TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Jon Lee Anderson has a fabulous piece in the New Yorker on the Green Movement in Iran:

One Iranian, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for his safety, described the movement’s status. “Despotism works,” he said. “That’s what this situation shows. The reformist movement is over. The middle classes aren’t willing to die en masse, and the regime knows this. It has killed and punished just enough people to send the message of what it is capable of doing. The reformist leaders and the regime have a kind of unspoken pact: ‘Don’t organize any more demonstrations or say anything and we’ll leave you alone. Do anything and we’ll arrest you.’ It’s over.”

Another Iranian, though, disagrees:

“The frustration is almost too great to bear. People feel so robbed, and their dignity and hopes are so offended. Every day, it is so painful. It hurts. This feeling will not just go away. The Green Movement represents this feeling, and it can’t just disappear. Somehow, maybe in another shape, it has to reëmerge.”