About

Prior to the Revolutionary War

there was an elusive and mysterious figure, whether male or female no one now knows, who published a series of pamphlets called “The Alarm,” which railed against the abuses increasingly being perpetrated upon the American colonists by King George of Britain and his coterie of conservatives and corporatists. The pamphlets, published in New York and distributed throughout the colonies, were signed by someone named “Rusticus.”

Rusticus directed particular fire toward a corporation, of which King George (and the “father of modern conservatism” Edmund Burke) held shares, the East India Company. Awarded special privileges and powers, the East India Company dominated commerce throughout the British Empire. In the American colonies, the East India Company deigned to obliterate any and all competition. Rusticus was one of the voices that early on called for resistance to this violation of what many liberal thinkers were now considering their “inalienable rights.”

Rusticus accused King George, his ministers and the corporation of “enslaving America.” Rusticus wrote, “How little they regard the Laws of Nature, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men.”

Rusticus leveled the broadside that reverberates even today with the absolute greed, cronyism and corruption we have seen from conservative politicians and corporate executives: “They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes, and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. The Revenues of Mighty Kingdoms have centered in their Coffers. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice…”