Toggle Menu

A Ten-Step Guide to Launching US Uncut

Gather some friends, pick a tax dodger and get on the street!

Johann Hari

February 3, 2011

 1. Get some friends you trust and respect, and identify a tax dodger to target.

 2. Find the company’s flagship store in your neighborhood. Scout it out. Determine the best way to shut it down.

 3. Pick a meeting point and time. Ask some high-profile people to tweet a link explaining what you are doing and why. Ask Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, Glenn Greenwald—anybody who can reach thousands of people quickly.

 4. Send the call out to as many active networks as possible. For example, the Coffee Party got a huge number of followers on Facebook but hasn’t done much—why not turn it into a network to organize this?

 5. Pick a Twitter hashtag so people can follow the action as you shut down the target.

 6. As soon as you’ve done this, put a call out for people to copy you, wherever they are around the country, on a certain day.

 7. Set up a website to list all the actions being planned, all the information on the targets and all the resources people will need. Use a Google map to show where all the actions are planned.

 8. Choose a few carefully crafted key messages and repeat them over and over again to the media. Explain that if X company paid its taxes, Y budget cut or tax increase wouldn’t have to happen.

 9. Call days of action. Aim to have shutdowns arranged in as many cities as possible.

 10. Pick a new target and do it again. Do it bigger.

For updates on this issue and others, you can follow the author of this article on Twitter.

Johann HariJohann Hari is a columnist for the Independent in London and a contributing writer for Slate.


Latest from the nation