The RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-proclaimed "anarchist and anti-authoritarian" group organizing to protest the Republican National Convention, had this to say in its recent newsletter about their blockading "strategy:"

Blockading the RNC is a way of organizing our diverse actions that allows individuals and groups to decide on their own plans, while also promoting a larger goal in which we are greater than the sum of our parts. A blockade is any action that works to stop or slow traffic. It could be occupying an intersection with a clown performance, linking arms or using lock boxes to block a bridge, marching through the busiest streets with thousands of protestors, dancing to a homemade soundsystem, filling the road with heaps of objects (like trash or stuffed animals), or doing Yoga, pretending to be dead, meditating, or praying in the middle of the road. Those blockading will make it impossible for the Republican Delegates to reach the convention center in St. Paul, denying the Republicans their spectacle and affirming the ability of the people to truly participate in politics.  But this will only be successful if we can work together in ways that we each find appropriate.

And, several weeks ago, the St. Paul Police Department ordered a couple hundred tasers. Protesters thought for sure they were ordered just for them, while the police said the timing was coincidental. Either way, the RNC Welcoming Committee has responded with their own supply of tasers.

(From March 13) The RNC Welcoming Committee (RNC-WC), an anarchist and anti-authoritarian organizing body based in the Twin Cities, announced today that it has ordered tasers for each of its members and friends. The announcement comes on the heels of last month's St. Paul City Council approval of a St. Paul Police Department (SPPD) request for 234 tasers. Due to a unique corporate-anarchist confidentiality agreement, the exact number of tasers or documentable evidence of this new order will not be
disclosed.

Both the SPPD and RNC-WC taser orders are scheduled to arrive before the September 1 so-called Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul. However, "The RNC Welcoming Committee's order of tasers has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming Republican convention," said Ann O' Nymmity of the RNC-WC. "These deadly, yet humane, weapons are needed simply to protect the safety of members of our community on a day-to-day basis. The timing is purely a coincidence."

Sounds brilliant. Really. The police order tasers, because they are police and their job is to ensure the safety of St. Paul's citizens and guests. In response, you order tasers--even though you're an anti-war group--so you can use them to ensure your "right" to stop the freedom of assembly, and speech, in this country.

Perhaps the RNC Welcoming Committee doesn't realize, if there were no right to those freedoms, their group wouldn't be able to freely exist.

If this group does have a few hundred tasers and other groups combine their resources and purchase some as well, it could make for a tough week for St. Paul police. I'm inclined to believe though, since they refuse to disclose the number of tasers or "documentable evidence of this new order," they're bluffing.