As it turns out, the threat — a term we’re using fairly lightly, as you’ll see in a minute — turned out to have been scrawled on the wall of a bathroom stall and presumably never was intended to be taken seriously. The perpetrator was caught, and that was that.

But the incident still scared a lot of people around here, and the administration certainly took it seriously enough. There’s a reason for that.

My old high school is located about a mile west of Chicago proper, and Chicago currently is hosting the 2012 NATO Summit. Protesters started organizing by the middle of the week before the summit, and the city was on high alert — and so were the suburbs, for that matter. I saw more police cars driving around the village I live in during a two-hour period than I would see in at least three days under normal circumstances.

Any city would almost certainly react this way. The presence of President Barack Obama is enough to inspire some relatively drastic security measures, and obviously, other world leaders raise different issues.

But here in Chicago, there’s a different undertone to everything. First of all, Chicago is basically Obama’s adopted hometown. Let’s just say it would be embarrassing for anything to happen to anyone involved with the summit.

Second of all is Chicago’s history with such things. It’s been 44 years since the infamous riots associated with the 1968 Democratic National Convention, but the shadow looms large over any and all political gatherings in Chicago. I’ve seen at least three articles over the past week about how the government in Chicago wants to avoid anything even remotely resembling what happened back then.

This brings me to the protesters themselves. There have been, as I mentioned, more than a few protests even before the summit actually started, including one that took place outside of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s residence. The protests culminated on Thursday, when a rally in the heart of downtown spilled onto the streets, with protesters marching through streets and taunting police.

Here’s my question: Is it really worth it?

Let me be clear. I fully support every person’s right to freedom of speech, and I’m aware large-scale protests, such as the civil rights movement, can make a difference. But the Occupy movement — one of several groups prominently involved in the protests — has been around for quite some time and has accomplished … actually, I’m not sure what they’ve accomplished. As far as I can tell, everything in Washington, D.C. and on Wall Street is business as usual.

I’m not going to get into whether their complaints are valid or not. That’s not even remotely the point.

The point is that it’s hard to look at these protesters in Chicago and feel like they stand much of a chance of changing anything. Wall Street is going to continue to be Wall Street whether it’s occupied or not, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, will continue to fight in Afghanistan — that’s one of the main thrusts of the protests, apparently: to get the troops out of Afghanistan — whether these protesters approve of it or not.

Maybe I’m just being cynical here. I have never participated in any sort of protest or rally myself, for any cause, so maybe just the act of protesting and feeling like you’ve done something is enough for some people. I wouldn’t know.

It’s also possible — likely, in fact — that I’m coming off as condescending. I apologize if that’s the case. I’m not trying to denigrate people associated with any protest or cause. I just don’t totally get why protesters do so much for what I perceive as very little in return.

I have to imagine the world leaders in town for the summit are not overly concerned with the protests, neither the ones in Chicago or anywhere else in the world. They have other concerns: agendas to advance, bureaucrats to bargain with, governments to govern.

So keep protesting. I mean, you’re already here, so you might as well keep going. Just try not to get out of hand, please? We’d appreciate it.

And please don’t actually start with bombs. The threat was bad enough.

Caleb Nordgren is a guest columnist at The State News and a journalism junior. Reach him at nordgren@msu.edu.