Having begun my professional writing career as a journalist in the mid-80s — back when we were actually respected as objective messengers of factual information the public needed to know — I’ve watched with dismay the steady bludgeoning of this once-noble profession over the past couple of decades.

Most often this pummeling has occurred at the hands of conservative commentators, aspiring politicians and other ideologues who have no historic appreciation for the vital role of a truly independent, objective media in a free society — and who think nothing of slandering this institution to further their own personal climb toward power and fame. During this same time, not coincidentally, we’ve also seen the ascent of right-wing opportunists masquerading as “journalists”.

The financial titans running Wall Street appear still to be in denial, but the devastation they wrought upon citizens both in the U.S and the rest of the world will prove to be their undoing — a self-destruct mechanism triggered when greed became so obscenely excessive that it no longer is even a matter for reasonable debate.