A True Account of the Resistance Before Occupy Had a Name
By Cliff Potts
Dateline: July 28, 2025
I didn’t become a protester in Chicago.
I brought the fire with me.
From February to May 2011, I stood with the new SDS in Dallas. We met at El Centro College, tucked inside a city that didn’t want to admit it was part of a war machine. Iraq was still bleeding. Afghanistan still burning. And Obama—fresh off his 2008 hope glow—was already proving the empire didn’t change presidents, it just changed masks.
We protested anyway.
At El Centro, we organized teach-ins and banner drops. We marched with signs that shouted what mainstream Democrats whispered. We saw the surveillance increase. We felt the chill of post-9/11 paranoia. And we faced down the police state’s local foot soldiers—Dallas PD with their swagger, smirks, and “orders.”
But we kept showing up.
I left on May 2, 2011.
That’s the day they killed Osama bin Laden.
While America cheered, I packed my bag and headed to Chicago.
Not to celebrate.
To organize.
Because I knew that killing one man wasn’t the end of the war—it was the start of a deeper one. The war for memory. The war for narrative. The war for the soul of a country that couldn’t stop lying to itself.
Chicago gave me Occupy.
But Dallas gave me conviction.
And conviction is what we need now more than ever. Because the fascists haven’t just taken the stage—they’ve taken the goddamn mic, the cameras, and the security detail.
If you ever stood on a sidewalk and refused to shut up—you’re still in this.
If you ever carried a sign and felt the world tilt slightly back toward justice—you’re not done.
And if you ever walked away from safety because the truth demanded it—you are the resistance.
Occupy 2.5 