Back in the good old Dark Ages, to which we are rapidly returning, there were lots of people who went around licking the sores of lepers to prove how much they trusted God to protect them. Some of them even got officially declared saints for it. That leper licking impulse is still with us. Nothing so deeply psychological ever vanishes.

Everything us humans do has its dark side, whether we want to admit it or not. The religious impulse is so powerful that of course it has its dark side, which gets projected on “Them,” the Evil Ones, those we demonize, while we justify doing this by blaming it on God’s will. Leprosy is caused by bacteria? No problem. God created the bacteria as a punishment for unimaginable sins. The trouble with leprosy was that it could infect the rich as well as the poor and then one fell into the underclass.

By their fruit shall ye know them, in other words by their good works, it says somewhere in the New Testament. Jesus also had a lot to say about False Prophets, that they will always be with us, and very nasty things to say about the rich. Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild was a very angry man. There has always been the official state religion, But there was also what’s been called the “little religion,” the folk beliefs and wisdom of the people, never recorded. It’s a safe bet that much of this “little religion,” anti-rich and pro the poor, got incorporated into later religions. Love one another. Do onto others. You know the general theme. Thus leper licking. Jesus warned about that kind of thing, too. Don’t make a public display of how religious you are, how good you are, be humble. Try telling that to the neo-conservatives who were here this week showing us New Yorkers how to do Compassionate Conservatism. Leper licking. How sweet of them to enlighten us.

Any noble impulse can be perverted, and that’s what the Republican leadership is Hell-bent on doing. Leper licking is one of the main reasons we’ve found the neo-conservatives so baffling. The delegates have been running around the city ostentatiously doing good works. That’s leper licking. According to Jesus, good works are supposed to be done in private, not announced to the press and recorded by TV cameras. Where did they go? To Harlem, of course. Never mind that Harlem has been thriving, busily pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, doing better economically than much of the rest of the city. Gotta go show our charity and how good we are by helping those poor benighted Black folks. We also gotta go help those wizened Elderly. Not a word about all those folks now jobless because of the Bush economic policies, much less all those now severely underpaid. terrified of losing their terrible jobs.

Meanwhile, back in the convention hall, we were treated to the most vitriolic display of pure hatred I’ve seen since, as a tiny child, I sat with my terrified Jewish Grandma listening to Hitler make speeches. This was exactly the same kind of thing. The spewing of hatred, the adoring cheering audience. I’ll never forget the expressions on those faces at the convention, eyes rolled heavenward as though in the presence of the Messiah.

This display of Republican hatred, remember, set against a background of the drone of circling helicopters, scream of police sirens, as the largest army of police ever assembled threatened the citizens of the city. Remember that people were knocked to the ground when they came out of the subways at 42nd St. because they might be potential terrorists — uh, I mean demonstrators. Remember that nearly 2,000 terrorists — well, that’s what Bloomberg called them — were being illegally held for days in wire cages in filthy conditions, not allowed to make phone calls or see a lawyer, their names not released to their terrified relatives and friends. This is a big city, folks, with lots of crime. When someone vanishes for days, there’s plenty of reason to worry about that.

Meanwhile, in our Republican-run city, the apartment complex where I live is about to go co-op. This complex was set up originally as housing for the middle-class, subsidized by the city to “keep the middle class living in the city.” That’s still the goal, and the city is subsidizing the conversion. There have always been income limits to live here — both a minimum income and a maximum income. The minimum income for purchasing a two bedroom apartment here, the lowest income the city will allow, the very bottom of the middle class from the city’s point of view, is going to be around $80,000 a year. The middle class has been re-defined. Below that, I guess, you’re poverty-stricken, not wanted, too poor to care about. I haven’t confirmed the average pay for city workers yet, but it’s a safe guess it’s well below $80,000 a year, more like half that. How does the Republican administration reconcile that? Those poverty-stricken teachers, civil servants, police, fire fighters, public health workers, all those who sustain the public safety of the city should go live elsewhere? By law, they can’t. They’re required to live within the city limits.

So — what’s the hidden agenda? Why the public display of compassion and kindness, Compassionate Conservatism at work while shifting the tax burden to the middle-class, or what’s left of it, creating astronomical deficits, declaring a war that can never end, the endless terror alerts, sending the best jobs overseas, keeping health care out of reach because of its cost?

The agenda is not hidden. They’ve been quite open and honest about it, every time they say they’re “protecting” us, fathers take care of their children, but we’ve refused to see it, to believe they’re a bunch of sadists just doing their thing. Reasonable people wouldn’t act like that, would they? However, if the public’s kids aren’t dying in a war, Bush can’t claim he must be re-elected because he’s a wartime president. Never mind if the only possible purpose for that war has turned out to be political advantage at home. Who’d believe any administration could be that cynical? If the public is not kept in a constant state of fear, terrified of “them,” the terrorists about to attack, terrified of losing their jobs, of economic ruin if they get sick, the public isn’t going to need a Big Daddy promising to protect them. This is why we can never solve any social problems. Once solved, there’s no need to keep Big Daddy around. That’s how sadomasochism works. Create enough anguish, pain and suffering and you can get away with anything if your promises to end the pain sound sincere enough. Ah, sweet suffering!