CHANNEL YOUR INNER GAGA

Today's topic is adult bullying.

I was feeling pretty optimistic a couple of months ago that bullies were finally getting knocked out of their positions of power one by one because of the economy. My reasoning was that when there's no more money it's harder to give favors, and when times are tough, people start checking things a bit closer and nasty secrets come to the surface. After all, there are two things that Bullies, as a rule, do not like: when the money runs out, and negative publicity. So, after they run their associations into the ground, they leave and look for a new association to ruin (one thing Bullies really like: being on "the Board"). 

The Bully is a spiteful beast, however, and does any number of things to try to block new people from doing the right thing, so there is generally a lag time between when the Bully leaves your association and when you can actually move on with your life. Our Bully's bitter ghost is still with us, unfortunately. (Question to our Bully: Why not get a life?)

In Trieste, it seemed like we were finally making some headway into cleaning up some old institutions which had picked up Bullies along the way (they snake their way onto Boards when times are good). In the local non-profit world, at least four historic associations changed management because of economic problems and the resulting publicity (see paragraph one). To this I say, in Triestine dialect: "Nova scopa scopa ben."

But this week I am worried about students and employees at the University of Trieste. That place makes Goldman Sachs look like a nunnery. You want Corruption? You want abuse of power? You want Bullying? If you do a little fact checking, you will see that Trieste is a small world, and the names are always the same. So is the behavior. Bullies work with threats and fear.   

Lady Gaga was bullied when she was a kid so she created a foundation to empower young people. I just joined it. Will it lead to more kindness in the world? I don't know. What I DO know is that blowing the whistle on corruption and questioning authority when it is  (they are?) clearly NOT ACTING IN THE BEST INTEREST OF STUDENTS, EMPLOYEES, STAKEHOLDERS, THE GREATER GOOD, takes a lot of courage, and most people do not have enough of it.

To those people trying to do the right thing, I implore you to CHANNEL YOUR INNER GAGA. 

To the Bullies: you jerky adults who throw your (literally significant) weight around,  have your lawyer friends send scarey letters with big words, make secret calls to rally your friends or victims against those you feel threatened by, and scare people so you can get your own way or make them suffer  (see  this article for a fine example), you probably get what you want. 

But nobody likes you. 

There.