There was a speedwalker in the park of the occupation the other day. He spread his arms and waggled his fingers as he made his way past the tents, and every time he completed a lap, he stopped to do push-ups against a bench.

Waggling fingers: jazz hands.

That’s how the deaf applaud. I’ll tell you who’s deaf. The Bay St. crowd is deaf. Trouble is, they aren’t applauding. They don’t even have to notice the protest.

They’ve got all the money.

I saw that old slogan yesterday morning: Make The Rich Pay. A friend of mine used to say the rich want to pay, they just didn’t know where to send the cheques.

That still makes me laugh.

I didn’t send a cheque. I dropped real money in the donations box at the lunch table. We’ve all got to eat.

Cash is good.

And everyone I know is ticked off about the banks: obscene profits, ludicrous fees, astronomical salaries for managers and miserable wages for employees.

Worse, we pay service charges that few of us are able to spot, let alone understand or explain. If that’s not outright theft then it’s a shell game, and just as bad.

Then I remembered.

Not long after the Great Depression, somewhere around the start of World War II, my uncle Frank and a handful of his pals pooled some money and started a credit union in the west end of Fort William.

All of them were poor and none of them could get the time of day from any of the banks for big-ticket stuff: buying trucks, taking mortgages, starting businesses.

My uncle Frank especially couldn’t get a loan because he was a union activist, and there were times when he was out of work.

Family lore suggests there were half a dozen men in on the scheme at the beginning; they might have had $35 bucks between them.

The Westfort Credit Union has since changed its name, but these days it has assets in the millions.

My point?

Kids, the banks don’t give a damn about you. If you’re ticked off, start a credit union.

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Here are the basics:

A credit union is run on democratic principles; the members are the owners; membership is voluntary; the board consists of volunteers elected by the members; and the rates for mortgages and loans are better than those charged by private banks.

Also, most credit unions use a portion of their profit to support causes in their communities. There is no shortage of causes in the community these days.

An aside: kids and causes, coupled with sleeping bags in tents, make a frothy mix. That’s part of the glory of youth. I suspect there will be a new crop of radicals born next summer; baby’s going to need new shoes, and mom and dad will need to buy a crib.

And that’s another thing about credit unions: character counts when it comes to determining who gets loans.

There are a lot of smart young people in the park. I met some with economic experience, and others who know the law. The talent is there.

You don’t have to wear black pajamas to know that the best way to beat a powerful opponent is not to engage in direct warfare. The rich and the wealthy have never given up without a bloody fight.

Duck them.

No, that’s not a spelling mistake. I mean duck them, in the sense of avoid them: take your money out of their banks and start The Occupy Toronto Credit Union.

I’ll put my money in it if you do.

More prosaically, if you don’t want to start a credit union, join one. It’s old school; it works.

Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca