MR. KOJO NNAMDIThirty-one Occupy D.C. protestors were arrested Sunday in McPherson Square after a long standoff with U.S. Park Police. It began when occupiers erected a large wooden structure in the park, and it ended last night with protestors being physically dragged off the roof with a rope and ladder. To this point, local protestors and police have largely steered clear of the physical and legal confrontations seen in cities like Oakland and New York, but the Park Police have clearly drawn a line in the sand.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWhat do you think? Call us at 800-433-8550, send us a tweet @kojoshow or email to kojo@wamu.org. Should protestors be allowed to build their own structures? Do zoning rules like the ones being enforced by the Park Police undermine our freedom of assembly, or was this a deliberate provocation by protestors? What's your view? 800-433-8850. Joining us by phone is Rooj Alwazir who is one of the protestors participating in Occupy D.C. Rooj Alwazir, thank you for joining.

MS. ROOJ ALWAZIRThank you for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso with us is James Ploeser. He's a participant in the Occupy D.C. Action working group. James Ploeser, thank you for joining us.

MR. JAMES PLOESERThanks for having me back.

NNAMDIAnd Michael Kazin is a professor in the history department of Georgetown University. Michael, thank you for joining us.

DR. MICHAEL KAZINThanks for having me.

NNAMDIRooj, I'll start with you. What happened yesterday? Rooj Alwazir, are you there?

ALWAZIRYes. Hi, sorry about that.

NNAMDITell us what happened yesterday.

ALWAZIRSo yesterday, I actually joined in a little later. I joined in around noon, and at that time there was about 12 people already inside the structure, and this structure was built by a coalition of architects and builders, and it was evaluated by an engineer, so we knew it was up to code. And so at this point, I ran in to protect the community shelter, the town hall, the people pavilion. It was a place where we can all gather and share ideas. It was a place where direct democracy happened, and the police were giving us an ultimatum basically.

ALWAZIRThey were saying you're either gonna put it down yourselves, or we're gonna do it for you, and we knew that we had to do whatever it takes to protect our community home, and our community shelter.

NNAMDIJames Ploeser, what do you feel about what happened yesterday? There are those who make the argument that it's one thing to occupy D.C., it's another thing to build a structure that seems as if it is a permanent structure on public property.

PLOESERRight. I think that one of the clear distinctions we need to draw, is to make sure that folks understand that this is not a permanent structure, that it was set up to be able to house -- create a town hall space or a community meeting space through the winter in the tradition of American democracy meeting to have public space to have democracy flourish is one of the things that the Occupy Movement has been able to put out there really strongly.

PLOESERSo our, you know, the action was undertaken in accordance with resolutions or proposals passed through the general assembly there at McPherson Square to erect a meeting space that would be used for -- to engage the community in this process of direct democracy, to try to figure out how to create a broader -- a better society that's more just for everyone. And police responded with this ultimatum saying, as you mentioned in your call out to callers, saying that the zoning ordinances were getting in the way of that.

PLOESERI think that often Occupy Movement would say that the fact that corporations have taken over all the public space left in our country, and that they are dominating the political discourse is a much bigger crime. They kicked us out of a shelter that was meant to house democracy for a flourishing new way of envisioning society through the winter months. It didn't have a foundation. As Rooj mentioned, it was built with professionally trained folks who made sure that it was a safe structure, and this was a structure that was going to provide for the public health of the participants in the Occupation Movement for the winter months.

NNAMDIOkay. We reached out to the U.S. Park Police to ask about the rationale for yesterday's police actions, and to get a sense of how the Park Police are approaching the protest movement. We have not heard back from the Park Police, but we've certainly been hearing from listeners. There are two points of view here. One I'll read an email from John, who says, "What I see is that the way the showdown played out is very telling. The police had an inspector declare the structure unsafe.

NNAMDII'm not a housing inspector, but I have eyes, and that building was not a safety hazard in any real way. It's difficult to escape the conclusion that the police were using that inspection to give them cover for their subsequent actions. Similarly, when law enforcement has raided the Occupy sites in other cities, they invented concerns about sanitation or safety. In any conflict with occupiers," says John, "police have all the guns, all the tear gas, all the stun bombs, et cetera, et cetera. The fact that they still have to cheat makes the police look small and petty.

NNAMDIUltimately this lends legitimacy to the protestors." But here on the other hand, is Timothy in Warrenton, Va. Timothy, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TIMOTHYYeah. I was wondering, you know, if they're gonna be building a structure, why don't they try getting a permit for it, and, you know, if they are gonna have a structure, why would it need to be a structure that looks more -- a wooden structure, why not something like a big tent like the Army uses to house their soldiers abroad?

NNAMDIAnd Michael Kazin, I'd like to bring you in at this point, because that seems to be in fact the tension between protestors and police that has so far been resolved generally without any specific police action, whether or not on the one hand the protestors have the right to occupy, but on the other, whether they have to, without a permit, build what appears to some people to look like it might be a more lasting structure.

KAZINYes. And I think this whole discussion I think is a potential problem for the Occupy Movement, which I very much support, because we're talking all about structures and tactics and police and permits, and -- instead of the real issues. I know the point behind the structure originally was I think symbolically to talk about the homes that a lot of people don't have, lost in a foreclosure, or never had in this country.

KAZINBut I'm afraid in this discussion and also in the media coverage, in the Post and other places that I've seen, the whole point of the structure is getting lost, the political point. And after all, the -- what the movement, you know, has to do to grow is to communicate with folks who are not part of it right now. I'm not sure this whole focus really helps that.

NNAMDIBack to you, Rooj Alwazir. The point that was being made by Timothy about applying for a structure, and the point that's being made by Michael Kazin is that this is just another distraction. Rooj...

ALWAZIRYeah.

NNAMDIYes. Do you see it as a distraction?

ALWAZIRNo. I -- distraction in the sense of -- sorry. I couldn't hear everything he was saying.

NNAMDIWell, he was saying, Michael Kazin was saying that the whole point of the movement is to draw attention to what's going on in the economy overall, and that this confrontation with police over this specific structure might be a distraction from people discussing what the issues are. The issues I guess he is saying are not whether or not the police approve of a specific construction, but whether or not the nation is moving in the right direction.

ALWAZIRI mean, I think the fact that yesterday when they brought the inspector and he had no checklist or any -- and they didn't provide any reason to us, they just decided automatically it was dangerous, and then when they tried to put down the six protestors that were on top of the roof, they realized, oh, wow, it is pretty sturdy, it is safe. It's kind of funny, they're contradicting themselves. So I don't think -- I think they're trying to -- yeah, distract people from the movement trying to say, oh, here we are trying to escalate and we're not. We're not doing anything, but...

NNAMDIWell -- well, Mike -- not Michael Kazin, but James Ploeser, I'd like to bring you again, because as we may have discussed before, frankly a movement a not accomplishing very much if nobody's paying attention to it, which is why the speculation arises that these things might be a way of drawing attention to the movement, but the movement is facing some big philosophical questions now about whether it should become more engaged with the political process, about how its demands can translate into policy changes. But I guess the most immediate challenge facing Occupiers in their view, James Ploeser, is the climate.

PLOESERI mean, definitely one of the attempts here, as we mentioned was to make sure that our attempts to weatherize the tents and other living spaces for folks (word?) was supplemented and complimented by a meeting space so we could continue to have not just folks living in the park, but people continuing to organize and create a creative new alternative vision for a just society. I think that the challenge is to think about, you know, what do we do through the winter, how do we hunker down and make it through given that there's, you know, definitely an insistence to stay through the spring until the warm months come back.

KAZINAnd so I think that, you know, we do have a philosophical -- we're a philosophical juncture, like a fork in the road here where folks are needing to both balance work to externally grow the move as Professor Kazin mentioned, but also to make sure that we don't spend all our energy trying to just maintain ourselves and keep ourselves from getting hypothermia. It's a shame the Park Police are more concerned about the impression that they might giving us more space than might be politically popular, than it is worried about people's health and people's safety, because people will be there all winter, and the dismantling and the raising of that structure of the town hall community space that we were constructing yesterday is gonna be a huge threat to people's health, and actually a bigger threat to people's health and safety than any possible zoning violations or Building Code violations of which we still haven't been told that there were any.

NNAMDIHere's Mike in Washington D.C. Mike, you're on the air, go ahead please.

MIKEI want to thank you. I'll start by saying I do support the Occupy Movement and the protests. However, I have a concern that if the protestors are not happy with being them being able to build a shelter, and the other things that they're doing there, perhaps the true form of democracy would be to go out, to go talk with their senators and Congress people, as well as the City Council of D.C. to talk about perhaps changing some of the laws that allow them to protest in the way that they'd like to.

NNAMDIWell, I guess Michael Kazin, Mike and others would say that a great deal seems to have been accomplished by negotiation and accommodation with quote unquote "the authorities" whether the National Park Service, or the District of Columbia Government, and Mike would see that as being the way to move forward. What say you?

KAZINThat sounds find to me. I mean, I would urge, I guess, the Occupiers and those in support to think about moving to a next stage. However, I know a lot of people around the country are planning tomorrow for I think it's called the National Day of Action to occupy our homes, which is Occupiers sort of using unused buildings, defending people who are getting their places foreclosed on. In many way, especially for the winter, as one of your -- one of the Occupiers was discussing, James I guess, you know, perhaps take over an unused warehouse, there's a lot of them in a lot of cities these days, and use that as a center for organizing, for teach-ins, for all kinds of activities.

KAZINThat seems to me to be honest more useful as a way of mobilizing people and educating people than again...

NNAMDIWe're running out time very quickly, James Ploeser, what's that plan if any for the next steps?

PLOESERI think the next steps are gonna be continue as Mike mentioned, to take our message to the authorities and the powers to be, to take our message to the decision makers who are, you know, keeping our economy in the slumps, and who are creating an unfair world. In terms of housing folks, I think we're hunkering down looking at other options and our community process, our democratic process is gonna decide what the next steps that are taken.

PLOESERThe one word of caution I would say is that, you know, people -- protestors called Free Franklin took over the abandoned Franklin School building which had been used as a shelter, and were pretty quickly dislodged from there. So the possibilities regarding...

NNAMDIAre diminishing. I'm afraid that's all the time we have. James Ploeser is a participant in the Occupy D.C. Action working group, Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University, and Rooj Alwazir is one of the protestors who was arrested yesterday. We'll be continuing to follow this story. Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.