To the editor:

Thomas Friedman (“Trusting freedom at 4 below,” Feb. 9) comments on his recent experience in Moscow during a rally expressing “democratic awakenings” occurring in Russia as well as in the Middle East.

Many believe the Occupy movement in the United States expresses a “democratic awakening” happening here from sea to shining sea.

The visible encampments in Portland, Augusta and Bangor are being removed, but the spirit of the Occupy movement grows steadily. Concerned citizens unite “ in a shared vision of a society (where) everyone will be treated with equality under the law, no matter who is in power.”

Listen to Friedman, and connect the dots: “Putin’s allies were predicting that only a small crowd would brave the weather. They were wrong, and it underscores something that a lot of cynics regarding these awakening movements just don’t get.

They’re like earthquakes or volcanoes. They are totally natural phenomena, and they emerge from a very deep place in people’s souls.

Those mounting them are not sitting around calculating the odds of success before they start.

“This will be hard. You can’t have a democracy without citizens, and you can’t have citizens without trust — without trust that everyone will be treated with equality under the law, no matter who is in power, and without trust in a shared vision of what kind of society people are trying to build,” Friedman wrote.

Can we once again build this kind of society?

Robert P. Patterson, 
Topsham

letters@timesrecord.com