alliances. I was curious if the recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58564837">AUKUS deal</a> among the US, the UK, and Australia to build nuclear<strong>-</strong>powered submarines might have played into what is happening over Taiwan right now?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>I’m not sure it’s directly related. It’s all part and parcel of this larger coalition building. But I don’t necessarily think that these overflights, or these incursions, are a tit-for-tat response.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>How do you assess the level of fear or concern within Taiwan that the Chinese military may attempt a real incursion by force?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>It’s really hard to tell, unfortunately. Part of the issue is public opinion polling in Taiwan can be fairly partisan. Unlike in the United States, where we have the independent polling firms, and we have a lot of them, we have far fewer polling firms in Taiwan, and they tend to be associated with one of the main political parties. So for big, complex issues, it’s really difficult to determine that kind of thing.</p>
<p>Obviously, the incursions have made front pages of the newspapers. But it’s not like you see those old World War II newspapers, where they take up the entire banner and everything below it.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Why does the Chinese Communist Party still seem to care so much about Taiwan?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>A lot of people talk about the ideational stuff, “<a href="https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/3.10.11Kaufman.pdf">the century of humiliation</a>” [the time from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century during which China lost control over portions of its territory to foreigners] and redressing those kind of wrongs.</p>
<p>There’s also the sense of, “You should be part of us, we represent China, you guys are Chinese, you need to get on board with this project of national unification.” It’s difficult to tell in China how much that’s true of the public broadly, because of controls. You can very easily say that the CCP tends to view it this way. But it’s also impossible to say how much the Chinese public actually views it this way, or cares.</p>
<p>There’s also the economic side of it. Taiwan is <a href="https://worldinfigures.com/rankings/topic/8">close to the 20th-largest economy in the world</a>, with a major concentration of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/2-charts-show-how-much-the-world-depends-on-taiwan-for-semiconductors.html">semiconductors</a> and other high-tech enterprises. Getting that, especially if it did it without a fight, would be fantastic for China. It would give an immediate boost to its economy and give China industries that complement very much their specialization in manufacturing and production.</p>
<p>There’s the domestic political consequences for President Xi Jinping. Since 2013, he has <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT500/CT503/RAND_CT503.pdf">been consolidating his power more and more</a>. You get the sort of personalization of politics, and also the volatility of politics that happens as well. The more he can tie himself to successfully reuniting China, getting Taiwan to come back into the fold, the better it is for him in terms of his domestic politics.</p>
<p>I said econ, domestic politics, the ideational stuff, and then there’s the legacy of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Civil-War">civil war</a>. This is taught in the history books in China, and it’s emphasized. So through the educational system, you’ll get the “this is why they care.”</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>If China wants to bring Taiwan into its orbit, these military provocations maybe don’t seem like the most productive way to do it?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>My response to this is there’s two things. China thinks that the coercive approach to get Taiwan to capitulate — capitulation through demoralization — is the most effective approach they have. A carrot won’t work, so they have to use a stick.</p>
<p>The Chinese government is not stupid. They understand there’s going to be backlash in Taiwan. I’m not sure, which makes me more concerned. It could be that this is the best option they have, and so they’re just going to use it. It could be that they just really don’t care, so they’re signaling — if you’re dividing it into domestic politics, Taiwanese politics, international politics — they either don’t care about the Taiwanese politics, it’s just for the domestic and international side.</p>
<p>There’s also, of course, the military benefits. You’re probing Taiwanese defenses, you’re exhausting the Taiwanese air force.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>Can you talk a little bit about that? What kind of strain does this put on Taiwanese defenses?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>This is a bit of a pattern with China and, say, Japan. Japan has more capabilities and defenses than Taiwan. In 2012, Chinese planes <a href="https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1369&context=nwc-review">entered around the Senkaku Islands</a>. [<a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/tensions-east-china-sea">Both Japan and China</a> claimed these disputed islands in the East China Sea.] After a month, Japanese officials told the United States, “We are really stretched thin, and we’re not going to be able to keep this pace, so we really need you guys to step in and get involved.”</p>
<p>It’s the same sort of thing. If China can stretch Japan’s defenses in a place that’s further away, they can absolutely do that to Taiwan too. I’ve seen reports Taiwan is considering using <a href="https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4279878">unmanned drones as a way to monitor</a>. The problem, of course, is those drones tend to be less effective. If it does come to a shooting war, then you have the wrong assets up in the air.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>So the strain for Taiwan is basically that they must prepare for the possibility of a real invasion or incursion, even if it’s just a flyover right now.</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>Exactly, the worst-case scenario response reaction.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>If Taiwan’s defenses are strained, what does that mean for Taiwan in terms of how allies and partners can respond?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>A lot of what we’re seeing is not just US and Taiwanese dialogue. Earlier this year, Biden’s first two White House summits were with <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/16/u-s-japan-joint-leaders-statement-u-s-japan-global-partnership-for-a-new-era/">the Japanese prime minister [Suga Yoshihide]</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/21/u-s-rok-leaders-joint-statement/">the Korean president [Moon Jae-in]</a> for a reason. In both of those summits, they mentioned Taiwan. That was the first time in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1020866539/japans-position-on-defending-taiwan-has-taken-a-remarkable-shift">52 years</a> that [Japan and the US] mentioned Taiwan [in a joint statement]. <a href="https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4208203">It might have been the first time for Korea</a>.</p>
<p>I think you’re seeing a little bit of the Taiwanese strategy of saying, “Hey, look, it’s not just us, we are a part of a broader Asia Pacific area. If we’re the first domino, imagine what’s going to happen.”</p>
<p>Taiwan is the focus of more security cooperation in the United States. Whether or not allies could defend Taiwan successfully is one thing, but I think politically, you are seeing a coalition come together. And for Taiwan, that gives it a bit more space to maneuver, and I think it tends to offset some of the fear generated by this incursion.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>The US has reframed its relationship with China — I think the new term is “strategic competition” — and is more directly challenging its authoritarianism and economic practices. I wonder if Taiwan has risen in importance to the US because it is a convenient foil to some of the US’s other geopolitical aims?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>It’s hard for me to not think that would be the case, in part because when you think about economics or security, Taiwan is not necessarily the lynchpin of the region, but it is heavily involved in the region, whether it’s supply chains and semiconductors that are necessary in both South Korea and Japan, or if it’s access, past <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain">the first island chain</a> for the US Navy. Even more than just an indication of US political commitment to the region, Taiwan is pretty focal.</p>
<p>At least in my mind, the US turn toward Asia was always going to happen, and there would always be multiple economic, strategic, political factors that would force the United States to grapple with how to deal with this issue.</p>
<p>The debate that we’re having right now in the United States is between (for lack of a better term) restrainers and people who may be more of the traditional sort of national security establishment, as to whether or not Taiwan is worth the military or domestic cost for the United States. That cost, of course, being imposed by China.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2021-04-28/washington-avoiding-tough-questions-taiwan-and-china">I think even on the restrainers’ side</a>, there is this recognition that no matter what happens, if the US decides not to defend Taiwan, it would lose something of value. The question is, what would it gain in response to that from, say, China? I think everyone recognizes that there are legitimate national security interests involved, as to whether or not they’re worth the cost that China would impose upon the United States.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>So if you’re a Taiwan official right now, what do you want to hear from the United States at this particular moment in time? Biden had a kind of confusing statement about how he and Xi agreed to abide by the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-says-he-chinas-xi-have-agreed-abide-by-taiwan-agreement-2021-10-05/">Taiwan agreement</a>.”</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>I tend to look at institutional signals, as opposed to just off-the-cuff statements. On the institutional side, Taiwan is getting a lot of cooperation, not just with the United States but also, I believe, with other countries of the region, deepening cooperation. From an institutional perspective, it’s like, the trend is all going in one direction.</p>
<h4>Jen Kirby</h4>
<p>What are you watching for next when it comes to Taiwan?</p>
<h4>Raymond Kuo</h4>
<p>Certainly something that’s quite important is whether or not China is developing the capabilities that it thinks it can take over Taiwan without a fight, versus the United States and its allies and Taiwan working together to present a credible deterrent force against that invasion scenario.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to determine what the Chinese see regarding how fast is the window of opportunity closing. <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/">Hal Brands and Michael Beckley</a> have made <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-10-01/end-chinas-rise">the case for thinking about China as a declining power</a>, not a rising one. In those sorts of cases, when you’re on the decline, you sense closing windows of opportunity and you tend to lash out. If you sense time is on your side, then you’ll just be patient. These incursions tend to suggest that China does view this as kind of a closing window of opportunity, which is kind of interesting. I don’t know if that’s true. And the only person who would know would be Xi Jinping. If I could get access to him, I’d be paid a lot more.</p>
<p>But I think the US has a really tricky job here. It has to reassure Taiwan and take the lead in solidifying this coalition, but it has to do so in such a way that China doesn’t think “better strike now, or else we’re going to lose this thing forever.” And then the US has to kind of moderate its own policies toward China so it doesn’t jumpstart a war on its own for some other issue area, like the South China Sea. It’s a really tricky balancing act.</p>
<br />
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22713517/china-taiwan-tensions-united-states-xi-biden">https://www.vox.com/22713517/china-taiwan-tensions-united-states-xi-biden</a>

vox The many signals China is sending with its Taiwan flyovers

On October 1, the Chinese military sent a batch of 38 warplanes to bother Taiwan. Over the next four days, Taiwan says that the Chinese mi...

A brief history of the internet hating Jonathan Franzen

<p>Jonathan Franzen, the novelist who has been lauded and reviled as few figures in contemporary American letters ever are, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22708681/crossroads-jonathan-franzen-review">has a new book out</a>. Which means it is time, once again, for one of the book world’s favorite pastimes: disseminating Jonathan Franzen thinkpieces.</p>
<p>Jonathan Franzen has flourished crankily under controversy since 2001, when two big things happened to him. First, he released his breakout novel <em>The Corrections</em> and became known as one of the most important American writers of his generation. Second, he said he was uncomfortable with Oprah selecting <em>The Corrections</em> for her book club because she’s picked a lot of schmaltz, and became synonymous with the worst of elitist white male snobbery.</p>
<p>Since then, Franzen has been named, variously, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010185,00.html">the Great American Novelist</a>, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/03/jonathan-franzen-parodies-jonathan-franzen.html#_ga=2.193094637.174927155.1633010138-481863869.1618847843">a noted crank</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJewishDream/status/634726636680687616">a human Banksy installation</a>, and simply <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2015/08/jonathan-franzen-purity-public-moralist.html">kind of a prick</a>. He has been embroiled in fights about <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/03/jonathan-franzen-parodies-jonathan-franzen.html">Twitter</a> (he says it is everything he opposes), <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/nyregion/jonathan-franzen-ruffles-feathers-again.html">birds</a> (he likes them), and <a href="https://lithub.com/jonathan-franzens-10-rules-for-novelists/">conjunctions</a> (pro-and, anti-then). The internet domain ciswhitemale.com redirects to Franzen’s Facebook page. He’s released some of the most celebrated novels of the 21st century so far, and some of the most despised essays, too. He is singular: a novelist-slash-public intellectual, and very much deliberately so, in a time when that career path doesn’t seem to exist for many people anymore.</p>
<p>Here is a history of Jonathan Franzen’s career of controversy in four book releases — and why the release of his new novel is poised to meet a more welcoming atmosphere than the one that met his last.</p>
<p><em>The Corrections</em> was not Jonathan Franzen’s first novel; it was his third. But its publication marked the first time that one of Franzen’s book releases would become an Event.</p>
<p>“If some authors are masters of suspense, others postmodern verbal acrobats, and still others complex-character pointillists, few excel in all three arenas,” <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-12998-9">began the Publishers Weekly review.</a> “In his long-awaited third novel, Franzen does.” The review closes by announcing <em>The Corrections</em> to be “simply, a masterpiece.”</p>
<p>Publishers Weekly wasn’t alone in its praise. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/nov/09/fiction.reviews">The Guardian called <em>The Corrections</em></a> “a <em>Bleak House</em> of the digital age.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/books/books-of-the-times-a-family-portrait-as-metaphor-for-the-90-s.html">In the New York Times,</a> Michiko Kakutani called it “by turns funny and corrosive, portentous and affecting.” By the end of the year, it would win the National Book Award.</p>
<p>What was so impressive about <em>The Corrections</em> for many readers was the way Franzen managed to marry pyrotechnic literary ambitions to an immersive, highly readable family saga. It was a strategy Franzen had famously argued in <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1996/04/perchance-to-dream/">a 1996 essay in Harper’s</a> was the best possible step forward for the novel. TV had made the big novel of social consciousness redundant, Franzen said, and the serious post-modern novelists like Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo were rapidly becoming irrelevant. To write a novel that mattered in the fast-approaching 21st century, he concluded, a novelist would have to “connect the personal and the social” by rooting social critique in psychologically compelling characters.</p>
<p>There are basically two opposing models of the novel, Franzen would later elaborate in a much-celebrated <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/30/mr-difficult">2002 essay for the New Yorker</a>. There’s the Status model, in the tradition of Flaubert, in which if a book is great then it’s high art, and if the public doesn’t get it, well, that’s because they’re philistines, isn’t it. Then there’s the Contract model, in which the author is understood to have made a contract with the reader: In exchange for the reader’s attention, the author gives pleasure. If the public “doesn’t get” a Contract book, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s high art or not; the Contract book has failed.</p>
<p>Franzen, nervously, could not seem to quite decide which model he aligned with. He sort of seemed to want to do both. With <em>The Corrections</em>, the critical consensus was that Franzen had pulled it off.</p>
<p>Put very simply, <em>The Corrections</em> was both smart and fun. Or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/books/american-gothic.html">as David Gates winkingly phrased it in the New York Times</a>, “You could read <em>The Corrections</em> as a conventional realist saga … with just enough novel-of-paranoia touches so Oprah won’t assign it and ruin Franzen’s street cred.”</p>
<p>Gates either spoke too soon or was a time traveler with a morbid sense of irony. A mere two weeks after Gates’s review was published, <a href="https://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/the-corrections-by-jonathan-franzen">Oprah announced</a> that she had, indeed, picked <em>The Corrections</em> for her book club, and Franzen did, indeed, clutch frantically after his street cred.</p>
<p>His main issue, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1131456">he said on NPR’s <em>Fresh Air</em></a>, was a fear that the Oprah seal would push readers to focus in on just the fun part of his fun-smart alliance. “I feel like I’m solidly in the high-art literary tradition,” he said, “but I like to read entertaining books and this maybe helps bridge that gap, but it also heightens these feelings of being misunderstood.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/business/media/winfrey-rescinds-offer-to-author-for-guest-appearance.html">In an interview with Powell’s bookstore</a>, Franzen returned to the question of whether Oprah’s taste was good enough that he should be flattered by the attention. “She’s picked some good books, but she’s picked enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional ones that I cringe, myself,” he said, “even though I think she’s really smart and she’s really fighting the good fight.”</p>
<p>With icy politeness, Oprah extended Franzen a disinvitation. “Jonathan Franzen will not be on the Oprah Winfrey show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection,” <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20011029/39360-oprah-author-disinvited-from-show.html">she said in a public statement</a>. “It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict. We have decided to skip the dinner and we’re moving on to the next book.” Franzen was the first author ever to be disinvited from Oprah’s show.</p>
<p>At the time, Oprah was one of publishing’s kingmakers. She was not considered a bastion of good taste — one editor, when <a href="https://observer.com/2001/11/when-oprah-stomped-on-franzen-it-revealed-a-vast-culture-split/">asked by the New York Observer</a> if publishing as a whole respected Oprah’s literary acumen responded, “Not really” — but she was considered the most reliable publicity outlet in the business. Her Oprah’s Book Club picks <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oprah-launches-influential-book-club">regularly sold over a million copies</a>. When she made <em>Anna Karenina</em> an Oprah book, publishers announced that they were printing 800,000 additional copies.</p>
<p>So the book world responded to the Franzen-Oprah affair with mingled scorn and delight. Franzen was such a snob that he was going to tell anyone who asked how uncomfortable he was putting the Oprah seal on his book, but he was enough of a hypocrite that he was willing to use her name for publicity even so? What a jerk.</p>
<p>“One would have to be a better person than me not to be amused by this whole drama,” Bill Thomas, editor-in-chief of Doubleday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/business/media/winfrey-rescinds-offer-to-author-for-guest-appearance.html">told the New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>Part of what gave the Oprah saga such legs was the way it illuminated the uneasy underbelly of the smart books/fun books split that Franzen was attempting to bring together. Subliminally speaking, smart books of the era were considered men’s books. Fun books were considered women’s books. Generally, only men were believed capable of uniting the two.</p>
<p>“As male novelists abandoned psychological realism for oracular pronouncements,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/magazine/jonathan-franzen-s-big-book.html">the New York Times explained</a> in a long, breathless profile of Franzen shortly before <em>The Corrections</em> came out, “the job of creating memorable characters became women’s work — the forte of writers like Anne Tyler and Annie Proulx. Franzen aims to bring these traditions together.”</p>
<p>Oprah’s seal of approval threatened Franzen’s street cred not only because she was unserious but because she was feminine. “I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience,” <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1131456">Franzen said on <em>Fresh Air</em></a>, “and I’ve heard more than one reader in signing lines now in book stores that said, ‘If I hadn’t heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women and I would never touch it.’ Those are male readers speaking.”</p>
<p>Franzen would later apologize profusely and repeatedly for offending Oprah. But with this feud, Franzen’s villain story was set. He would be, for the next 20 years, the man who represented the straight white male establishment of literary culture and all its most snobbish excesses.</p>
<p>Despite the Oprah scandal, Franzen had earned enough goodwill with <em>The Corrections</em> that he was, by and large, more admired than despised in the book world when he released his fourth novel, 2010’s <em>Freedom</em>. Just like <em>The Corrections</em>, <em>Freedom</em> was greeted with critical jubilation.</p>
<p>Time magazine put Franzen on the cover under the headline <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010185,00.html">Great American Novelist</a>. The New York Times called <em>Freedom</em> “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/books/review/Tanenhaus-t.html">a masterpiece of American fiction</a>.” Then-President Obama was photographed <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vacationing-obama-given-franzen-book-freedom/">reading it on vacation</a> before it even came out. In a redemptive moment, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/12/the-corrections-oprah-and-jonathan-franzen-revisit-feud">Oprah selected <em>Freedom</em> for her book club</a>, and Franzen appeared on the show, telling Oprah it was “an honor.”</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/jonathan-franzen-writer-we-love-hate-71705">Jennie Yabroff pointed out in Newsweek</a>, while readers were willing to welcome <em>Freedom</em> with open arms, Franzen the public person had come to seem more than a little tiresome. The success of <em>The Corrections</em> had given him a platform, and Franzen had not held off on using his to espouse some fairly controversial takes.</p>
<p>“There’s no getting around the fact that <em>Freedom</em> comes with an ever-expanded set of baggage,” <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/jonathan-franzen-writer-we-love-hate-71705">Yabroff wrote</a>. “<em>The Corrections</em> was written by a fairly unknown, earnest-looking guy with glasses. <em>Freedom</em> comes from the man who dissed Oprah, complained that the Tony-winning musical <em>Spring Awakening</em> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jonathan-franzen-rips-bwa_b_63077">was a bastardization of the 1891 Frank Wedekind play</a> (which Franzen himself had recently translated from the German), called book critic Michiko Kakutani ‘<a href="https://observer.com/2008/04/jonathan-franzen-michiko-kakutani-is-the-stupidest-person-in-new-york-city/">the stupidest person in New York</a>,’ and claimed such affectations as writing in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/magazine/jonathan-franzen-s-big-book.html">an earmuff-and-blindfold-equipped sensory-deprivation chamber</a>.” (All links added.)</p>
<p>Where things really started to change, though, and Franzen’s crankiness went from annoyance to outright liability, was with the Twitter hashtag Franzenfreude.</p>
<p>The hashtag began with a conversation about the outsize coverage <em>Freedom</em> was enjoying from outlets like the New York Times, and how they compared to the coverage that women authors received.</p>
<p>“NYT raved about Franzen’s new book,” <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jodi-picoult-jennifer-weiner-franzen_b_693143">tweeted women’s fiction author Jodi Picoult</a>. “Is anyone shocked? Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t white male literary darlings.”</p>
<p>“Count the reviews, interviews, profiles and essays by/about writers like G. Shteyngart, C. Bock, J. Safran Foer the NYT pubs,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/15/20991839/jennifer-weiner-jonathan-franzen-vida-count-2010">added women’s fiction author Jennifer Weiner</a>. “Now try to find a woman who’s gotten that kind of attention. NYT loves its literary darlings, who tend to be dudes w/MFAs.”</p>
<p>Before long, Weiner had coined a catchy term for her discontent. “Schadenfreude is taking pleasure in the pain of others,” <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/09/is-the-new-york-times-book-section-really-a-boys-club.html">she said</a>. “Franzenfreude is taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen.”</p>
<p>The ensuing <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/15/20991839/jennifer-weiner-jonathan-franzen-vida-count-2010">Franzenfreude conversation</a> was more nuanced than many angry tweets would suggest, focused on whose voices the culture values and why. Ultimately, it would lead to the creation of <a href="https://www.vidaweb.org/the-count/">VIDA Count</a>, an annual data report that looks at the gender breakdown of the books covered at a given publication as well as the bylines at the publication itself. VIDA confirmed that Weiner and Picoult had identified a real problem: Book review outlets like the New York Times really were more likely to spend their time and resources on white male novelists like Franzen than on books by people from other backgrounds.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Franzen, the man with his name in the hashtag, came to seem like a symbol of the problem: a white man with all the literary credibility in the world, a white man who had literally been declared the great American novelist while so many other great writers labored in comparative obscurity. He even had the same name as the other white men the New York Times loved at the time: Jonathan Franzen right up there with Jonathan Lethem and Jonathan Safran Foer. They were the lit world’s precursor to <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21517475/chris-pratt-worst-chris-explained">the Hollywood Chrises</a>. Surely there should be as much coverage for marginalized writers as there were for all the Jonathans of Brooklyn?</p>
<p>It was becoming gradually clearer that the binary so many people used when they talked about Franzen, the binary between fun books and serious books, was a gendered one. Franzen was perceived as part of the system that made it that way — and he was a snob to boot.</p>
<p>Franzen did not help defend himself against the allegations of snobbery when he eventually responded to the charge in 2015. Jennifer Wiener, <a href="https://booth.butler.edu/2015/02/13/a-conversation-with-jonathan-franzen/">Franzen said in an interview at Butler University</a>, was “freeloading on the legitimate problem of gender bias in the canon, and over the years in the major review organs, to promote herself, basically.” He agreed that mainstream outlets should review more women, he said, but he had a caveat: “It’s an important issue and she’s an unfortunate person to have as a spokesperson.”</p>
<p>But by then Franzen was already deep in what would become his most damaging book tour yet.</p>
<p>Franzen’s next novel <em>Purity</em> wouldn’t come out until five years after <em>Freedom</em>, but he published multiple essays in the interval. They mostly served to strengthen the Franzen-as-villain narrative. Even the most dedicated fans of Franzen’s novels will usually admit that his essays are insufferable: paranoid, accusatory, reactionary to the point of cliché, and appearing with much more frequency than the novels.</p>
<p>In 2012, he published <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/13/a-rooting-interest">a New Yorker essay on Edith Wharton</a> that lingered with such determination on the question of her attractiveness or lack thereof that it powered an entire internet backlash cycle. The Center for Fiction <a href="https://centerforfiction.org/essays/in-response-to-jonathan-franzens-new-yorker-piece-on-edith-wharton/">declared Franzen’s tone</a> “extravagant, contemptuous and condescending,” while <a href="https://www.theawl.com/2012/02/sympathy-for-jonathan-franzen/">a more Franzen-friendly piece at the Awl</a> suggested that Franzen “projects his own responses onto ‘us’ in a way that can be irritating, if we disagree with him.”</p>
<p>In 2015, Franzen published <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/carbon-capture">another New Yorker essay</a> arguing that the bird-conservation-focused Audubon Society was spending too much of its energy focused on climate change, leading the public to ignore other forms of conservation, such as changing the kind of glass used in stadium walls. (Franzen is famously a bird lover, and birds are one of the subjects on which he is most likely to be an insufferable crank.)</p>
<p>“It’s not clear what the Audubon Society did to piss off Jonathan Franzen,” <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/friends-these">wrote Mark Jannot for the Audobon Society in response</a>, going on to note Franzen’s lack of journalistic background, along with his “casual snark” and “smug, belittling tone.” The larger blogosphere received Jannot’s piece with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/04/03/audubon-flips-jonathan-franzen-the-bird-can-you-guess-which-zingers-are-real/">overwhelming</a> <a href="https://ew.com/article/2015/04/03/audubon-society-not-happy-jonathan-franzen/">approval</a>: Audubon, the consensus was, <a href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/the-audubon-society-is-really-pissed-at-j-franz/">had won this one</a>.</p>
<p>Five months later, Franzen released <em>Purity</em>, the first of his novels since <em>The Corrections</em> to be met with less than rave reviews. Critics all thought it was basically <em>good</em>, but they had reservations; they found <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/books/review/jonathan-franzen-purity-review.html">the prose too bland</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/09/01/435543843/book-review-purity-jonathan-franzen">the plot too farcical</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/26/purity-by-jonathan-franzen-review">the treatment of feminism too willfully perverse</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as Franzen made the rounds of promotion, he dropped one terrible quote after another into the avidly waiting arms of the lit world. Most infamously, he <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/interrogation/2016/07/a_conversation_with_novelist_jonathan_franzen.html">told Slate</a> that he rarely wrote about race in part because “I have never been in love with a black woman,” and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/21/jonathan-franzen-considered-adopting-iraqi-orphan-young-people">the Guardian</a> that he had considered adopting an Iraqi war orphan to try to understand young people better. (That last one seems to have been a very bad attempt at a joke.)</p>
<p>Was Franzen the owner of some deeply problematic views on top of your average run-of-the-mill atmospheric racism and sexism? No one could necessarily prove it. Yet “misogyny seems to follow him like a cloud,” <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/105048-is-jonathan-franzen-sexist-5-times-hes-made-questionable-comments-about-women">Bustle mused</a>; “even if you don’t know about his exploits, you catch a whiff of them when he passes by.”</p>
<p>Was he maybe just really bad at expressing himself in any form besides the novel? “That Franzen’s opinions — expressed in forms, very much including the essay, that he has not mastered and that tend to serve him poorly — so often go against the contemporary grain (for instance his distrust of social media) or situate him squarely in a trainspotterish cul de sac of hobbyism (all that birdwatching) mean that he is, from the point of view of the virtue-signalling culture warriors of Twitter, a soft target,” <a href="https://drb.ie/articles/hating-jonathan-franzen/">argued the Dublin Review</a>. “Here, once again, Franzen may have to take some of the blame. It’s difficult to think of another contemporary novelist who is served so poorly by out-of-context quotation, or by his own inability to craft acceptable soundbites.”</p>
<figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1633824061_7049_417952" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22907666,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4JnuSOP3HpVyAJSoK3MXxVtPxFc=/0x0:3000x2160/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LnUo7iLEt0c8OrPEbipuD8mKQ8g=/0x0:3000x2160/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eoAqYQg-N2c3i96EbBoWBRqzXRk=/0x0:3000x2160/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bjjlI8ltdAX2xrMPoV3_vbGf7J8=/0x0:3000x2160/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6p4e9x1JTzQiZTwqYJzjf1Wqccw=/0x0:3000x2160/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mxgS0Jehcvk7hnB5iou4n6umntE=/0x0:3000x2160/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bUzyPNa7Y2lw5JPL8rfnfOcarKU=/0x0:3000x2160/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RrOuSNRtz0yvLDpac5W1qnIbKEw=/0x0:3000x2160/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eSRHLEkXrbR5Jp7pVFFyDOFP4wg=/0x0:3000x2160/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3000" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/159geOeKWH8evZWuoMveqYDMXLE=/0x0:3000x2160/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/L5_BattnBJR5TadhkbdixaC8cUk=/0x0:3000x2160/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6qNyWt_rz-K_TDY2xCIyGmT2oJw=/0x0:3000x2160/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ppoU_wQ0-yqWdznMX9PgQ0kMD6Y=/0x0:3000x2160/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NffCeOvRjgDsfdRCR5jjc7ugeek=/0x0:3000x2160/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kywcT8uAqz-KzEviEQRrVDH96zs=/0x0:3000x2160/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HbqqxvqSL_aQukfQFq2r581sDhg=/0x0:3000x2160/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uh3L3rDliIbBXa7ZZQEgXiGyzs0=/0x0:3000x2160/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S85x9VcjQI99nEtkTSkW81EHqhs=/0x0:3000x2160/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7qaeFTXpv4BoG4W6KfIdGstnBd0=/0x0:3000x2160/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3000x2160):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22907666/183175455.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span>
<figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">The photo that would illustrate a thousand Franzenfreude articles: Jonathan Franzen doing air quotes at the New Yorker Fest, October 2013.</span></figcaption>
<span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New Yorker</cite></span></figure>
<p>In any case, Franzen did himself no favors by allowing himself <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/novelist-essayist-jonathan-franzen-attends-panel-an-news-photo/183175455?adppopup=true">to be photographed doing air quotes</a> at the New Yorker Festival in 2013, thus giving every outlet reporting on his bad quotes a perfect illustration for its subsequent article (<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/11/20857956/jonathan-franzen-climate-change-new-yorker">this outlet very much included</a>). It was just too perfect for the image that all those soundbites and essays had coalesced into: someone painfully out of touch but so very willing to bore his audience to tears with his irrelevant opinions regardless.</p>
<p>It all culminated in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/magazine/jonathan-franzen-is-fine-with-all-of-it.html">a New York Times magazine profile</a> by the great profiler Taffy Brodesser-Akner. A far cry from the breathlessly admiring Times profile that had accompanied the release of <em>The Corrections</em>, Brodesser-Akner’s piece treats Franzen as an oblivious grump whose clear talent as a novelist pales besides his raging anger issues and lack of self-awareness.</p>
<p>“What had he done that was so wrong?” Brodesser-Akner wrote, in Franzen-esque free indirect discourse.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Here he was, in his essays and interviews, making informed, nuanced arguments about the way we live now — about anything from Twitter (which he is against) to the way political correctness has been weaponized to shut down discourse (which he is against) to obligatory self-promotion (which he is against) to the incessant ending of a phone call by saying, ‘I love you’ (which he is against, but because ‘I love you’ is for private) — and though critics loved him and he had a devoted readership, others were using the very mechanisms and platforms that he warned against (like the internet in general and social media in specific) to ridicule him. Hate-pieces, mean hashtags, reductive eye-rolling at his various stances, a nit-picking of every quote. Accusations that he is willing to pontificate but not to listen. Accusations that he’s too fragile to face his accusers! Him! Too fragile!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The establishment had spoken. Franzen wasn’t their guy anymore. His persona had at last outweighed his work.</p>
<p>The publication of <em>Crossroads</em> is not an Event in the way the publication of <em>The Corrections</em> and <em>Freedom</em> were, but it’s not being treated as disposable in the way <em>Purity</em> was either. <em>Crossroads</em> is getting great reviews.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/jonathan-franzen-crossroads/620176/">The Atlantic declared it Franzen’s best book yet</a>. <em>Crossroads</em> “does everything a great novel should do,” <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2021/09/jonathan-franzen-crossroads-new-book-review-corrections.html">said Slate</a>, urging readers to “forget all of the controversies and just read it.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/books/review-jonathan-franzen-crossroads.html">The New York Times concluded</a> that <em>Crossroads</em> was “warmer than anything he’s yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect.” (<a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22708681/crossroads-jonathan-franzen-review">I myself declared it excellent</a>.)</p>
<p>“Thank God for Jonathan Franzen,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/jonathan-franzen-crossroads-review/2021/10/04/9344b0c2-250b-11ec-8d53-67cfb452aa60_story.html">sighed the Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, Franzen is receiving uncharacteristically great notices on his press tour this time around. Most notably, he explained why he didn’t sign <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/free-speech-harpers-letter-bari-weiss-andrew-sullivan">last year’s infamous Harper’s letter</a>, an open letter that ostensibly argued for free speech, but with a fair amount of suggestion that the real problem is that people from marginalized groups have gotten too loud about challenging institutional biases.</p>
<p>“I felt it could be construed as somehow an attack on Black Lives Matter at a moment when that was just not the thing to do,” <a href="https://lithub.com/why-jonathan-franzen-didnt-sign-the-harpers-letter/">Franzen said</a>. “There’s a chilling of nuanced discourse …but I also think, until people start being sent off to Lubyanka for having said the wrong thing to the wrong person, the risk is probably overblown.”</p>
<p>If anything was bait for a noted crank who’s been used as a symbol for those very institutional biases that people get loud about trying to knock down, the Harper’s letter was. So the fact that Franzen declined to sign it, and cited his support of Black Lives Matter in his explanation, <a href="https://lyz.substack.com/p/dingus-of-the-week-definitely-not">felt significant</a>.</p>
<p>Franzen is handling this press tour a lot better than his last. (No Iraqi war orphan jokes so far!) Yet to a certain extent, the literary internet was already prepped to receive a Franzen tour with a more welcoming spirit in 2021 than it was in 2015.</p>
<p>In the wake of the 2016 election, the most fashionable attitude to take on social media is to hate social media, and so Franzen’s vocal disdain toward Twitter and Facebook has come to seem more aspirational than anti-democratic. But more importantly, the movement to include voices besides those of white men in the literary conversation has evolved beyond the need for symbols like Franzen.</p>
<p>In part because of the conversation begun by #Franzenfreude and VIDA Count, literary journals have moved toward covering the work of marginalized authors. They are <a href="https://www.vidaweb.org/the-count/2019-vida-count/">still nowhere near parity</a>, but by now the conversation has developed enough nuance that most people are comfortable aiming their critique at systems and gatekeepers rather than at individual authors like Franzen.</p>
<p>And as the critics of the world work to disentangle the concept of “good art” from the default of the straight white male, and simultaneously begin a backlash against the poptimism that dominated the 2010s, snobbery is swinging back into fashion. It’s cool to have very discerning taste again, as long as your discerning taste spans genres and genders and categories of identity.</p>
<p>Within this evolved conversation, Franzen is freed from the obligation to be either the Great American Novelist or a regressive symbol of the status quo. He can just be a guy who writes really good novels and really bad essays and is terminally offline. At long last, Franzenfreude might finally die.</p>
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source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22691692/jonathan-franzen-controversy-crossroads-oprah-franzenfreude">https://www.vox.com/culture/22691692/jonathan-franzen-controversy-crossroads-oprah-franzenfreude</a>

vox A brief history of the internet hating Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen, the novelist who has been lauded and reviled as few figures in contemporary American letters ever are, has a new book out ...

Thousands Protest In Rome Against COVID-19 Health Pass System At Workplaces

<div class="ins_instory_dv">
<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Thousands Protest In Rome Against COVID-19 Health Pass System At Workplaces" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/0eqpfos_rome650_625x300_10_October_21.jpg" title="Thousands Protest In Rome Against COVID-19 Health Pass System At Workplaces" /></div>
<p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">Police used water cannon and tear gas to stop them, arresting several protesters during clashes</p>
</div>
<b class="place_cont">Rome:</b>
<p>Thousands of protesters including members of far-right groups demonstrated in central Rome on Saturday against the extension of the Covid-19 health pass system to all workplaces.</p>
<p>There were scuffles with police as the demonstrators took aim at the health pass, which has been a requirement to enter museums, sporting events and restaurants since August.</p>
<p>Although the march was authorised, several hundred people broke off from the main column and tried to march on parliament.</p>
<p>Police used water cannon and tear gas to stop them, arresting several protesters during clashes, the AGI news agency reported.</p>
<p>A separate protest took place in the capital and others in the northern city of Milan and in Cesena, central Italy.</p>
<p>Three weeks ago the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced that the scheme would be extended to all places of work from October 15 and any employees refusing to comply faced suspension without pay.</p>
<p>The health pass system is already in place for all medical workers. It requires people to provide a certificate of vaccination, proof of recovery from Covid-19 or a recent negative test result.</p>
<p>Retiree Maria Ballarin denounced "criminal and cowardly blackmail" by the Italian state.</p>
<p>By not making vaccinations compulsory but forcing workers to have them "it absolves itself of any responsibility for fatal or serious consequences, but indirectly obliges people to be vaccinated in order to be able to go to work", she said.</p>
<p>"We were both suspended two months ago," Cosimo, one of the protesters, told AFP. He and his wife Morena are both nurses.</p>
<p>The couple say they have immunity and allergy problems and were exempted from the vaccination requirement by their family doctor.</p>
<p>But both were suspended without pay.</p>
<p>Stefano, who came from Como in the north to join Saturday's protest, said he would take the test. "I have to pay to work, it's absurd," he said.</p>
<p>Nearly 80 percent of the over-12s in Italy have been fully vaccinated, according to government statistics.</p>
<p>The first European country to feel the full force of the pandemic, Italy has so suffered more than 130,000 deaths.</p>
<p><i>(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)</i></p>
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source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/thousands-protest-in-rome-against-covid-19-health-pass-system-at-workplaces-2570179">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/thousands-protest-in-rome-against-covid-19-health-pass-system-at-workplaces-2570179</a>

news world Thousands Protest In Rome Against COVID-19 Health Pass System At Workplaces

Police used water cannon and tear gas to stop them, arresting several protesters during clashes Rome: Thousands of protesters including...