While some of the related meetings may be held in secret, everyone in Boston knows that our city is among four in the US that could be chosen to host the 2024 Olympic games. Why would the world chose Boston? Sports writer Dave Zirin spoke with "someone connected to" the International Olympic Committee, who said "Boston has rocketed to the top of their consideration list because of how the city was able to shut itself down after the Boston Marathon bombing."
You read that right.
Few things expose the disturbing thought processes of the [International Olympic Committee] quite like this logic. The post-marathon paralysis of police and surveillance and the frightening exercise of total power that was whipped out as quickly and lethally as a switchblade would become the Olympic-norm for three weeks. Anyone who felt a particularly neon-bright target on their back in those chilling days, because of their religion, their dress or the color of their skin, would have that affixed to them like a semi-permanent tattoo for a full year in the lead-up to the lighting of the Olympic torch. A city that brands itself as a cradle of liberty would be defined by drones, thousands of new cameras and a level of military hardware that—based upon what I saw in Rio for the World Cup—has to be seen in order to be believed.