{"id":2485,"date":"2004-07-29T09:36:36","date_gmt":"2004-07-29T13:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2004\/07\/29\/much-a-doodoo-about-nothing\/"},"modified":"2004-07-29T09:36:36","modified_gmt":"2004-07-29T13:36:36","slug":"much-a-doodoo-about-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2004\/07\/29\/much-a-doodoo-about-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Much A-DooDoo About Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a3601'><\/a><\/p>\n<table width=\"537\" border=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>The pre-Convention press coverage here in Boston made it sound like<br \/>\n        The Mongol Hordes led by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were about<br \/>\n        to descend on our fair city.&nbsp; We were told to expect gridlocked<br \/>\n        traffic, body-cavity searches on random street corners and daily mass<br \/>\n        street protest that would have blood running in the streets.<\/p>\n<p>Understandably, locals mad<br \/>\n        plans to leave the city in droves, for the Cape, down Maine way, even<br \/>\n        to the relative peace and tranquility of New York City. It reminded us<br \/>\n        of the Weatherperson-fueled panic whenever a Nor&#8217;easter is moving up<br \/>\n        the coast, causing panicked people to flock to the hardware store to<br \/>\n        stock up on batteries, drinking water and shotgun shells. Usually the<br \/>\n        storm<br \/>\n      turns into a dud, and people either go &quot;Huh?&quot; or &quot;Whew&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>They must have pulled this one a hundred times over the past few years,<br \/>\n        and people fall for it every time. Once again, the warnings of impending<br \/>\n        doom were slightly exaggerated; in reality, the city has been more like<br \/>\n        a ghost town, anywhere away from the Fleet<br \/>\n        Center.<\/p>\n<p>The forces or order cleared out 3,000 jail cells in anticipation of<br \/>\n        the massive civil disobedience. Total protest-related arrests so far<br \/>\n        (after 3 days) &#8211; ONE.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The real question for me is why Boston was manipulated into believing<br \/>\n          that hordes of protesters would descend on the city,&quot; Tom Hayden,<br \/>\n          who led protests at the infamous Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968,<br \/>\n          wrote<br \/>\n          in an e-mail to the Globe. &quot;It plays into the politics of fear,<br \/>\n          suppresses civil liberties, and becomes a blank check for police overtime<br \/>\n          and the<br \/>\n        procurement of bone-crushing gadgets.&quot;\n      <\/p>\n<p>from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/politics\/conventions\/articles\/2004\/07\/29\/activists_appear_to_save_anger_for_nyc\/\">Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pre-Convention press coverage here in Boston made it sound like The Mongol Hordes led by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were about to descend on our fair city.&nbsp; We were told to expect gridlocked traffic, body-cavity searches on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2004\/07\/29\/much-a-doodoo-about-nothing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}