In Tension Issue 5

From In Tension - an anarchist agitation

In Tension is a journal acting as a place for anarchist analysis, dialogue, and reflection on activity that extends beyond single subcultures, issues, and social groups. Intended for people beginning to learn what anarchists are fighting and creating as well as people who have identified with anarchism for decades, In Tension is a way for us to talk to each other and report actions, issues, and intiatives that are otherwise under- or un-reported. We are interested in promoting the practice of doing things for ourselves and connecting our struggles locally, regionally, and internationally. In Tension also functions as an archive of sorts, a way to foster collective remembering.

In Tension is published in so-called Bloomington, Indiana each season. We welcome submissions of actions, events, and analysis from different perspectives that hold true to an anti-authoritarian, anti-state, and liberatory lens.

Please keep submissions to a length of -1500 words or fewer. See InTension.noblogs.org for instructions on how to submit anonymously and securely. For other correspondence, reach us at InTension@riseup.net.

To us, to live life as anarchists is not about accepting a hollow title or stagnant ideology, but is about an active, intentional, and eternal becoming. It is not just about the ideas we have but how we put them into the world, and the strength we must cultivate to weather what unfolds when living against the dominant order of this society. We live in tension with this world every day: its jobs, prisons, ideals, social roles, and identities. We notice the ways others do too, and we refuse to avoid conflict in pursuit of comfort or for an illusion of safety. We chose “In Tension ” as our title as a way to embrace the difficult balance of this beautiful and painful path. We accept the discomforts and challenges of being against so much of this world, and understand it as a reality of creating lives true to our values and hearts. We embrace our hostility for this world, and learn where to channel our time and energy to see ideas come to fruition. We notice and embrace ruptures small and large, where we can see through the facade of this world. It is neither complacency, nor an ascetic militancy, but a fostering of joy through the creation of our lives and a living-against. Rejecting a finality of destination, it is choosing to stretch beyond what is familiar, comfortable, or known, in a continual pursuit of freedom.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1970: KOTO Ablaze
The Spectre of the Agent Provocateur
How To: Kind Someone in Stale Custody
Beware the Hand That Heals Pl. 11
“On Wishes" by Mahmoud Darwish
Defined by Action
Tax Resistance
ICE & the Technology of Control
Enemy Territories: Church of Ásatrú
A Lexicon: Terrorist
Land Defense, Animal Rights, and Anti Imperialism: an interview
Flick Picks
“Ode to Turkey Vultures"
 

Comments

vampire (not verified) Thu, 04/09/2026 - 10:49

I read Agent Provocateur and you make philosophy too much, simply,
pacifists and those who are against violence are collaborators of the secret service, spies have job to keep us under control and they use their people among us for that. they say we are polie agents and I say they work for spies, the same as fake anarhists who participate in military propaganda every time US empire attack some country. they dont say something against ruling class in some country, they make propaganda, opinion is one thing and constant propaganda many times is not just opinion.
in west europe, >I think people who created seurity culture misuse it to investigate every new person and when they collect info, they can report to spies if new person is "extremist" it means militant. they produce paranoia to justify collecting information and all the time they work for spies.
dont let anyone to collect info about anybody, especially if they never break the law, they just produce paranoia to hide what they do. and how groups can become bigger if they are paranoid about new people interested for anarchist groups and anarchism, paranoia lead to isolation, lower influence on ociety, that's what FBI tried to do to martin luther king, to isolate him from important people and to make his influene lower.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/10/2026 - 02:27

In reply to by vampire (not verified)

I dunno, man... if you hang out in activist groups shouting with a foul mouth about bombing shit or shooting some CEO or politician you'll still be sounding like a damn gutter provocateur and snitch even according to the non-pacifist types. It's obvious that when doing something very risky you don't discuss it with people you don't know.

Security culture was developed by people not willing to have state agencies gather intel on them, and keep the intel on *their own* sides.

But I do get the double-edged twist of agents using collective paranoia to gather infos about persons of interest, and I did fell in that trap once or twice with potential undercovers. As yeah, obviously there's people not worthy of trust in whatever were or still are the "anarchist" milieus.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/10/2026 - 02:47

In reply to by vampire (not verified)

Bro, the goal of security culture is to prevent exactly this stuff from happening. I know that paranoia can be used by undercovers to gather sensitive infos on people, and that has happened to me at least once. But the basic principle of security culture is that if you're going to do anything risky, like don't start acting like "it's now or never" and you got nothing to lose giving out the info to ppl you don't know.

And of course if you hang out in activist milieus shouting outta your foul mouth about bombing stuff or shooting CEOs or politicians, not only the pacifist types will be dissing you as a provocateur or snitch...

Max Stirner (not verified) Sat, 04/11/2026 - 04:39

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

There is no rush, you have all the time in the world, there is no impending polycrisises, there are no sex torture dungeons on private islands, anyone that talks bold is a fed, chill, have a brewski, chillax, take a load off, FOOD NOT BOMBS STALL THIS WEEKEND!!!, stay calm.

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