She swung from purity culture to hookup culture. Now she’s written a memoir on it.

Brenda Marie Davies has written a memoir she calls a cautionary tale about the damaging message of purity culture in which she takes an unflinchingly honest look at female sexuality.

March 31, 2021

By 

Yonat Shimron

“On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel” by Brenda Marie Davies. Courtesy image

(RNS) — There’s now a growing genre of books on Christian purity culture and the damage it can inflict. But probably none is as unflinchingly honest about female sexuality as Brenda Marie Davies is in her new book, “On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel.”

Davies, whose YouTube channel and “God Is Grey” podcast draw a large audience of teenage and young adult Christians and LGBTQ youth, tells a familiar story in her memoir, in three acts.

Like many young Christian women of her era, Davies, who began attending evangelical churches at age 12, took a pledge in front of her parents to remain a virgin until her wedding day. At 19, she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress. There, she became increasingly anxious to meet “The One” so she could have sex, but settled, she writes, for something less.

After her marriage fell apart, she swung in the opposite direction — a part of her life she calls her “trampage,” a portmanteau of “tramp” and “rampage.” That season of hooking up and sexual exploration included good but also a bad experiences. She emerged from it a progressive Christian who loves Jesus and advocates for consent, self-integration, healing and redemption.

Davies’ no-holds-barred descriptions of sexual yearning along with her heartfelt desire for God make for a compelling read. It’s also timely. Purity culture has come in for criticism since it’s come to light that the 21-year-old suspect in the March 16 Atlanta-area shootings had been treated in Christian sex addiction programs. According to police, his motivation for killing eight people, including six women who worked in area massage parlors, was to rid himself of temptation.

Religion News Service spoke with Davies, now 37 and the mother of a 1-year-old son, Valentine. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Who did you imagine your audience would be?

Initially I had this visual of people hiding the book under their bed, whether it be a teenager or a young adult or an LGBTQ person who is in the closet. (But) my intention was to be exposed and vulnerable about what I believe to be the toxic theology of purity culture as a guide. I wanted people to know there’s hope and I wanted people to learn how to align themselves, mind, body and soul, as a fully integrated spiritual and sexual human being.

Have you reached out to anyone from youth who taught, for instance, that having sex before marriage was like asking your intended spouse to chew used bubble gum?

I do plan to send it to one of my old youth pastors who actually apologized and acknowledged the way she treated us women and made us feel our bodies were weapons against men’s spiritual purity. I believe you can hold love and forgiveness for people but still hold them accountable for their problematic behavior, theology and actions.

You point out that purity culture arises from patriarchal culture.

Brenda Marie Davies. Photo by Tegan and Andy Noel

There’s this notion that liberal hippie feminists out to destroy Christianity are using this term “patriarchy” to make people afraid of masculinity or break down the traditional family unit. But to be clear, patriarchy is a traceable, historically accurate and provable fact. It manifests in all kinds of ways today. The Baptist church demeaning Beth Moore and saying they shouldn’t listen to her because she’s a female. That is patriarchy. Silencing the voices of women or saying we have less to offer than men or we’re less spiritually gifted to be leaders or speak out. All evidence shows gender does not determine if we have leadership qualities or whether someone is equipped to lead people spiritually.

How does the Atlanta shooting flow out of purity culture?

Women have been told our bodies can cause men to stumble. They’ve been told, (in the letter to the Romans), “Do not be a stumbling block.” That has been twisted to say, “Oh, don’t wear spaghetti straps; otherwise, you never know what men will do.” We’ve been told to restrain ourselves, present ourselves in specific ways in order to not allow sin in men’s life. We’ve been taught that men are in control of everything — the church service, the decision-making, the money — but the one thing they cannot control is their sexuality.

The Altanta suspect put the blame of his sin on these sex workers. This is what we are indoctrinated to believe. Women cause their brothers to stumble. Sexually available women are diminished. (The alleged shooter) believed taking the lives of innocent people was less an affront to his God than committing the sin of sexuality.

You describe a period in your life as a “trampage.” Is it typical for people to rebel against purity culture this way?

I leaned really hard into purity culture and then into hookup culture. I see them as two polar extremes. Both lead to feeling disconnected and disembodied from yourself. In purity culture, virginity was the utmost quality I could possess as a woman. In hookup culture, the most valuable thing you can possess is your body and your willingness to have sex.

I’m not against people having consensual sexual experiences. It’s not about how many people you’re sleeping with. It’s about, are you experiencing embodiment in these situations? Are you thriving in the fullness of your sexuality? Even if I were to have consensual sexual experiences with a couple of guys over the next year, I wouldn’t consider it a “trampage” so long as I was making autonomous choices that I knew were honoring myself, my spirit, the other person.

So when you began to honor your feelings it ended?

I’m careful with the terminology of feeling. A lot of evangelicals will demonize myself and others who say we’re led by our feelings, “It feels good, do it.” That’s not what sex positivity is about. It’s not about the feelings. It’s about being honest about yourself, acknowledging what is genuinely true to who you are, what is your sexuality meant to be in your life.

This militant repression was imposed on me and it made my sexuality an obsession. When I opened myself up to what I consider the Holy Spirit and said, “God, what do you think about my sexuality?,” I realized I had not invited God into that area of my life because I was told God thinks black and white ideas about my sexuality and if any shades of gray come in I’m doing the wrong thing. When you have those blinders on, it can lead to true sexual sin, where you’re not searching for enthusiastic consent in your partner, where you’re not making choices out of your own desire, you’re just following the script.

Is that what you’re going to teach your son?

I’m a gigantic believer in comprehensive sex education, which ideally should begin at 5 years old. Over 90 times the Bible says not to fear, or some variation of that. So why on earth have we built our religion on a foundation of fear and hell? And why are we building our children’s sexuality on a foundation of fear?

Children taught abstinence-only sexual education show no delay in sexual activity and only show spikes in sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy and abortions. We need to teach our kids that  pleasure is not a sin. The desire to have pleasure is not our original sin. 

When we do that and teach them that God loves our pleasure, then your child or teenager will be better able to tell you, somebody touched me in a way that wasn’t pleasure. That’s empowerment about their sexuality.

Do you go to church?

I’m not plugged into a church. I’ve been doing small groups with friends for a really long time.

Satanic panic is back, thanks to ‘Satan Shoes’ and Lil Nas X

Satanic scares are nothing new to contemporary culture.

“Satan Shoes” are a collaboration between the company MSCHF and the rapper Lil Nas X. Photo courtesy of MSCHF

March 31, 2021

By 

Heather Greene

(RNS) — Visceral. Provocative. Challenging. Offensive. Sacrilegious.

All these words have been used — in praise and criticism — to describe the newly released video for rapper Lil Nas X’s single “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” since it first aired Friday (March 26). 

Beginning in the Garden of Eden, the video depicts Lil Nas X (real name: Montero Lamar Hill) as fallen angel being tempted by demons and judged in heaven. He then descends to hell on a seemingly endless stripper pole, where he greets Satan with a lap dance, before snapping the devil’s neck, taking his “crown” and growing angelic wings.

The video is both social commentary and an artistic statement on the rapper’s identity and sexuality. 

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RELATED: Conspiracy theories and the ‘American Madness’ that gripped the Capitol

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In conjunction with the song’s release, the Brooklyn, New York, art collective MSCHF modified 666 pairs of Nike Airs with pentacles and injected them with a red liquid reported to contain a drop of human blood, dubbing them “Satan Shoes.” In 2019, the same collective released “Jesus Shoes,” allegedly injected with holy water.

Nike has since disavowed any connection to the Satan Shoes and is suing MSCHF, alleging trademark infringement.

The cultural backlash was as immediate. Conservative author and talk show host Candace Owens, in a tweet Sunday, suggested that Lil Nas X was being used by corporations to “destroy our youth.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem tweeted: “We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win.”

Others, including the singer’s fans and many in the LGBTQ+ community, felt the video was daring. The sneakers reportedly sold out in one minute. One pair went to Miley Ray Cyrus, who tweeted a picture of herself wearing them, saying, “Can you see Satan?”

The Church of Satan, an organization founded in 1966 by Anton LaVey, approved as well. “The video is a visceral and powerful work clearly celebrating freedom, individualality, and man’s carnal nature. You deserve all the paise you’ve been receiving,” read the church’s tweet.  

The Satanic Temple, a different organization based in Massachusetts, did not respond to the video, but its co-founder Lucien Greaves did tell Religion News Service that he frankly does not understand why the video has garnered so much attention. “I do not feel that it is my place to comment on the artist’s intent.” He said that he personally is neither offended by nor is he endorsing the work.

But he noted that Lil Nas X has “drawn from culturally prevalent material.”

Translation: Satanic imagery is nothing new to contemporary culture. Nor is satanic-based moral outrage. 

Still from Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” video, directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino. Video screengrab

However, true satanic panics are not typically triggered by simple things like music and shoes as with the Lil Nas X controversy. The first modern-day satanic panic, which began in the 1980s and lasted well into the 1990s, was based on unsubstantiated but widespread fears that day care workers were engaged in ritual child abuse. Pentacles were allegedly found on children’s bodies and, under pressure, children admitted involvement.  

The most public day care case focused on a preschool run by the McMartin family in Manhattan Beach, California. The investigation and trial ran from 1983 to 1990, ending in acquittal. No evidence of ritual abuse was found.

But by then, the so-called satanic panic was in full swing. Stories of ritual abuse and cult activity crowded daytime television and viewer imaginations. Talk show host Geraldo Rivera is famed for his 1988 coverage of the subject. In 1991, ABC broadcast a television movie called “To Save a Child,” about a satanic cult that steals babies.

Fearful adults took aim at a variety of cultural products, attempting to “cancel,” so to speak, everything from Dungeons & Dragons to heavy metal music. Satan was seen lurking everywhere.

In 1992, FBI agent Kenneth V. Lanning released a detailed paper declaring that there was no evidence of ritual child abuse or a national satanic threat. In 1995, Rivera issued his own apology.

But while Lanning’s statement marked an official end to the panic, the moral outrage carried on, targeting Pokemon and the “Harry Potter” book series. As recently as 2019, a Catholic school banned the Potter books, alleging that the spells in the books “risk conjuring evil spirits.”

Moral panics come in a variety of forms, which are as American as conspiracy theories and anxieties about vaccines. The very first American instance resulted in the infamous Salem witch trials. Those proceedings, similar to the trials of the ’80s panic, also eventually cleared the accused of any wrongdoing, but only after 20 people had been killed. 

That panic found an echo in the Red Scare of the 1950s, when fears of ungodly communism infiltrating the U.S. led to the McCarthy hearings, the addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and the institution of the motto “In God We Trust.”

It was then, in 1953, that Arthur Miller penned his famous Salem-themed play “The Crucible.” A hit on Broadway, the play was, not coincidentally, only first made into a film during the satanic panic of the 1990s. After the film’s release, a New York Times reporter asked Miller about the connection between his film and the nationwide “rash of child molestation trials.”

Miller said, “I have had immense confidence in the applicability of the play to almost any time, the reason being it’s dealing with a paranoid situation.”

Would Miller say we’re experiencing another satanic panic? Before the “Montero” video, there was the QAnon conspiracy, which has been warning of a satanic cabal since its inception.

Mat Auryn, a popular witchcraft blogger and author of the book “Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation,” told RNS that he doesn’t believe the first satanic panic ever ended.

But Auryn, who identifies as a “queer occultist” and witch, sent his own string of tweets Saturday divorcing the “Montero” video from any accusations of satanic practice. “This isn’t some sort of QAnon illuminati conspiracy theory homage to worshipping Satan,” he wrote. “In fact, it’s the opposite — healing damage done to queer people by the Church and State.”

Still from Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” video, directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino. Video screengrab

In Auryn’s telling, Lil Nas X’s story is an allegory of one man’s journey into his own psyche to confront his own “demons,” a spiritual practice called “shadow work.” “When he says ‘Welcome to Montero,’ that’s his name. He’s welcoming you to his mind and heart and soul. It’s significant that everyone in the video is him,” Auryn noted.

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Kenya Coviak, a modern witch in Detroit, agreed, calling this Lil Nas X’s “Lemonade” moment, referring to Beyoncé’s groundbreaking 2016 studio album. Like Auryn, Coviak adamantly held that the “Montero” video has nothing to do with satanism or any form of occult practice, for that matter.

“It was about affirming himself,” Coviak said. “It was about exposing the reality of being authentic to himself in the face of cultural condemnation.”

Coviak added that the video “is flipping off the ‘Illuminati panic’ culture of the Black Church and its view of the music industry and the existence of Black gay love being valid.”

“It is all these and so much more.”

God and the State : Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1814-1876 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 IMPERIALISM; HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALI$M

Database reveals secrets of China's loans to developing nations, says study

2021/3/31

©Reuters

DAKAR (Reuters) - The terms of China's loan deals with developing countries are unusually secretive and require borrowers to prioritise repayment of Chinese state-owned banks ahead of other creditors, a study of a cache of such contracts showed on Wednesday.

The dataset - compiled over three years by AidData, a U.S. research lab at the College of William & Mary - comprises 100 Chinese loan contracts with 24 low- and middle-income countries, a number of which are struggling under mounting debt burdens amid the economic fallout from the COVID-10 pandemic.

Much focus has turned to the role of China, which is the world's biggest creditor, accounting for 65% of official bilateral debt worth hundreds of billions of dollars across Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.

"China is the world’s largest official creditor, but we lack basic facts about the terms and conditions of its lending," the authors, including Anna Gelpern, a law professor at Georgetown University in the United States, wrote in their paper.

The researchers at AidData, the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD), Germany's Kiel Institute and the Peterson Institute for International Economics compared Chinese loan contracts with those of other major lenders to produce the first systematic evaluation of the legal terms of China’s foreign lending, according to CGD.

Their analysis uncovered several unusual features to the agreements that expanded standard contract tools to boost the chances of repayment, they said in the 77-page report.

These include confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from revealing the terms of the loans, informal collateral arrangements that benefit Chinese lenders over other creditors and promises to keep the debt out of collective restructurings - dubbed by the authors as "no Paris Club" clauses, the report said. The contracts also give substantial leeway for China to cancel loans or accelerate repayment, it added.

Scott Morris, a senior fellow at CGD and co-author of the report, said the findings raised questions about China's role as one of the G20 group of major economies that has agreed a "common framework" designed to help poorer nations cope with the financial pressure of COVID-19 by allowing them to overhaul debt burdens.

The framework calls for comparable treatment of all creditors, including private lenders, but he said most of the contracts examined prohibit countries from restructuring those loans on equal terms and in coordination with other creditors.

"That's a very striking prohibition, and it seems to run counter to the commitments the Chinese are making at the G20," Morris told Reuters, though he added that it was possible China would simply not enforce those clauses in its loan contracts.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

China has said in the past that its financial institutions, and not just the country’s official creditors, were working to help ease the debt woes of African nations.

It also said in November that it had extended debt relief to developing countries worth a combined $2.1 billion under the G20 programme, the highest among the group’s members in terms of the amount deferred.

The material examined by researchers for the study includes 23 contracts struck with Cameroon, 10 with Serbia and Argentina as well as eight with Ecuador.

In January, the World Bank warned that several countries were in urgent need of debt relief due to the severity of the global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice and Karin Strohecker; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Russia registers 'world's first' Covid vaccine for animals

Agence France-Presse

March 31, 2021

Russia announced Wednesday it had registered what it said was the world's first coronavirus vaccine for animals, describing the step as important to disrupting mutations.

It said mass production of the vaccine could begin in April.

The agriculture oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement that the vaccine called Carnivak-Cov had been tested beginning October on dogs, cats, mink, foxes and other animals and was proven to be effective.

"All test animals that were vaccinated developed antibodies to coronavirus in 100 percent of cases," said Konstantin Savenkov, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor.

"It is the world's first and only product for preventing Covid-19 in animals," he said.

Rosselkhoznadzor said the development of its shot would help prevent mutations in animals and cited Denmark's decision to cull 15 million mink last year after some were found to be carrying a mutated virus variant.

"The use of the vaccine, according to Russian scientists, can prevent the development of virus mutations," the statement said.

The agency added that animal-breeding facilities and private companies from countries including Greece, Poland, Austria, the United States, Canada and Singapore had expressed interest in Carnivak-Cov.

Military officials in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg announced earlier this week that army dogs would undergo mandatory vaccination before being deployed at airports and participating in nationwide World War II commemorations in May.

Russia has heavily promoted its state-sponsored coronavirus vaccine abroad but it has been met with scepticism in the West and even by many in Russia.

Officials registered the Sputnik V vaccine last August, ahead of large-scale clinical trials, sparking concern among many experts over the fast-track process. It has since registered two more vaccines.

Leading medical journal The Lancet has since confirmed Sputnik V to be safe and over 90 percent effective.

Moscow has applied to Europe's medicines regulator to gain approval for the use of Sputnik V in the 27-nation bloc, but is still waiting for an answer.

New York legalizes adult use marijuana, expunges former pot convictions

New York Daily News
March 31, 2021

New York state legalized recreational marijuana on March 31, 2021. -

 Hector Vivas/Getty Images/New York Daily News/TNS

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York officially legalized weed Wednesday as Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that will regulate the sale of recreational marijuana for adults and expunge the records of people previously convicted of possession. Legislators approved the long-stalled measure late Tuesday, sending the bill allowing adults over 21 to use marijuana legally to the governor’s desk. “This is a historic day in New York — one that rights the wrongs of the past by putting an end to harsh prison sentences, embraces an industry that will grow the Empire State’s economy, and prioritizes marginalized ...

EPA chief purging Trump-era advisors to 'focus on science and reduce industry influence'
Common Dreams
March 31, 2021

www.rawstory.com

In a move aimed at restoring the role of science at—and public trust in—the Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator Michael Regan announced Wednesday that more than 40 advisers appointed by former President Donald Trump will be fired from the agency.

"When politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us."
—EPA Administrator Michael Regan

The Washington Post reports Regan's purge will include Trump appointees who informed EPA policies and actions that favored the agenda of polluting corporations and industries over protecting the environment and addressing the climate crisis.

Trump-appointed members on two EPA panels—the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)— helped thwart or roll back regulations related to air pollution, fracking, and other environmental issues.

"Resetting these two scientific advisory committees will ensure the agency receives the best possible scientific insight to support our work to protect human health and the environment," Regan—a former EPA regulator and head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality— said in a statement.

Regan's move is one of numerous steps taken by the Biden administration to restore scientific integrity throughout the federal government after the anti-science years of the Trump administratio

The former administration downplayed or outright denied the climate crisis; the coronavirus pandemic; the harmful effects of fossil fuel extraction and use; the dangers of carcinogenic pesticides, asbestos, and other toxins; and many other facts that conflicted with its pro-corporate and pro-polluter agenda.

Declaring that the American people "deserve access to science and data," Regan earlier this month restored the EPA's climate change website, which had been shut down under former Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Pruitt also led a purge of scientific advisers who refused to toe the fossil fuel industry line, and along with his successor Andrew Wheeler—a former coal lobbyist—raised alarm by elevating individuals with industry connections and often scientifically dubious views to imporant agency panels.


One of these people, former Big Oil and chemical consultant Tony Cox, was chosen by Pruitt in 2017 to lead an EPA air pollution advisory board.

In a letter to EPA staff earlier this month, Regan wrote that "when politics drives science rather than science informing policy, we are more likely to make policy choices that sacrifice the health of the most vulnerable among us."

Regan added that "manipulating, suppressing, or otherwise impeding science has real world consequences for human health and the environment."

Environmental advocates applauded Regan's dismissals.

"It only makes sense to go back to the drawing board," Genna Reed, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Post.

Christopher Zarba, a retired EPA official who led the agency's office that coordinates with scientific panels, called Regan's move "absolutely warranted." Zarba told the Post that during the Trump era, "lots and lots of the best people were excluded from being considered" for positions on science committees, and that individuals who were tapped for posts "did not accurately represent mainstream science."

While green groups and activists welcomed moves like restoring the EPA climate site and purging advisory boards, they stressed that the Biden administration must act more urgently to combat the climate crisis, protect the planet, pursue environmental justice, and curb the influence of polluters.

Donna Chavis, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said earlier this month that "Regan and the EPA have a new opportunity to place environmental justice at the center of the agency and the United States' approach to the climate crisis."

Chavis, who is also an elder of the Lumbee Nation, urged Regan to "take bold and visionary steps to rebuild the EPA and address the very real climate crisis we face in the U.S. and globally."

Canada rejects outright ban on bee-killing pesticides

Agence France-Presse

March 31, 2021

Canada's health agency announced Wednesday restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in agriculture to protect aquatic insects, backtracking on a proposed outright ban prompted by a massive bee die-off.

Health Canada had proposed in 2018 prohibiting the use of clothianidin and thiamethoxam, two of three neonicotinoid pesticides widely applied to crops in this country.

But after a re-evaluation of scientific data including new water monitoring data, and 47,000 public submissions, the agency said in a statement it found "some uses do not pose a risk to aquatic insects, while other uses do pose risks of concern."

Pesticides makers will have two years to adapt to the new rules, which include reduced application rates and the number of applications, as well as spray buffer zones.

The regulations apply to a range of fruit and vegetable crops such as onions, lettuce and blueberries, potatoes, corn and soybeans.

Neonicotinoids are insecticides that are absorbed by plants and are believed to be responsible for the collapse of bee colonies around the world.

They are also suspected of disrupting memory and flight abilities of insects.

© 2021 AFP

CONTRACTING OUT FAIL

15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine destroyed in subcontractor mishap: report

Matthew Chapman
March 31, 2021

www.rawstory.com


On Wednesday, POLITICO reported that a catastrophic error by a Johnson & Johnson subcontractor led to 15 million doses of COVID-19 single-dose vaccine being rendered useless.

"Johnson & Johnson had hired the company, Emergent BioSolutions, to manufacture the active ingredient, or drug substance, of the vaccine at its plant in West Baltimore," reported Erin Blanco, Sarah Owermohle, and Rachel Roubein. "Workers at the facility mistakenly mixed ingredients for the J&J vaccine with those of another manufacturer's coronavirus shot, according to the two officials."

"The Biden administration has asked Johnson & Johnson to directly supervise Emergent's vaccine production going forward, said a senior administration official. Getting the facility back on track — and up to regulatory standards — could take a matter of days or weeks, the official added," said the report. "The incident at the plant prompted the Food and Drug Administration to delay approving Emergent to help Johnson & Johnson produce vaccine; the company had sought permission via an amendment to the emergency use authorization for its shot."

In spite of these setbacks, the vaccine effort is ahead of schedule, with the Biden administration doubling its goal to 200 shots in arms within the first 100 days. One of the main challenges on the horizon will be persuading Americans reluctant to vaccinate to do so, particularly Republicans.

The incident at the plant prompted the Food and Drug Administration to delay approving Emergent to help Johnson & Johnson produce vaccine; the company had sought permission via an amendment to the emergency use authorization for its shot.

Ayn Rand-inspired 'myth of the founder' puts tremendous power in hands of Big Tech CEOs like Zuckerberg – posing real risks to democracy

The Conversation
March 30, 2021

www.rawstory.com

Coinbase's plan to go public in April highlights a troubling trend among tech companies: Its founding team will maintain voting control, making it mostly immune to the wishes of outside investors.

The best-known U.S. cryptocurrency exchange is doing this by creating two classes of shares. One class will be available to the public. The other is reserved for the founders, insiders and early investors, and will wield 20 times the voting power of regular shares. That will ensure that after all is said and done, the insiders will control 53.5% of the votes.

Coinbase will join dozens of other publicly traded tech companies – many with household names such as Google, Facebook, Doordash, Airbnb and Slack – that have issued two types of shares in an effort to retain control for founders and insiders. The reason this is becoming increasingly popular has a lot to do with Ayn Rand, one of Silicon Valley's favorite authors, and the “myth of the founder" her writings have helped inspire.

Engaged investors and governance experts like me generally loathe dual-class shares because they undermine executive accountability by making it harder to rein in a wayward CEO. I first stumbled upon this method executives use to limit the influence of pesky outsiders while working on my doctoral dissertation on hostile takeovers in the late 1980s.

But the risks of this trend are greater than simply entrenching bad management. Today, given the role tech companies play in virtually every corner of American life, it poses a threat to democracy as well.
All in the family

Dual-class voting structures have been around for decades.

When Ford Motor Co. went public in 1956, its founding family used the arrangement to maintain 40% of the voting rights. Newspaper companies like The New York Times and The Washington Post often use the arrangement to protect their journalistic independence from Wall Street's insatiable demands for profitability.

In a typical dual-class structure, the company will sell one class of shares to the public, usually called class A shares, while founders, executives and others retain class B shares with enough voting power to maintain majority voting control. This allows the class B shareholders to determine the outcome of matters that come up for a shareholder vote, such as who is on the company's board.

Advocates see a dual-class structure as a way to fend off short-term thinking. In principle, this insulation from investor pressure can allow the company to take a long-term perspective and make tough strategic changes even at the expense of short-term share price declines. Family-controlled businesses often view it as a way to preserve their legacy, which is why Ford remains a family company after more than a century.

It also makes a company effectively immune from hostile takeovers and the whims of activist investors.

Checks and balances

But this insulation comes at a cost for investors, who lose a crucial check on management.

Indeed, dual-class shares essentially short-circuit almost all the other means that limit executive power. The board of directors, elected by shareholder vote, is the ultimate authority within the corporation that oversees management. Voting for directors and proposals on the annual ballot are the main methods shareholders have to ensure management accountability, other than simply selling their shares.

Recent research shows that the value and stock returns of dual-class companies are lower than other businesses, and they're more likely to overpay their CEO and waste money on expensive acquisitions.

Companies with dual-class shares rarely made up more than 10% of public listings in a given year until the 2000s, when tech startups began using them more frequently, according to data collected by University of Florida business professor Jay Ritter. The dam began to break after Facebook went public in 2012 with a dual-class stock structure that kept founder Mark Zuckerberg firmly in control – he alone controls almost 60% of the company.

In 2020, over 40% of tech companies that went public did so with two or more classes of shares with unequal voting rights.

This has alarmed governance experts, some investors and legal scholars.


Ayn Rand and the myth of the superhuman founder

If the dual-class structure is bad for investors, then why are so many tech companies able to convince them to buy their shares when they go public?

I attribute it to Silicon Valley's mythology of the founder –- what I would dub an “Ayn Rand theory of corporate governance" that credits founders with superhuman vision and competence that merit deference from lesser mortals. Rand's novels, most notably “Atlas Shrugged," portray an America in which titans of business hold up the world by creating innovation and value but are beset by moochers and looters who want to take or regulate what they have created.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rand has a strong following among tech founders, whose creative genius may be “threatened" by any form of outside regulation. Elon Musk, Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and even the late Steve Jobs all have recommended “Atlas Shrugged."

Her work is also celebrated by the venture capitalists who typically finance tech startups – many of whom were founders themselves.

The basic idea is simple: Only the founder has the vision, charisma and smarts to steer the company forward.

It begins with a powerful founding story. Michael Dell and Zuckerberg created their multibillion-dollar companies in their dorm rooms. Founding partner pairs Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and Bill Hewlett and David Packard built their first computer companies in the garage – Apple and Hewlett-Packard, respectively. Often the stories are true, but sometimes, as in Apple's case, less so.

And from there, founders face a gantlet of rigorous testing: recruiting collaborators, gathering customers and, perhaps most importantly, attracting multiple rounds of funding from venture capitalists. Each round serves to further validate the founder's leadership competence.

The Founders Fund, a venture capital firm that has backed dozens of tech companies, including Airbnb, Palantir and Lyft, is one of the biggest proselytizers for this myth, as it makes clear in its “manifesto."

“The entrepreneurs who make it have a near-messianic attitude and believe their company is essential to making the world a better place," it asserts. True to its stated belief, the fund says it has “never removed a single founder," which is why it has been a big supporter of dual-class share structures.

Another venture capitalist who seems to favor giving founders extra power is Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. His venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is Coinbase's biggest investor. And most of the companies in its portfolio that have gone public also used a dual-class share structure, according to my own review of their securities filings.
Bad for companies, bad for democracy

Giving founders voting control disrupts the checks and balances needed to keep business accountable and can lead to big problems.

WeWork founder Adam Neumann, for example, demanded “unambiguous authority to fire or overrule any director or employee." As his behavior became increasingly erratic, the company hemorrhaged cash in the lead-up to its ultimately canceled initial public offering.

Investors forced out Uber's Travis Kalanick in 2017, but not before he's said to have created a workplace culture that allegedly allowed sexual harassment and discrimination to fester. When Uber finally went public in 2019, it shed its dual-class structure.

There is some evidence that founder-CEOs are less gifted at management than other kinds of leaders, and their companies' performance can suffer as a consequence.

But investors who buy shares in these companies know the risks going in. There's much more at stake than their money.

What happens when powerful, unconstrained founders control the most powerful companies in the world?

The tech sector is increasingly laying claim to central command posts of the U.S. economy. Americans' access to news and information, financial services, social networks and even groceries is mediated by a handful of companies controlled by a handful of people.

Recall that in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter were able to eject former President Donald Trump from his favorite means of communication – virtually silencing him overnight. And Apple, Google and Amazon cut off Parler, the right-wing social media platform used by some of the insurrectionists to plan their actions. Not all of these companies have dual-class shares, but this illustrates just how much power tech companies have over America's political discourse.

One does not have to disagree with their decision to see that a form of political power is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of companies with limited outside oversight.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]

Jerry Davis, Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and Professor of Management and Sociology, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Biden declares ‘transgender rights are human rights,’ becomes first president to mark Transgender Day of Visibility

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
March 31, 2021

www.rawstory.com

President Joe Biden on Wednesday honored America's transgender community by declaring "Transgender rights are human rights," and became the first U.S. President to mark Transgender Day of Visibility with a proclamation

"Transgender rights are human rights — and I'm calling on every American to join me in uplifting the worth and dignity of transgender Americans," Biden said on Twitter. "Together, we can stamp out discrimination and deliver on our nation's promise of freedom and equality for all."

The Washington Blade was first to report on Biden's proclamation, which has yet to be officially published. According to the Blade an advance copy says:]

Today, we honor and celebrate the achievements and resiliency of transgender individuals and communities. Transgender Day of Visibility recognizes the generations of struggle, activism, and courage that have brought our country closer to full equality for transgender and gender non-binary people in the United States and around the world. Their trailblazing work has given countless transgender individuals the bravery to live openly and authentically. This hard-fought progress is also shaping an increasingly accepting world in which peers at school, teammates and coaches on the playing field, colleagues at work, and allies in every corner of society are standing in support and solidarity with the transgender community.

"Transgender Americans of all ages," Biden adds, "face high rates of violence, harassment, and discrimination. Nearly one in three transgender Americans have experienced homelessness at some point in life. Transgender Americans continue to face discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and public accommodations. The crisis of violence against transgender women, especially transgender women of color, is a stain on our Nation's conscience."

In addition to the violence and discrimination transgender people face, as HRC reports at least 82 anti-transgender bills have already been filed in state legislatures across the country, more than last year's record of 79.

Last month President Biden also tweeted:

Just five days after taking office he reversed President Donald Trump's devastating ban on transgender service members: