SPGB Conference and delegate meeting reports

From the report of the meeting of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, at Bedford House, London, 13th and 14th October, 1990, pg 7-8:

S. Colman (Central London): the question of the attitude that socialists should take towards movements for political democracy under capitalism was a difficult one, and there had always been differing views in the Party on it. However this was not Camden's concern. They had declared at the previous ADM [Autumn delegate meeting] that they though the Party had been taken over by a "parasitical minority" opposed to the Party's principles. This item was merely part of their continuing campaign to try to prove this absurd claim. They had a contempt for the rest of the Party and were not fit to sit at ADM.

...

At 5.40pm H. Valler (chair) closed the meeting. Items 20 ("The political implications of the demise of the European Communist Parties") and 21 ("Was Marx right about the increasing misery of the working class") were not reached.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me", came to mind when I read, "that they though the Party", which lead the old brain to this,

The capitalist is I shepherd, I shall always want.
They maketh I to lie down in the sidewalks
And leadeth I beside solitudeness waters, as I say.
They tormented I soul: can't never be bold!
They leadeth me in the path of starvation
And victimisation for their own selfish sake.
And that's really no fake—sometimes
I think, I've got to give and take, you know?
Yea, though I walk through the fields of
The factories I obtain no labour, not even a favour.
For thou art with I: the Law and the Staff, they oppress I;
They prepareth guns and bayonets before I
In the presence of my distress
With no kind of tenderness, I've got to confess.
Anointed my income with taxation,
My expensive runneth over, like I say.
My cash's bursement is without contentment.
So come on down you for the heatment
Is great in this compartment, as I would tell it to you!
Surely madness and poverty, strickenness, shall follow I
And my children all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in selfish pleasures for ever and ever
So I've got to be clever, be around until the twelth of never
As I would play, what a bam-bam....
So you've got to hold the fire, like I tell you.
Fire burning down a town, fire burning down a town.
The sufferers, them gathering around.
Some are looking for hustling,
Some are looking for something to scuffle.
See, the sufferers would shuffle!...
No need for you to stand around,
Man and woman, you got to be crown,
And keep on moving around, as I would say.
A little peace in your community, as I would tell it to you.
Got to have a little hustling ability!

Sufferers' Psalm, by I Roy; with Tommy McCook on lead saxophone