Over the past fifteen years, people in the United States--and dissidents in particular--have witnessed a steady escalation of the National Security State, including invasive surveillance and infiltration, indiscriminate police violence, and unlawful arrests. These concerted efforts to criminalize dissidents and undermine meaningful social change are made more repressive by the coordination of numerous local, state, and federal agencies often operating at the behest of private corporations.

Join activist and PM Press author Kris Hermes on Saturday, February 27th at 5pm at Revolutionary Grounds Books and Coffee for an event sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild - Southern Arizona Chapter discussing his new book Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000.

Hermes will be joined by Paul Gattone, owner of Revolutionary Grounds and a Tucson civil rights attorney in private practice who has defended progressive activists for nearly 30 years, as well as University of Arizona doctoral student Heidi Reynolds-Stenson, whose dissertation focuses on protest policing tactics, and Tucson performance artist Jodi Netzer who was in Philadelphia and present during the preemptive police raid on a warehouse where puppets and other art was being made.

As an award-winning legal worker with the NLG and a member of multiple radical law collectives, Hermes will discuss how repressive policing developed during the 2000 Republican convention protests are still used across the U.S. today. Hermes will also discuss ways in which activists can employ radical, innovative and confrontational forms of resistance to the legal system.

Hermes has written extensively and has spoken at numerous community meetings, political conferences, and book fairs on these and other issues.

Copies of Crashing the Party will be available after the talk for purchase and signing.