— Alex (@DiscipleOf_JC) March 1, 2025
56:00 CLAIRE KHAW joins to discuss the Russian Revolution.
58:00 The French Revolution
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/statue-of-liberty-pont-de-grenelle
59:00 The Edict of Expulsion 1290
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/jews-in-england-1290
Military campaigns cost money making war finance through usury necessary
Oliver Cromwell, as a key figure in the English Civil Wars and later as Lord Protector, is most notably associated with his military campaigns in Ireland during the period of 1649–1650. These campaigns were part of the broader Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which included conflicts in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Let’s unpack this with a skeptical but fair lens, considering what’s known and what’s debated.
Cromwell’s involvement in Ireland stemmed from the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), a messy tangle of rebellion, religion, and power struggles that erupted after the Irish Catholic Confederation rose against English Protestant rule in 1641. By 1649, after the execution of Charles I, England’s new Commonwealth government, with Cromwell at the helm, turned its attention to Ireland. The Confederates had allied with English Royalists, posing a threat to the fledgling Commonwealth. Cromwell was dispatched to crush this resistance and secure Ireland—both strategically and ideologically, given the deep Protestant-Catholic divide.
His main campaign kicked off in August 1649 when he landed in Dublin with a well-equipped army of around 12,000 men. Skeptics might question the traditional narrative of Cromwell as a singular genocidal bogeyman, but the evidence of his actions is hard to dismiss entirely. Two episodes stand out: the Siege of Drogheda (September 1649) and the Sack of Wexford (October 1649). At Drogheda, after the town refused to surrender, Cromwell’s forces stormed it, killing an estimated 2,500–3,000 people, including soldiers, civilians, and priests. He justified this as a “righteous judgment” against those he saw as rebels and papists, though historians debate whether the scale of slaughter was exaggerated by propaganda or understated by apologists. Wexford followed a similar pattern: a refusal to surrender, a breach of defenses, and a massacre—perhaps 2,000 dead, though numbers vary.
These weren’t “wars” in the sense of prolonged back-and-forth conflicts but rather a brutal, targeted campaign to subdue resistance. Cromwell’s forces moved efficiently, capturing key towns like Kilkenny and Clonmel by mid-1650, though Clonmel put up a stiff fight, costing him significant casualties. He left Ireland in May 1650, handing the mop-up to his lieutenants, like Henry Ireton, as the Scottish threat loomed back home. The campaign effectively broke the Confederate-Royalist alliance, paving the way for the Commonwealth’s consolidation of power and the infamous land confiscations that followed under the 1652 Act of Settlement.
Now, a fair skeptic might ask: was this Cromwell waging “wars” or just a ruthless pacification? It wasn’t a drawn-out conflict with pitched battles every season—it was a nine-month hammer blow. Some argue he was a product of his time, where sieges often ended in massacres if terms were rejected; others see a deliberate policy of terror. The primary sources—his own letters, parliamentary records, and Irish accounts like the Aphorismical Discovery—paint a picture of calculated violence, but intent remains a point of contention. What’s clear is that Cromwell didn’t wage multiple distinct “wars” in Ireland; it was one campaign, part of a larger war, with lasting scars.
So, to sum up: Cromwell’s Irish campaign of 1649–1650, marked by Drogheda and Wexford, was his primary military engagement there. It’s less a series of wars and more a single, ferocious intervention. The rest depends on how you weigh the man’s motives and the era’s norms.
1:04:00 Noahide laws
1:05:00 Tovia Singer
1:06:00 PAUL joins.
1:09:00 Kawkab
Muslim
1:11:00 White Nationalists having good Muslim wives after becoming good Muslim men worthy of good Muslim wives
Alex is non-denominational.
1:14:00 Iran and Malaysia
1:15:00 Countries with an independent foreign policy: China, Iran, Russia
1:18:00 Sykes-Picot and the Radcliffe line
1:19:00 Islam against Classical Civilisation
1:20:00 The Roman Empire lives on through the Roman Catholic Church.
1:21:00 The Chinese like their pork and gambling.
1:25:00 E Michael Jones says the Reformation was the worship of Mammon.
1:26:00 Bolshevik Revolution
1:27:00 Trotsky
1:28:00 Lenin
1:29:00 Secular Jews in Russia
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/03/02/lying-about-judeo-bolshevism/
1:30:00 Hitler wanted to ban usury.
1:31:00 Hitler did sometimes get a good press.
1:33:00 Orthodox Christianity was under the control of the Russian Empire.
Why wasn't there a Reformation in the Byzantine Empire?
GROK:
Your question about why the Byzantine Empire didn’t experience a Reformation like Western Europe’s is intriguing, and it’s worth digging into with a skeptical eye while keeping the historical pieces straight. Let’s explore it without assuming too much or overcomplicating things.
First off, the Byzantine Empire, centered in Constantinople, ran on Eastern Orthodox Christianity from the 4th century until its fall in 1453. Western Europe’s Reformation kicked off in the 16th century—think Luther nailing his theses in 1517—long after the Byzantines were dust, so timing’s a hurdle. But even if we imagine a Reformation-style upheaval during its existence, the setup was different. The West had the Catholic Church—a centralized, Rome-led behemoth with indulgences, corruption, and a chokehold on scripture that sparked rebellion. Byzantium’s Orthodox Church wasn’t quite the same beast.
The Byzantine Church was tied to the state—emperors like Justinian or Basil II weren’t just rulers; they were God’s reps on Earth, blending secular and sacred power. This “caesaropapism” meant the emperor could slap down clerical overreach, keeping the Church more a partner than a rival. Contrast that with the West, where popes and kings bickered over who got the bigger stick. No huge power gap, no simmering resentment to explode into a Luther moment. Could corruption have sparked something anyway? Sure, the Byzantine Church had its scandals—iconoclasm debates in the 8th and 9th centuries got messy—but they were state-managed, not grassroots revolts.
Then there’s theology and culture. The Orthodox leaned on tradition—liturgy, icons, Greek texts—over the West’s Latin legalism. They didn’t hoard scripture like Rome did; literacy was higher in Byzantium, and the Bible wasn’t locked behind a language wall. Monks and laity could read it, so the “let’s break free and read God’s word” fuel of the Reformation didn’t burn as hot. Plus, the Byzantines faced constant external threats—Persians, Arabs, Turks—making unity a survival tactic, not a luxury. Splitting the Church over doctrine might’ve seemed suicidal when the Seljuks were at the gates.
What about dissent? There was some—Bogomilism in the 10th century, a dualist heresy, had Reformation-esque vibes with its anti-clerical bent. But it got crushed or fizzled out, partly because the state-Church machine was too tight to let it grow. The West’s fragmented feudal mess gave reformers breathing room; Byzantium’s centralized grip didn’t. Could a printing press have changed that? Maybe, but Gutenberg came post-1453—too late for Constantinople.
So, no Reformation because: no overbearing papal monopoly to smash, tighter state-Church fusion, less theological chokehold, and a besieged empire too busy to navel-gaze.
1:37:00 Tovia Singer
1:39:00 E Michael Jones
1:41:00 Who won the Wars of the Reformation?
1:44:00 Western imperialism
Shining city on a hill
1:45:00 Are Westerners beneficiaries of Western imperialism?
I leave.
1:46:00 The Jewish dollar
Three letter agencies
1:48:00 Ukraine
1:57:00 NATO Fake Orthodox Church
2:03:00 Draft dodging
2:08:00 J D Vance
Roe v Wade
2:09:00 Catholics v Protestants in America
God's Bankers by Gerald Posner
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Bankers-History-Money-Vatican/dp/1416576592
