In middle school, when it was too cold outside, my friends and I would find entertainment with a card game during recess. Our favorite game to play was Bullshit. The game provided an outlet where we could freely lie and deceive in the sake of winning, essentially, one-up one another.

But as I grow older and survey my surroundings, it seems that my generation is continually playing a game of Bullshit. Our parents lived in an age when news outlets served as the herald of undisputed truth. We, however, have grown up in an era where information must be taken with a grain of salt. As gossip is continually packaged and spun to make news, we are forced to consort other avenues in the pursuit for truth.

Much of my generation, though, is reluctant to embark on this journey. Complacent in relying on parents to dictate our lives, we don’t question established mores. Instead we spend our time struggling with our self-inflicted need to measure up to our peers. We are a generation that is more concerned with appearing to have figured it all out, rather than actually doing so. We lack the necessary perspective to decipher what is true and, consequentially, what is real.

It is perspective, no matter how right or wrong, that paints many different portraits of truth and reality from which we can freely pick and choose. Without perspective, we refrain from questioning the hallow columns holding up the society in which we live. Instead, we build to it by adding layers of superficiality through narrow perceptions that remain unquestioned. Without a clear idea of what makes up truth and reality, however, we walk around wearing a shroud of cynicism.

And the Internet only encourages and intensifies this shallow world. Despite our skepticism and discontent for the world around us, though, we’ve become a new, extreme set of self-absorbed egomaniacs. Online social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, have made it easier than ever to draw attention to every petty detail of life via updated profile or uploaded picture. Life is instantly validated with every new endeavor alerted to our social network via News Feed.

This quick and easy process of bragging has increased selfishness while allowing us to further evade perspective. It was once necessary to physically interact with others in order to boast. The Internet, though, has made this connection process obsolete. At least when a friend told of a new job or boyfriend in person, subtle body language could justify or negate our innate skepticism. Now, through the powers of technology, a simple congratulatory wall posting hides an ever-growing desire to yell bullshit.

Julia Pflaum

Donna Jackson, president of Take Back Our Streets — a Newark, New Jersey, community-based organization — led a protest in early August outside City Hall, calling on its mayor, Cory Booker, to resign over the brutal murders of three college students and the wounding of another. Iofemi Hightower, 20; Dashon Harvey, 20; and Terrance Aeriel, 18, were gunned down outside a Newark elementary school. Aerial’s sister, Natasha, survived — with a gunshot wound to the head.

Jackson’s reaction is indicative of a common problem among people living in impoverished and violent neighborhoods: the blame game, which is all too convenient and predictable in times of crisis. Amid all the grief, shock, and anger after these killings, I think this tragedy should be used as a time for self-reflection, which is something people tend to shy away from when hit by a devastating event in their community.

I am dismayed by the inability of people, like Ms. Jackson, who refuse to address the crux of a problem. There is a breakdown in family values and morality in our community. I say this not because I am a conservative, which I am not. I say this because I grew up in a loving and supportive household with two parents, who also came from nuclear families. I magnify this point not to criticize single-parent households but to advocate for success and opportunities that I don’t think are as easily achieved when one adult is faced with rearing children under despondent conditions. Many citizens of Newark face this reality on a daily basis.

There are too many uneducated and dysfunctional teenagers and adults who are having children they cannot possibly rear successfully. Although we know that at least one of the suspects in this case is an illegal immigrant with previous indictments, I venture to guess that the suspect was from an unstable and hopeless environment.

We have a virus growing. It takes the form of babies out of wedlock, poor academic achievement, and low self-esteem. We are not being truthful with ourselves if we think the resignation of a mayor will yield a lower crime rate. If children were raised to stay in school, stay away from guns and drug activity, we would have a much higher success record when it comes to the war on crime.

Yes, politicians are responsible for making sure neighborhoods are adequately policed and schools remain safe. But parents must be present in their children’s lives at all times, so they don’t fall prey to the streets. If Ms. Jackson wants to lead a protest, I encourage her to protest against the inactions of incompetent, deadbeat parents.

—Alexis Clark / New York

Alexis Clark

Every holiday season, there are calendars to be sold as presents full of the asinine things our president has said. We think they’re funny, doubt he said some things, and roll our eyes at others. Some of us have read quotes that infuriated us. But Bush’s remarks on Wednesday comparing Vietnam to Iraq topped them all in absurdity.

To begin, the brains behind this pathetic PR tactic: "Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group, plans to launch a $15 million advertising campaign in 20 states today. The group’s spokesman, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, says the goal is to tell people that the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is working" (USA Today). Now check out the Salon article about Fleischer and Freedom’s Watch: …"the manipulative style of the Freedom’s Watch ads — and the apparent decision to air them against wavering Republicans — signals desperation, not strength." The perfect description of Bush talking about Vietnam as if he’s turned his head to history, blocked his ears, and chanted, "I’m not listening, la la la la."

The highlights:

"Bush said that like World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, the war in Iraq was an ‘ideological struggle’ as he again depicted the conflict as part of the broader U.S. ‘war on terror.’" (Yahoo News) 

"In a speech to army veterans in Kansas City, Mr. Bush invoked one of America’s biggest military disasters in suppport of keeping troops in Iraq…He said that there had been lots of critics of U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the time — mentioning, among others, Graham Greene and a Washington Post columnist — and implying that, with the benefit of hindsight, they were wrong, just as critics of the Iraq war will later be seen to be misguided." (The Guardian UK)

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left…Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms, like ‘boat people,’ ‘reeducation camps,’ and ‘killing fields.’" (Yahoo News)

Ironic how the war in Iraq has left us with a vocabulary that includes Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Now here is what the many prestigious historians and experts had to say: 

"Vietnam historian Stanley Karnow said Bush is reaching for historical analogies that don’t track. He said, ‘Vietnam was not a bunch of sectarian groups fighting each other,’ as in Iraq. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge toppled a U.S.-backed government." (USA Today)

"Robert Dallek, author of several celebrated biographies of recent U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, told the Los Angeles Times: ‘It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president.’

‘We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,’ he said.

‘What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,’ he continued. ‘We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.’

The New York Times also talked to Dallek, who pointed out that the slaughters of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia ‘was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilized that country.’

…The Washington Post quoted Steven Smith, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations: ‘The president emphasized the violence in the wake of American withdrawal from Vietnam. But this happened because the United States left too late, not too early. It was the expansion of the war that opened the door to Pol Pot and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The longer you stay the worse it gets.’" (Editor & Publisher)

"’It is undoubtedly true that America’s failure in Vietnam led to catastrophic consequences in the region, especially in Cambodia,’ said David Hendrickson, a specialist on the history of American foreign policy at Colorado College. ‘But there are a couple of further points that need weighing,’ he added. ‘One is that the Khmer Rouge would never have come to power in the absence of the war in Vietnam — this dark force arose out of the circumstances of the war, was in a deep sense created by the war. The same thing has happened in the Middle East today. Foreign occupation of Iraq has created far more terrorists than it has deterred.’" (International Herald Tribune)

"Historians have cited the U.S. intervention and bombing campaign (spanning 1965-1973) as a significant factor leading to increased support of the Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. Historian Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen have used a combination of sophisticated satellite mapping, recently unclassified data about the extent of bombing activities, and peasant testimony to argue that there was a strong correlation between villages targeted by U.S. bombing and recruitment of peasants by the Khmer Rouge. Kiernan and Owen argue that ‘Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began.’ In his study of Pol Pot’s rise to power, Kiernan argues that ‘Pol Pot’s revolution would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilisation of Cambodia’ and that the U.S. carpet bombing ‘was probably the most significant factor in Pol Pot’s rise.’" (Wikipedia entry for Khmer Rouge) 

In an article in the Walrus Magazine, Kiernan and Taylor Owen wrote that recent evidence reveals that Cambodia was bombed by the U.S. far more heavily than previously believed. They conclude that ‘the impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide.’" (Wikpedia entry for Ben Kiernan)

Bush, Sr. in 1991 on invading Iraq: "Trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible…We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq…there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that had hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." (Originally from the memoir, A World Transformed, by George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft. Quoted in What We’ve Lost by Graydon Carter)

And finally, in a video that surfaced this week on YouTube, Dick Cheney echoes the previous remarks exactly. He even uses the word "quagmire."

Usually our president’s silly remarks are spontaneous, unplanned. But this was a prepared speech. There had to be speech writers involved, drafts, and revisions. Wasn’t there anyone along the way, however lowly the positions, who read it and said, "Um, hold the phone"? Or have they all lost their minds along with their credibility?

Jennifer Leblanc