Rebellion

During the quasi-war with France, the Federalists enlarged the army and placed Alexander Hamilton at its operational center.

Federal troops had already enforced national authority during the Whiskey Rebellion and Fraser's Rebellion, both rooted in resistance to taxation.

Republicans saw a vicious circle.

Federal taxes paid for soldiers.

George

R. R. Martin knows this kind of story is ripe with opportunity, and he's used it to masterful effect with the Blackfire Rebellions.

In this case, there's more than a parent and child seeking revenge, more than a family carrying on a tradition.

In a sense, it's an entire army commanded by this family.

He's given us a scenario where plans set in motion many generations ago are still playing out now, though the original plotters are long dead, and the current plotters largely unaware of how much they are dancing to the tunes set by their predecessors.

How it all got to this point is an awesome story, and we're here to tell it to you.

The Golden Company exists because of the Blackfyre Rebellions, and they're our focus today.

Yet only a part of it all.

During the quasi-war with France, the Federalists enlarged the army and placed Alexander Hamilton at its operational center.

Federal troops had already enforced national authority during the Whiskey Rebellion and Fraser's Rebellion, both rooted in resistance to taxation.

Republicans saw a vicious circle.

Federal taxes paid for soldiers.

So there was a growing Protestant population in Maryland.

And then I think it was, I'm looking on my computer, it says it was a Protestant revolution of 1689 called Coode's Rebellion.

It sparked the glorious revolution in England that deposed the Catholic King James II, et cetera.

You can look up more of this and see the connection, but it was in that timeframe when they in Maryland said, you know what? In England, they're going back Protestant.

Uprising, recorded on October 26th, 2026.

Across Europe, angry citizens, tired of the rule of oligarchy and authoritarian, is under a guise of democracy, and the Republic has been in revolt.

The cost of living, the cost of education, the cost of fuel, and other issues of everyday necessities at the root of the discontent.

They followed on from similar events in Bristol the year before, and the summer of 81 brought further uprisings across England, including in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

It was a critical moment in the movement for social justice in Britain leading to landmark recommendations for police reform and local regeneration policies as well as, crucially, a new sense of Black British empowerment.

A Mile In My Shoes 81 Uprisings brings together stories from people who were there at the time and who felt the reverberations through homes, streets and communities across the country in ways we all still live with today.

Each storyteller has donated a pair of their shoes, which you're invited to step into for an empathic journey that might change how you see the world.

Beverly.

And, you know, it wasn't every police officer that I worked with that I liked, but, you know, we are human beings.

I understand, and there's always going to be an argument about whether people like the police or not, but we need some kind of law and order.

A Mile in My Shoes 81 Uprisings was produced by the Empathy Museum and created with 81 acts of exuberant defiance and the Abele Initiative.

And his theory, and I think Mamdani is correct when he describes the theory, was that a dominant establishment establishes institutions that whether a person is consciously Realizing this or not socializes you to the regime, to the establishment regime.

And therefore, any successful – Uprising, any successful revolt to overthrow the establishment can't just overthrow the establishment.

You have to rip out root and branch these institutions.

And the idea is that the uprising itself develops the consciousness of the new movement.