Re: dictatorship of proletariat?--whose violence?

Jozsef Borocz wrote the following, no doubt to inject a tone of reality into
the discussion:

----- Original Message -----
From: Jozsef Borocz <jborocz@rci.rutgers.edu>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 1999 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: dictatorship of proletariat?


> Before the few of us who have been monopolizing this channel continue with
> what they have been doing, I would like to pose the following simple
question
> to all:
>
> Have any of you ever seen a submachine gun from close-up?
>
> More specifically,
>
> Do you have a good working knowledge of what it feels like to have one
aimed
> at you in the name of class-based justice or otherwise? Are you familiar
with
> the penetration of the bullet into your body? Or your child's body?
>

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To which I would respond:

I have had a pistol (admittedly not a submachine gun) aimed at me and fired
at close range by a capitalist-employed law enforcement officer, who was
detained by other police temporarily and then given his weapon back. A year
later he did shoot someone else.

More specifically, if the submachine gun was in the hands of a partisan in
the Ukraine, rescuing Jews in 1944, or in the hands of a Vietnamese peasant
in 1967 preventing their family from being massacred, I think it would be a
most welcome experience.

It is correct, of course, to say: "Don't take violence lightly." It is too
easy for those in relatively comfortable places to spill the blood of others
easily.

But it is surprising that so many people posting on this network either
utterly ignore, or too casually dismiss, the massive violence inherent in
capitalism today, which, from the streets of Rio to the slums of Calcutta
and Chicago, has murdered hundreds of millions of children. The sound of a
baby needlessly dying of cholera in an imperialist-protected fascist police
state may not ring as loudly in the ears as the sound of a gunshot, but I'm
not sure it is any easier of a way to die.

Alan Spector