Il Doppio Standard

Il Doppio Standard

By

Leo de Natale

The epigram “Life is unfair” is usually attributed to Robert F. Kennedy, the most pugnacious of the three Kennedy boys. He had an intimidating personality and, because he was the scion of a ruthless, calculating father, he usually found himself beneficiary of a deep scoop of “fairness”- at someone else’s expense.

       The Kennedy family and its prodigious wealth is symbolic of how those from the middle class are raised and educated with the notion that personal or financial success is attainable. However, many people’s dreams are never realized and they often find themselves falling short of their dreams.

       In America today, our social fabric is threadbare.  Yesteryear concepts such as etiquette, politeness, humanism and kindness towards our fellow man and woman are disintegrating before our  eyes.  Gone are the days when holding open a door for a stranger was routine. That simple, polite gesture today is the exception, not the norm.   The wealthy, the elite, the educated, ivory-towered academics hold themselves to different and better, standards.  Added to this mix is the snotty, entitled generation known as millennials.  This group is one of the major reasons why we’re becoming a nation of boors.

This is not a class warfare rant, but an examination of who we are as a nation today.  As the country grew during the 19th Century into a world power via the industrial revolution, vast numbers of the wealthy emerged in major Northeast cities, the Midwest, especially Chicago and California.  Many of that era dreamed of being the next Rockefeller, Carnegie, Wrigley or Huntington.   A growing middle class which would eventually include European immigrants were included in the pursuit of happiness.  Unfortunately the rise of African Americans, many of whose ancestors have lived here since Revolutionary times, has routinely been truncated.  This condition still exists.  Life continues to be unfair.

The beauty of this country, however, is there’s still opportunity for the dreamers who have sufficient intelligence and drive to succeed.  Of course, luck is always an ever-important ingredient.  Being at the proverbial right place at the right time.

There are several groups who are the contemporary robber barons.  Included are the superannuated Yankees and WASPS whose fortunes are old and well protected and who live off the estate’s interest.

  There are many images of this group:  the Ivy League educations, “cottages” in Newport, Rhode Island or Bar Harbor, Maine, debutante balls, yacht clubs and exclusive country clubs.  That was yesterday.

Today the millionaires still reside in Manhattan where stock brokers and financial money market traders are Wall Street denizens.

However, with the creation of the computer and internet, a new group emerged: Silicon Valley, home of software and hardware multi-millionaires.  Another group includes the most venal of the groups:  career politicians.  They are the parasitic hookworms of society.  Governance has devolved.  A common adage is a Congressman or Senator never leaves office impoverished.  Featherbedding has been a historically common habit among this group.

The changes have changed personal behavior.  Elitism is running rampant with these groups.  The Kennedy family fortune, for example, was based on Papa Joe’s bootlegging days and manipulating Wall Street to his advantage before the 1929 crash.  Kennedy established and improved  his wealth during the middle third of the 20th Century.  He crushed and ruined many in his ascension to success.  He purportedly coined the phrase “Do you know who I am” and his progeny have embraced it ever since.

The country has been balkanized.  There will always be the haves and have-nots.   The good old middle class has been a stabilizing force throughout the country’s magic carpet ride.   Citizens have been chugging along between and among the various Presidents who come and go. 

Unfortunately, we have undergone during the past five months  a seismic change in society and lifestyle.  The class distinctions among the elite has never been more blatant after the introduction of a bioterror virus made in, where else?, China.

The current pandemic has served to accentuate the differences between the publicans and Pharisees.  In this current situation, the governing class –local, state or federal – has assumed the mantle of de facto dictators.  They invoke arbitrary interdicts that have affected Americans financially, physically and emotionally.  It’s all in the name of protecting public health, they say.  Masks, social distancing, self-enforced isolation have been imposed.  Any yet many of these buffoons are card-carrying members of Il Doppio Standard, the Double Standard.

In Massachusetts, for example, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and his sidekick, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito have heightened fear by requiring the ubiquitous face mask be worn. While some states are relaxing various interdicts, the pandemic is real but the feeling here is statistics have been massaged. Meanwhile, thousands of workers have lost jobs, many businesses will likely close. All of this leads to financial pandemonium.

People cannot resume their lives.  Except, perhaps, if your last name is Polito.  In a highly publicized internet gotcha, Polito was caught at a large gathering at her family’s ritzy “compound” on Memorial Day, a holiday where parades and group festivities were canceled or outlawed.  Polito, known for hustling campaign funds to the highest bidder, was interviewed and so flummoxed she mimicked comedian Jackie Gleason’s “hamana, hamana, hamana” stammer.

Across the country politicians were also caught breaking the rules by engaging in activities that contradicted their draconian rules and regulations.  To wit, harridan Nancy Pelosi posing with her designer $12 ice cream located in a $25,000 Sub Zero freezer.

Hence, Il Doppio Standard.  Do as I say but not as I do. Both political parties engage in such arrogance.   Many Americans are becoming intolerant of such obnoxious elitist behavior as “Do you know who I am?”. 

Remember, as Bobby K said, life is unfair.