Vocal on Vocal

For the last three or four years, I have been publishing essays, short stories, and poems on a website called vocal.media. I can no longer remember how I stumbled across the site, but once I found it, I was hooked. I discovered a place where amateur or hobbyist writers like me could respond to site writing challenges or simply write and post to an available category, and we would receive feedback, recognition, financial awards, or nothing at all.

My initial goal was to win a writing challenge. The prizes range from $200 to $600 per contest, and I submitted one or two works that I believed stood a chance. Then I saw my competition. Ha! I returned to my own lane with a healthy dose of humble pie.

I didn’t stop contributing to writing challenges, but I stopped expecting to win. Instead, I focused on enjoying the process. Another writer ran his own challenges for a time, and I won one of those. The prize was peanuts by comparison, but the prestige of winning outshone the monetary gain. Then, I discovered that Vocal awards monthly winners of another type: Top Story by category.

On an occasion when I wrote about a friend dying unexpectedly, I was shocked to open the website a day later and find my essay labeled “Top Story” by the editors. I had submitted my piece to the Men category and tagged it for grief, loss, and friendship, and the Vocal Media editors decided it deserved the recognition and $5 award for top story for that month. All I did was write what was on my heart.

I have earned at least one more Top Story since then, and I hope to earn more, not because I esteem my writing so highly, but because I cannot withdraw my earnings from their site until they reach at least $20. Hahaha.

However, not everything I find on Vocal is pleasant. There are some writers whose material has interested me, so I’ve followed them for a year or two. Two of them, in particular, are prolific, to put it mildly. Of those, one has become noticeably political in the past year, and there is no moderation in his mind. He is slow to listen, quick to speak, and he rushes to judgment. Yesterday, I stopped following his account. It became more than I needed to ingest.

He is articulate, but he is part of a worldview that I find clouded with the smoke of projection. Everything that his Party has done in recent years by way of media propagandism, denying freedom of speech to those who disagree, arresting political opponents, defrauding the American taxpayers out of billions of dollars to the benefit of illegal immigrants, and cheating victims of violent crimes at the hands of illegal immigrants by refusing to prosecute the offenders, is now overlooked. Instead, he points his finger at those who try to bring back law and order, and he excuses the lawless.

The very tyranny that he decries is, in fact, the worldview he espouses. He is not alone on Vocal. In truth, I am in the minority there. To be vocal on Vocal is risky, for the editors walk with him. I read a poem by another writer yesterday, and this is what I said in response:

“There is tyranny in America. I see it every day. It’s on social media. It’s in the news. It clutters the writing sites. Affirmations of tyranny flood comment sections. “Tyranny! Fascism! No Kings! Down with Dictators!” Anguished shouts and tears of fear pour forth in waves.

“The irony is that the loudest voices are the ones committing the tyranny.

“In 2020, our current Senate Minority Leader condemned President Trump for not removing the then-dictator of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, from power. In 2024, the Democrat Party put a 24 million dollar bounty on the head of Nicholas Maduro, demanding that someone remove him from office. They declared that he “was not the legitimate president” of Venezuela. When President Trump removed Maduro from power a couple of weeks ago, that same politician and his fellow Democrats condemned Trump for doing it. Only Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania stood up to his fellow Dems to point out their hypocrisy, but to no avail. Because it was Trump who did it, they refused to say it was a good move.

“You see the world through the filter of left-wing media, but you express yourself with skill.

“Two examples of what I mean about the filter I believe you use are the reason for removing Maduro and the tragic death of the woman in Minneapolis.

“The removal of Maduro has less to do with the so-called stealing of Venezuela’s resources and much more to do with preventing rival nations from accessing them. China, for example, has relied heavily on Venezuelan oil to prop up its plans to overthrow Taiwan violently. Maduro’s cooperation with China has been removed, and China has had to back away from those plans. If you look beyond the limited view of the American media, you can begin seeing the long game of what an America-first politician and globalist businessman Donald Trump is playing. It’s very rare to have a president who holds both positions simultaneously. He sees the long game better than any president since Teddy Roosevelt, but while the American media — left and right — waxes eloquent about national and local politics, he’s looking to put this country on a solid footing for the next hundred years.

“Secondly, the tragic shooting in Minneapolis. As the footage has revealed, the woman who “sat in her car” had actually been told to exit her car and refused, and then she hit the gas and drove over the officer, who then shot her in self-defense. I know that you may disagree with his actions at all points, but if I break into your home and attack you with a machete, you are justified in defending yourself with anything and everything, especially if you have warned me to stop and get out. Assault with a deadly weapon is FA. Self-defense is FO. Crude way to say it, perhaps, but it’s to the point. She was not required to be there. She should not have been there. Interfering with law enforcement NEVER ends well. My classes are full of students who have learned that lesson.

“The tyranny in America is not coming from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It’s not coming from the Trump administration. The tyranny in America is coming from everyone who is refusing to recognize that laws must be obeyed, that law enforcement must not be interfered with, and that allowing ten million illegal immigrants into America during the Biden administration and giving them taxpayer-funded housing, EBT, healthcare, jobs, CDLs, and turning a blind eye to their r@pes, m*rders, drunk driving, and all the rest, is okay and should be tolerated. That is tyranny.”

I considered submitting this as its own essay, but I decided against it. Vocal does not need another rant. I’ll keep mine to my own site. I went to the author’s page today to copy and paste this, and he thanked me for “being moved enough to respond” to his poem. I don’t and won’t follow this author, but at least he has more intellectual honesty than the first fellow.

I am not an admirer of Donald Trump, the man. He is deeply flawed. However, I have observed too many instances of his interest in America’s long-term success to believe that he is only out for himself as president. As a businessman, he must act as a globalist, but as president, he puts this country first. That provides him with better strategic thinking than any other American politician in recent history, and when Americans get over who he is, they, too, can see how he is maneuvering this country for a bright future. Unfortunately, most current Representatives and Senators of both parties are in the job for themselves and the money the lobbyists provide.

Between the corruption of Congress and the unreasonable hatred of Donald Trump by too many deluded Americans, tyranny has come to America through the Democrat Party and the Socialists they have enabled to immigrate illegally. God have mercy on America, for He is our only hope.