A commenter at Huffington Post, to Van Jones' (sympathetic) article Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?
wrote:
We all need to go down to our local credit union and pick up some brochures. Then stand outside your local Citibank, BofA, Wells Fargo, etc and pass out the brochures to the customers and educate them about credit unions. If we can get the people in the U.S. to disinvest in the Oligarchy and invest in their own neighbors (credit unions) we could hobble the big banks. It won't bring them down but it might make 'em listen.
I was in Manhattan, yesterday, and picked up a copy of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. (I'm pleased to report that it's populist in tone, and isn't gratuitously ideological.)
So, my suggestion is to do both things at once, say once or twice a day: The OWS protestors can grab copies of the OWS Journal, along with brochures about credit unions, and pass out both, simultaneously, in front of branch offices of Citibank, et., al. .
With any luck, OWS will inspire copycat actions by the other occupations throughout the country. Also, they could inspire citizens who aren't willing to join an occupation, to nevertheless occupy the sidewalk near their local Citibank, et. al., branch, and imitate that part of the process.
To be worked out: the logistics of printing OWS journals and distributing them throughout the country. IMO, a version should be created that can be printed out on 8 1/2" x 11" paper, so that citizens can just download and print out. The current version is very wide - much wider than a regular newspaper.
Also, as I implied in Status Quo Busters: How FDL+DK+DU progressives can 'cross the beams' and revolutionize politics, using a copier to reproduce text is much cheaper than a desktop printer. The study I saw claimed 1/10 of a cent, per page. The ink used for a desktop printer will probably cost about 5 cents per page.
N.B.: Arian Huffington had tried to get people to move money out of kleptocratic banks. So, this idea isn't particularly original. However, the timing and context for doing this sort of action, in a way that has legs, is much better, now.