Occupy credit cards

Excellent spinoff IMO

http://www.thenation.com/article/175718/occupy-bank-cards?rel=emailNation#

To the members of the Occupy Money Cooperative, high fees for cards are just another symptom of a larger disease. As one member of the co-op put it, they are motivated by the belief that today’s banks are “unredeemable.” The cooperative model exists elsewhere in banking, of course: the main example is credit unions, which are owned collectively by those who hold accounts and which charge small fees or none at all. And the hope is that the Occupy Cooperative will resemble credit unions in that every member will use the co-op’s services and some may even work as employees of the co-op.

For now, the cooperative’s challenge has become a more typical one in the face of the American media’s apathy toward both the banking industry and inequality itself: How can they generate awareness? The plan is to use Occupy’s vast and varied networks and “tap into the sympathizers,” Ross told me. Ross notes that this plan is a departure from “a more conventional press campaign, the kind that conventional people like me would think of.”

Indeed, the co-op encapsulates both the challenges and the value of bringing innovative and sometimes radical ideas to the mainstream. In my new book Republic of Outsiders, everyone in its pages is confronted with this same dilemma. How can they stay true to their original and sometimes edgy ideas while at the same time finding a mass audience or market?

Ross and others at the cooperative see this dilemma clearly. Part of what makes the Occupy Cooperative and planned debit card unusual is that it’s not just for activists but is intended as something to be purchased by people who are being left out of traditional institutions against their will. As the site’s promotional material suggests, “The card isn’t only for Occupy supporters.” According to the site, we can all “benefit from using the Card because it is a better and cheaper product.”