Progressive Thinking

From time to time I plead the First Amendment and publish in this website original compositions, primarily essays on socio-political issues from what is sometimes termed a "progressive" perspective but what I like to call "reality."

You remember "reality," don't you? It's that bothersome thing that used to exist before the George Orwell Bush Administration. Or was it the Reagan Revolution or Watergate or Vietnam that put us "through the looking glass"?

Regardless, I just want to assure you that whether you agree or disagree with what I write, you can have complete confidence that I will tell you the truth as I know it.

Of course, that's exactly what every liar, fool, and psychotic will tell you, too.

In the "Values & Issues" archives, sorted first by general subject matter and then in reverse chronological order, you may read some of the hundreds of essays I have composed over the last twenty-five years, including Letters to the Editor that have been published in the Los Angeles Times, editorial replies that I have delivered on Los Angeles network television stations, research that I have discussed as a guest or as a guest host/producer on a Pasadena-area cable-access TV talk show/webcast or as a guest on a Los Angeles-area radio show, essays that have stirred-up considerable controversy in the newsgroup of a Democratic National Committee member, postings contributed as a guest blogger to influential websites from Los Angeles ("GordonTalk") to Pittsburgh ("Comments From Left Field"), commentaries published online in "OpEdNews" (read by over 300,000 visitors a month), works quoted by BBC News World Edition and Universal Press International and throughout the Internet, and sample columns that have received high praise from literary and political reviewers.

Although my eye is on the 21st Century, I trace my political roots back to the 19th Century, when my Great-Grandpa Henry Winter immigrated from Germany and proudly became an American and a Democrat, eventually attending Democratic national conventions in support of presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, champion of small farmers, like Great-Grandpa, and industrial workers (Let's not get into that Monkey Trial thing, OK?). Like my Great-Grandpa Winter, my Grandpa Drenkow, and my dear old Dad, I am a liberal Democrat — primarily because I believe in the fair distribution of power, wealth, and opportunity. Nothing is more just; nothing is more pragmatic; nothing is more American.

The family of my Great-Grandfather & -Grandmother Winter,

whose centennial in America was featured in the 1971 Academy Award^®-

nominated Short Subject, The Numbers Start With The River

Although no one loves our country more than our family (May Osama Bin Laden rot in Jahannam), no one hates war more than my father — ever since as a young man he witnessed the endless parade of amputees returning from Europe in World War II — or more than I — ever since as a young Baby Boomer I witnessed the endless barrage of carnage broadcast from Vietnam on TV.

President Clinton at the Baldwin Hills Mall, in the fall of 2000,

where I worked as a volunteer in cooperation with the Secret Service;

to read more of my work on political campaigns, please click here.

Moreover, having graduated with highest honors from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California at Davis, having created and published pioneering computer databases on the biological control of insects distributed worldwide as through the Entomological Society of America, and having gardened organically now for over thirty years, I am committed to protecting and enjoying the environment, our Mother Nature.

And finally, from my mother's side, I have inherited the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, which I continue, as with weekly attendance at mass. Like many American Catholics (including a family from Massachusetts oft-touched by greatness and tragedy) I disagree with certain doctrines of the Church; however, I respect and try my best to practice the central dogma, applicable to politics and all other aspects of life: Love God — to me, the spirit of truth and love — with all your heart, mind, and soul; and love thy neighbor as thyself.

I am a firm believer in "tolerance": Personally, my life would be far less tolerable — and enjoyable — without my family and friends from across the social, racial, religious, and political spectrum. Why, even some Republicans aren't all bad (just don't quote me on that).

I hope you will find my writing, philosophy, observations, and the like interesting, enlightening, agreeable, aggravating, or anything but boring. Please feel free to click the Feedback link and email me your thoughts: This is not quite a blog (I don't have time for all that) but on occasion I may post a response to one of my writings if I think it might be of interest to others.

Then again, this site is sort of like the military: I'm here to defend democracy, not necessarily practice it!

And I won't post any feedback on that.

For more information about yours truly, please visit DouglasDrenkow.com.