It and Essence

Posted on October 3rd 2013

The Altered 'White': From Bad to Good in Breaking Bad

By Alex Linder

[ The following is from a forum thread posting. ]


Going to add my thoughts on Breaking Bad, as they occur. This show, along with Mad Men, Sopranos and The Wire, is commonly cited by the controlled media as one of the best shows ever made, and all four prove we're living in a Golden Age of television.

Why talk about these shows? They've been seen by millions, thus offering a common reference point as we talk with others. Same reason VNN used to run brief, witty movie reviews by Mark Rivers, before he burned out after about 150.

I have read a middling amount of analysis of Breaking Bad. Pretty much the usual - everyone tries to spin it his own way, whether right-wing christian, like Coulter above, or more commonly to the left. I'll try my own view, which is not so much WN as related to being a white MAN, and what that's about. Loyalty, one's family, competence, all those good things. BB's not simply about morality, let alone a morality play. Simpleton reads, such as Coulter offers above, pander to the middle-class christian nibblerabbits, but I'll analyze it from an adult point of view.

The show is the brainchild of Vince Gilligan, who is a Southerner, from Richmond, Virginia. Of course, his path to film leads through New York. He showed talent along the way, and eventually was connected to the guy who created X-Files, Chris Carter. He wrote a good many X-Files episodes himself. Gilligan is an Aryan. He calls himself agnostic. No apparent religious background, or at least nothing uncommon, from what I could find in a brief search. He says his girlfriend's belief has become his own mantra: "I'd like to believe there's a heaven, but I can't NOT believe there's a hell." So, he's basically a legacy christian product, with a sort of half-assed belief in karma. Pretty similar to most people these days, actually.

Ok, as Greece calls, I'll nail my thesis. Less of a thesis than the question that interests me most. I didn't watch this show along the way. The jews get no cable money from me. But after hearing people talk about the show for years, and finding the premise interesting, I discovered the entire series online and watched it over a couple weeks.

Creator Gilligan expressly states that what interests him is the character changing from good guy to bad guy, from protagonist to antagonist, which he says characters almost never do in conventional tv. General discussions run along these lines, following the main character Walter White's supposed moral decline from modest, honest, competent, docile high-school chemistry teacher into empire-building meth chef. What interests me is the extent to which White's badness, his supposed moral evil, is simply his evolution through his own decisions and will into a real man - a powerful, loyal, competent, decisive agent.

This is not a political show by any means. There is far less to tease out re our White Nationalist cause than one would find in most tv or cable shows, or movies - at least so far as the racial part. But as I've said many times, our cause is not just about the white in white man, but about the man in white man. This show very directly concerns manliness, and in these concerns bears directly on our cause. As I've also said before, too many White Nationalists haven't given any thought to what a white man actually is. They regard it as self evident, but it isn't. I'll grind my own axes along the way, as Coulter does above. Most of White's evil is simply a man dealing rationally and effectively with the problems that arise in an illegal business where the high stakes involve dangerous competition.

Walter White - start with the name. Can't spell Walter without alter. Altering is what the show is about. White starts out white, but ends up Black. That's the conventional read. I don't see it that way. Rather, changed circumstances brought out what had always been there, but never before had been called upon. White's real but latent nature was simply triggered into action by his finding out he's going to die soon due to lung cancer. He becomes what he has always been - on the verge of being no more. That's all. White changes from passive to decisive. In the world we live in in 2013, virtually any decisiveness or masculinity not channeled into war for Israel, or defending innocent female victims against some other evil man, 'deadbeat dad' or 'wifebeater,' is looked on as bad and dangerous in itself. Masculinity is frowned on by the powers that be. Masculine activity and energy is turned into ADD among youth, then it becomes abuse, verbal or physical, when the man is a young adult, and ends in court, with his kids taken away, and 'deadbeat dad' status stamped on his forehead the minute he can't fork over the outrageous sums the court demands he pays the always innocent always victimized always abused woman.

Deep life truth, you might learn at your own cost, as many have: no one believes, truly believes, women are capable of taking responsibility for anything. That's why they are never really held accountable for anything, informally or formally. Feminists and traditional women are alike on this point. Don't be fooled by words! Reality is ganz anders.

A few features of Breaking Bad deserve special mention.

- unlike in Dexter or Sopranos, the title sequence and recaps are extremely brief. This is to someone's great credit. All future showmakers should follow the 30-second rule.

- second great achievement of Gilligan is his refusal to use music excessively the way most do, as a cheap mood shifter or transition or montage showing development. Music is used sparingly, there is no need for its cheap drama when the show has the real thing. Again, other showmakers should take note. Music is used by most moviemakers and tvmakers as the filmic equivalent of high-fructose corn syrup.

- third - similar to second, the wonderful lack of dream sequences. Another cheap, awful device that Gilligan avoids entirely, just wonderful. All should copy him. As Goethe says, the master shows himself by his limitations. Gilligant avoids cheap resorts. He has real art, hence doesn't need them.

- fourth - it has been said this film shows the consequences of actions. That is true. But it is easy and wrong to view this as "getting what he/they deserved" or any other cheap moralism. Far more, this series is neutral on that stuff, and that means its consequences are simply what actually tends to happen when you get into this sort of business. I never once get the sense Gilligan is making moral points, he's telling a story. You can infer lessons, but they're not necessarily the ones the chrissy obviousists insist on. Yeah, no shit, when you get involved in high stakes poker, there will be days you lose a lot of money. When you get involved in high-stakes drug operations, you can lose not only money but your life. No shit. Who doesn't know that? There's no moral lesson there, there's simple fact. And of course, the christian never considers the other side. Walter enjoys the free play of his talents and personality, and builds up a hell of stake for his progeny. A simple christian "that's immoral!" doesn't make those facts go away. In short, meth has an upside. The christian is too much of a simpleton to see it, and if he could, he'd be too cowardly to acknowledge it. Christians are despicable; their cult, devolutionary.

- fifth - This series shows that real men act, they don't blather. Most of the non-women in this movie are spare with words. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie. By same token, never speak when you can use a look, raise an eyebrow. Deeds, not words. No excuses, no tears. Those belong to the world of women and she-males, such as christian technical males are supposed to become, to be 'good.'

Good scene: I particularly liked the talking pillow episode. In this bit, White's extended family are discussing what he should do in light of his diagnosis with lung cancer. Should he get chemo, or not, or what? The wife who called this discussion, and has the idea of the talking pillow (the one with the pillow talks, the others listen), has the fixed idea that he must undergo chemo. Chemo is painful and debilitating and fails more often than it succeeds. There are reasons one might choose not to go that route. The wife wants Walter to get chemo, and the talking session is supposed to reinforce that view, under false banner of free and honest discussion. But when her sister gets the pillow, her sister being a radiation tech, she says what I say above, and says that Walter's decision to avoid chemo is perfectly rational. At which point the wife, Skyler, goes nuts. Up to that point she's been getting everyone else to stick to the rules, to shut up when they don't have the pillow, and listen to the speaker. But the minute her sister starts saying something she disagrees with, why, the rules fly right out the window and she gets very angry. I thought this was the single best scene in the show, a real demonstration of the weak-mindedness and hypocrisy of the average woman. It was truly funny, too.

But in the end, Walter defers to his wife and gets the chemo. This brings out another interesting aspect to the show, the question of the natural relation between men and women. The show ran five seasons. Through about three of them, Walter spends the time he's not cooking meth trying to hide what he's doing from his wife. She figures something is up, but won't trust him to do what is right, she keeps picking at it and trying to get him to reveal things. He endlessly placates her but she is never satisfied. All the discussions about this show have White as the bad guy, and they dislike his wife for being a nagger. To me, the larger issue is the relation between man and wife, or husband and wife as they always say these days in televised wedding ceremonies, real or fictional. Were things truly not better when women just shut up and trusted men? Communication is overrated. Most of it is just internal problems that don't do anything but weigh others down. Most communication is for one's own emotional benefit, not for the benefit of the other person.

This show is about men and their loyalties. Women just aren't really relevant to anything. They are repeaters, seedbeds. No one needs the garden to have opinions, just grow the food. Women are along for the ride, sexually and psychologically. They suffer, they enjoy - best said, best summed, things happen to them. Things usually meaning men. Very seldom do they initiate, beyond manipulations they think they can get away with. They simply aren't interesting, from a dramatic standpoint.

Now let's get to the heart of it. White is evil. He suffers the consequences of his evil choices. This is the way the christian retard wants to look at White - and at everything. The funny thing about Christian morality is that it's completely selective. It never applies to the christian's own actions. We back Israel, Israel provides guns and weapons to subsets of Muslims to overthrow democratic governments, or at least stable ones, in the name of democracy. These muslims chop people's heads off, eat their internal organs. Has the christian done evil? Hell, no! It's very formulaic with these adult children. There are never any consequences to supporting Israel, which is always the right thing to do. If you're on the side of Good, you can do whatever evil you want. Then the next minute the conservative justifying pro-Israel cannibalism turns around and browbeats liberals for their moral relativism! No one serious takes christianity seriously except as a source of fodder or laughter or danger. Christendom is kind of like a fish tank full of swimming idiots, except the rest of us real humans have to live among them.

Here's a non-juvenile hence non-christian analysis.

First, to judge White, you have to decide whether making and selling meth is immoral per se. Most say yes. I say no. Given what meth does to the body, it's the user who is immoral or moral, if you believe that destroying your physical being is immoral. To me, that's not an interesting question. Use meth, you'll destroy yourself physically, as far as I know, but that's your business.

White makes the purest and finest meth anyone has seen. That's manly, that competence. He takes pride in the purity of his product. So already the christian crybabies doubly hate and fear him! He's not only doing something immoral, he's doing it well. Oh, he's going to hell for sure. Again, juvenile is the only way to regard christians when it comes to their judgments.

White 'n' crew's actions are far more usefully analyzed economically, as a study in black markets rather than black hearts. When a product or service is illegal, business disputes can't be settled in court. They have to be fought out, outside the law. This has many implications. If there's serious competition for marketshare, then the businessmen must needs become experts in self-defense as well as their actual product. Or at least know where to hire the talent. All this White learns along the way - and as he survives until the end, outlasting many more experienced and seemingly tougher men, he can be said truly to win. He proved his great competence at every step along the way. Real men are competent. Masters of their domain, as Seinfeld expressed it. White is the master of his domain. He not only produces the best meth the world has ever seen, or at the the world around Albuquerque, he is able to grow and protect his budding empire, even under the most difficult and hair-raising conditions. Time after time his newfound toughness, his brains and his cunning see him out on top. That's impressive. He's a man in full. The meth brought it out of him. All these talents he always possessed but never used, trapped in a boring job with a boring woman.

The christian lunatic, slurping away at his thumb, sees White's death in the final episode as proof he was wrong all along, and so he is now suffering for his sins. But we must judge White by his stated goal. Knowing he was going to die fairly soon from cancer, his goal was to make enough to see his family through the years he wouldn't be there to provide. He undeniably achieves this. Ten million dollars will go to his family, and through channels they will be forced to accept without question. White succeeded. He made the most of his situation. He achieved what he set out to achieve. What could be manlier than that?

Basically what it comes down to is this: the universe has no ultimate point. At least not one it discloses to anyone. The christ lunatics disagree, as do 1000 other absurd cults, but they're ridiculous and wrong. There is no point except the ideal you choose to live by. Christianity is an ugly ideal, one of the most repugnant ideas ever come up with - the idea that men should be weak, sheeplike, passive and gelded, and that anything else is immoral and evil. Crissies will deny that description, but it fits their cult perfectly. Even in the rare cases they muster the courage to defend their own kind, they end up doing something insane. One thinks of Codreanu's cadres carrying out an action against the jews, then turning themselves in to the authorities to be tortured and murdered. Absolutely insane. Christians think winning is a sin. Theirs is essentialy a cult for losers, and losers like company. Together, these pygmies can drag down many a real man.

They say White is an evil man. I say White is a man. And it's men they think are evil.

That, in a nutshell, is my read. And that is the relevance the themes of Breaking Bad have to our cause: it's about what it is to be a man, a white man.

Too many WN, even, want to deny manliness in our cause, because they conceive of white men as ants to be farmed by a white government. They want to make government the sole source of all the various arrangements men need to make in their own lives, whether through the economy or anywhere else. Our cause is collective racial defense, not dictating to white MEN how they live their lives. That road leads to the same infantilization we see now, where a man taking control of his life and his business is seen by most people as 'evil.' If white men aren't capable of running their own lives, then our cause has no meaning. Our point is not that white men are so incompetent and helpless they need a dictator to make their most basic decisions, it's that only in a white context can they flourish. And providing a white context is not something individual white men can create by themselves, it requires collective effort.

It doesn't even interest me, the argument around the morality of meth. I think meth, on the whole, is good for Whites, because it's eugenic. Meth use weeds out the serious users in pretty short order. They don't reproduce. They just die. White produced higher quality meth than any of his competitors could, and for that he earned and deserves respect. He's a good businessman. He provides the best quality product for his customers. That they choose to use it is their business. They must take responsibility for that. He has kept up his end of the bargain. I truly don't accept any other way of looking at it.

The people who plague society are not the meth users and producers but the cops. The cops can't sell anyone their services, they have to force them on them at gunpoint. The real failure of this show is portraying the DEA and its people as the good guys.

But now we get into petty politics. A lot of the leftists want to spin this show that this poower little teacher had to turn to meth to pay his hospital bills because, you know, teachers are SO underfunded. This is the opposite of the truth. Federal and state jobs pay much better benefits than most private companies can afford to, due to taxes. The government is greedy. Not business. Government. The media are always on the side of the state, always blaming business for problems caused by government. Even as the US has been in a recession, the size of government keeps growing. We now have a society in which people don't dream of starting their own businesses, and serving their fellow citizens, they dream of getting a government job with good benefits. This is socialism. This is the socialist mindset. It sucks. It's completely and utterly wrong and infantilizing and unAmerican. Worst of all, it's anti-White.

Walter White didn't pule and whine and whimper and cry and pray about having cancer, he altered his thinking and behavior to get the money he needed. For his strength and power and knowledge and cunning he is rewarded by the 'good' little weak people by being called evil. And at the end, when he admits he enjoyed his wild meth ride, why, he is "selfish." He didn't do it for his family, he did it for himself! Yet his family benefits just the same. How about that? Good intentions aren't enough. White, like a man, produced results. That's one reason the seedless grapes called christians hate and fear him and his example. I wouldn't call on a christian to identify an oak tree, let alone good and evil. Would you?

Christianity is in eternal war with manliness, which is why I summed it up in an epigram: you can be a man or a christian - not both.

There's nothing wrong with being a man - except to a christian. They will tolerate men as women, men as sheep, but never men as men. That would be immoral. That will lead to hell.

This is the silly cult that took over our race? Tall about something one can feel legitimate shame and guilt over!

Let us end this saddest of sicko cults before it ends us. What do you say, white man?

Now let's look at Coulter's thoughts.

Breaking Bad has nothing christian about it, either intentionally or by implication. Things happen that tendentious scrawny scolds can moralize about, but that's on them, that's not from Gilligan. All he believes or hopes is that people who do bad things should be punished for it, or what does the universe mean? That's a common if silly view. But White doesn't suffer anything for what he does beyond what is logically predictable, or statistically likely. Any belief there's some greater meaning or ultimate punishment must be supplied externally, from the head of the watcher, because it's not in the show.

Right-wingers like Coulter object to criminals blaming society for their crimes, but then they turn around and claim that the fictional god named jesus can absolve people of their responsibility for 'sins' all parties agree they committed! Which is it, Apple Annie? How can someone else take responsibility for your sins? He can't. Someone else can no more absolve your sins than lift weights and run laps for you. You can't have it both ways, chrissy paralogicians, though you never stop trying. Shut your mouths, cap your pens, quit embarrassing yourselves.

Jesse disliked therapy precisely because accepted responsibility for his actions, and felt remorse for what he had done - and he hated what the instructor was trying to teach, that you must accept yourself, destructive actions and all. Should everything just be accepted? Jesse says no. He finally gets the group leader to admit that he doesn't tolerate Jesse's original reason for attending the sessions - to sell meth to the recovering addicts. So there is somewhere to draw the line. Even the all-accepting therapist has something he won't accept or tolerate.

That's largely the message of the show - being a man is about what you will and won't tolerate. The bible has one set of answers, but there are infinite numbers of others. Jesse never forgave himself for things that he did. There is no indication of that, at least. Coulter is simply forcing him into her ideological mold. He returns to cooking meth. Mayhem, murder and disaster ensue. Not because cooking meth is inherently evil, but because it's illegal. This is the weakness of seeing everything as a morality play, it blinds you to simple, factual reality. Jesse never forgave himself for getting his girlfriend back on the drugs she had gotten away from, and why should he? Of course, she is guilty too, more than he is, in fact, but as I said above, no one really believes women are capable of independent action, so Jesse manfully if inaccurately assumes responsibility for her death. Why should he forgive himself? He doesn't have to obsess about it, but neither should he forgive himself. Life is heavier than christian helium. Reality has no "get out of jail free card," only christianity, selling false hope to true dopes.

You know, I spent my entire youth growing up reading conservatives. Reading their warnings against moral relativism. But moral relativism is real. Human societies always have a bad and a good, but they undeniably vary somewhat by time and place. Within different contexts morality is real enough, useful enough, necessary enough, just to give society some driving lanes, but to call it absolute? No. There is no indication anywhere morality is absolute. Not by any ordinary evidential standard.

Here's the only moral absolute, and no philosopher ever has or will come up with anything to gainsay it.

Not a single man alive had any say in his own creation. Having never consented even to his own existence, he is under absolutely no obligation to any man or any set of rules.

THAT is absolute. No one ever can or will produce a morality as firmly grounded as that one.

You owe no one anything. That's the starting point. Such obligations and commitments and loyalties as you choose to take on SUBSEQUENTLY are your business. But you didn't sign any papers or agreements before you were born, so no one can reasonably hold you to anything. Morality is simply a human construction, made to make people feel comfortable with what's going on. In absolute terms it is absolutely meaningless, and you can take that to the bank.

Here's the question that confounds the christian puerile like Coulter, whining about moral relativism. If the lack of absolute morality means that everything is permitted, then how can you deny that Jesus dying for your sins results in the exact same thing? If everything I do can be forgiven, then why shouldn't I do exactly what I damn well please?

Coulter says it herself: it doesn't matter what you did (or DO), Jesus died for your sins. You are forgiven. How is that conservative religious view not the same thing in different words as the liberal view?

God does not exist - everything is permitted. - liberal relativism

Jesus forgives all sins - everything is permitted. - conservative relativism

Believe either one, you end up the same damn place!

Here's the reality: morality is not weaker for being relative, nor is it made stronger by advancing false claims that it is absolute.

If Jesus forgives all sins, then everything is permitted. That's the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from Coulter's view, which is liberalism by another name. A man's actions bear no real weight, since all men are sinners, as the christian claims, and all sins are forgiven, as the christian also claims. That's the christian world - it's for babies, namby-pampies and cowards. In a man's world, like the world Walter White and Jesse Pinkman inhabit, the world of the illegal meth business, a man's words and actions are deadly serious things, with consequences that cannot be avoided. There are no takebacks, no do-overs, no didn't-mean-its, no get-out-of-jail-frees. No Mulligans in Gilligan's island. In christian's world, nothing has any weight, ultimately, for all the high and mighty claims about absolutes and higher morality. That's the essential irony and silliness and puerility of the cult's doctrines.

One can only laugh at this. No matter what Skyler did, it's child's play to find a christian verse justifying it. I thought "the greatest of these is love." And women are supposed to be obedient to their husbands. And we're supposed to be our brother's keeper" - but not our husband's?

You see how silly this is. Bandying bible verses is a mug's game.

Not to mention, Coulter is factually wrong. Or lying. I don't know which. But Skyler did leave her husband. Did begin the process to file for divorce. Did move the kids out of the house. It was Walter who cleverly forced his way back into his own place, surviving her cop call to throw him out. Only much later did she come back around. Just as she did in her book about communism, Coulter promotes or suppresses whatever she needs to advance her thesis, reality be damned. In her book on communism, Coulter completely exculpated jews of their 100% responsibility for the creation of the doctrine and its spread through much of the world. This is typical of christians, this sort of basic, essential, characteristic, fundamental dishonesty. It is observable in most, I assert, most christian intellectuals. Yet they are always the first ones with morality on their lips. I'm dead serious, as one who has spent his professional life criticizing and analyzing the jews trying to genocide our white race: how do you write a book about communism and not point out the jews are the driving power (Churchill) behind it? Does that not bespeak a certain fundamental character defect - a basic, underlying, deep and thoroughgoing dishonesty? Forgive me for not taking seriously this woman's appeals to morality.

[thanks to a storm for knocking out my internet and breaking my chain of thought. fuck you, nature!]

Sounds like something a cult leader would say, you ask me. Separate a child from her parents, then brainwash her.

Pride is a sin? Pride is what allowed the White man to rise. Pride is the father of standards. Baseless pride can be destructive, but legitimate pride is a good and necessary thing. Pride as a sin - yeah, if I was an incompetent loser, I meant find that doctrine highly tempting.

Pride is what led Walter White to perfect meth cooking so that his purity was higher than anyone had seen. That's a bad thing? The hell it is. That's a good thing. Pride was what prevented White from doing the same mediocre job the average cook would be content with. Pride is good, far more than it's bad.

Notice, again, my theme, how any human quality that gets close to manliness - pride, strength, toughness, cunning, endurance - becomes a sin to the christian. Uh oh. The guy's not acting like a gerbil, a sheep, or a prey animal any longer. Danger! Danger! He's acting like he's a man - and he's happy about it, rather than ashamed! Then out in a jumbling pour come the epithets: sin! evil! immoral! bad! prideful!

Christianity is basically just a bunch of losers celebrating their weakness, and using their association to denounce and, if they can, bring down the strong. I'm not the first to say that, I'm simply confirming it from my own experience.

Oh, I thought you just finished saying above there was no such thing as irredeemable evil - you know, since your Jebus character died to absolve ALL our sins. I mean, right? Do words have meaning, Ann? Or are they just there to look pretty?

Even using 'evil' in the conventional sense, what's so evil about what White did? He killed people? Were any of them innocent? Hell, no. They were dishonest businessmen attempting to smash his operations, or screw him in some other way. At least one of them was simply crazy. White played by the rules of the illegal-business game, and proved better than men in it long before he ever thought about getting involved. 'Evil' is mostly just a term used by inferior people, cowards and incomps, to explain the curious success, or attractiveness (Wilde), of others. Who did White kill who didn't deserve it? He stood by as Jesse's girlfriend choked to death on her own overdose vomit. Is that immoral? The christian says you're your brother's keeper, but there's no reason to accept that. That's mere opinion. Jane brought her death on herself by choosing to use a drug which frequently produces the particular circumstances that killed her. That's her fault. To a secondary and lesser extent, it's Jesse's fault for reintroducing her to drugs after she was on the path to sobriety. White needed his partner's full attention, so he simply let nature take its course. You can call that immoral, but the universe knows no such thing. You're just a human flinging adjectives. There's absolutely zero indication that morality exists in any independent sense. How about the crazy meth gangster Tuco? Is White crazy for killing him? Hell, White's crazy NOT to kill him. Even though he actually didn't.

Really? The guy works for the DEA. Taking bread by taxes out of honest men's mouths so he can have a comfortable, easy job that 99/100ths involves nothing more than, as the series shows, spying on innocent people playing cards in their RV. While this bloat-gutted tool makes a huge salary, enjoys huge, unearned benefits, real people have to work real jobs to get by. Apple Annie's just another little dog trying to lick the mouth of the big dog, which is anyone who works for the federal government. Anything authoritarian has her full respect, she rolls right over on her back. Our Heroes - no, they aren't. Real men don't join the army. Real men don't join the cops. Real men sure as hell don't join the DEA. As I've said before, all cops are K-9 units. And the two-footed ones are no more worthy of respect than the four-footed.

And yet again, this real man, this DEA hero, this guy who's portrayed as female-sharp at reading faces, thoughts, emotions and body cues, this guy can't figure out for years that his own brother-in-law is dealing meth. This is an actual problem with the series. The guy can't be super sharp everywhere else, and then dumb as fuck when it comes to his own family. Really...it never occurs to you to ask your brother-in-law chemistry expert some leading questions, to find out what he knows about meth production, just to see how he responds. Ask him about the chemistry involved, perfectly innocent. I find this curious cluelessness the least plausible part and biggest defect of the show. It's not a huge flaw, but it's not a small flaw either. A guy as sharp as Hank is portrayed would have put the picture together sooner.

Walter White does all that - and sets his son up with $10m. Game, Walt.

Really? Walter burdens others with his problems? He does everything he possibly can to separate his money raising from his wife and child. All he needs is some alone time, but she can't be content with that. I mean, I felt, watching it, he was incredibly, tiresomely over-placating of her. I honestly wonder about this. This seems to be the default. The man is just guilty. No matter what it is, he's responsible. Her feelings, attitudes, actions - he's responsible. All she is responsible for is deciding whether she's happy or not. The rest is up to the man. This truly is how their relationship is portrayed over the first couple seasons. Indeed, this is par for the course in all tv presentations of marriages these days. There's no room left for the man to be a man because everything is about the woman. She and her insipid, meaningless, ever-changing feelings become the basis of all social life, and soak up all the air and psychic energy in the room. Who needs that? It's refreshing to see in BB men dealing with men, in the arid, light-aired expanse of the American West, and if I haven't said it thirty-two times, let me say it a thirty-third: the West IS America. The northeast aint America. The South aint America. The midwest aint America. The West...is America. No amount of socialist legislation can change the American ambiance that only the West possesses. One of the great things about this show is just seeing the geography, the landscapes, the flatness, the aridity, the mountains in the distance. Such a psychologically healthy environment. Spare, cool, refreshing, beautiful in a subtle way...free...spacious...masculine. In the east, south and midwest, the cunts are all smashed together and have to be nice. In the West, there's room for balls and elbows and integrity.

Hank is what's considered a good man, generally. I don't disagree with that. But Walt is too - and through the entire series. His badness is reserved for his enemies. Toward his family he is always helpful and fair. He is about a man's business, and his problems in the family direction mostly come from their interfering, even if only by prodding, into what he is doing. It's not like his wife is any great shakes. She cheats on him, kicks him out for no real reason, is overly intrusive in her questioning. Yet he's the bad guy. I don't see it. If you don't think that cooking meth is some great crime in and of itself, regardless of what the laws say, and I don't, then it's hard to see Walt as doing anything particularly evil or immoral. It was the others who were fucking things up for him and Jesse. He did his job. He cooked high-quality meth. He made the best arrangements he could for its profitable distribution. And he dealt like a man with such serious problems as arose. He also shielded his family, successfully, from this rough business. In the end, he died on his own terms, having accomplished his mission. What's not to respect? Very little.

No, no, we're to be little blue groupies like Ann. The DEA guy is the good guy. Why, Ann? You ever hear of a little thing called freedom? I know the very concept is super scary to you conservatives, but, believe it or not, it used to be considered the defining feature of Americanism. The very idea of a DEA is unAmerican, let alone slobbing its knob like you do. We're obviously not going to get any freedom with the supersized government we have now. Maybe the good guys are the ones who just take it. Rather than the "good guys" who just take their salaries from us at gunpoint so they can play their little games of cops and robbers. But this conclusion requires thinking and going against the mob, and these are not among Manny's qualities. She's just another authoritarian.

Have to laugh at "realistic" and what we know she means by it, but notice the way her all-too-conservative, all-too-christian cowardice prevents her from mentioning that it is jews responsible for this code since, as she knows, they dominate Hollywood. Ann is a coward. Just like her male conservative peers. For all I know, cowardice is considered a virtue by christians, since, after all, it takes pride to stand up for yourself, and for the truth. One would never expect the average christian to take a principled stand on anything.

Ann Coulter is a real AmeriKwan - she has the soul of an anonymous phone snitch.

Descent into darkness, a cheap and stupid cliche. He got into an illegal business, and had to deal with the problems that cropped in the only way such operations can - through violence, blackmail, intimidation, etc. He didn't descend into darkness, he ascended into masculinity. Unless, of course, the two things are the same - which one suspects Coulter and the rest of the christian sheep really do believe in their heart.

Yeah, the noble mexican wronged by the evil white man. We haven't seen that 1000x before. Except...the janitor was a druggie. So, you know, be consistent, if you're denouncing illegal drug use, Annie. But she's just using whatever stick comes to hand to beat her theme. It's not Walter's job to prosecute crime; if the cops suck at it, that's their fault, if they're busting innocent people.

Wait a minute. He was a pothead. How can using illegal drugs not destroy your status as a "good man," Ms conservative? Be consistent. It could be framed this way: Walt's criminal theft inadvertently helped the school, and society, by removing a pothead from a position from which he might be able to influence young minds.

Again: where's the immorality? It's your belief, not some graven principle, that we are our brother's keeper. I thought you conservatives were about personal responsibility. White didn't turn Jane on her back, force her to OD, cause her to puke. He just watched nature play itself out. He didn't act the way you think he should have acted, but who died and made your opinion about how people ought to act into some kind of holy law? What's evil, I can just as easily argue, by your own express principles, is your not holding Jane and Jane alone responsible for taking the drugs that led to the overdose that led to the vomiting and the inability to clear airwaves resulting in death. Jane alone. But your interest in personal responsibility comes and goes as your argument needs, one observes.

Where's the evidence he ever wanted to escape his choices? Or was unhappy with how they worked out - apart from Hank's death, which he tried as hard as he could to prevent? It's incumbent on you to prove this. You're the one claiming it's a christian parable. If so, show me the repentant Walter White lamenting his choices at the end, wishing he had done differently. I saw a guy who achieved his stated mission and died with a smile on his face. Did you actually watch these episodes, Apple Annie, or you just breaking wind?

Good example of what a liberal Coulter actually is. He "kidnaps" his own daughter? Really? Does the daughter only belong to the mother? And what's this "we went along with"? Who's this we, Annie? You and the silverfish that lives in your twat? I didn't go along with anything, I watched a fictional story about a man entering an illegal business. And I was highly entertained, watching him work his way through the obstacles. How I feel about the morality of what he did isn't particularly interesting to me, since it's mere accident of law that meth is illegal. I think it, and all other drugs, should be completely legal.

Also notice this subtle point: christians always play it like eating with your mouth open inevitably leads to mass murder. Everything is a gateway to some eekable horror. It's just childishness. Coulter isn't dumb, but hers is the same reasoning that the mouthbreather christians use when they forbid their tots from playing Dungeons & Dragons because it will turn them to witchcraft.

White never rationalized a damn thing. He simply couldn't bring himself to admit how much he enjoyed what he was doing, for all its terrors, until the very end. The meth business used him to full capacity, and he liked that. As any creature would, like a mother pig sucked on by fifteen piglets, all teats occupied. The only evidence about how he felt is that he took evident and justified professional pride in the quality of his product. And he was doing it for his family. He piled up 80m dollars, even if he lost all but 10m by the end. It's an up and down business. He came out 10m ahead, dealing with some rough customers. And he passed it all on to his family. On his own terms, and by objective measures, he succeeded. Not only succeeded in some specific mission, but he triumphed in a spiritual sense - he overcame great difficulties by exhibiting courage, cunning and brains. That's heroic. The moral sense is mostly just a pretty name for christian cowardice, and no amount its girlish yippings can diminish what White accomplished. He won. That's why he had a smile on his face. That's also an indication of Gilligan's real attitude, no matter what he says in public. Maybe karma isn't real. Let alone heaven and hell. Maybe that's the secret hidden meaning of 'Breaking Bad.' By his actions, by his success, Walter White, the altered white, changed himself from a white mouse into a white man - breaking the bad, which was the erstwhile weak Walter. His real altering was from weak to strong - from bad to good. Not good to bad. Unless, like christian cowards, to be redundant, you consider it better to be weak than strong. Better to be a white sheep or white mouse than a White Man. I'm not a christian; I don't.

He can say what he likes. The final fact is that his family is secure for lifetimes. That is no small thing. He provided more for them that they would ever need. He achieved his mission. His confessing to enjoying it doesn't change any of that. It just gives christian milksops an easy way to browbeat. Why shouldn't he take pride in the excellence of his product? Why shouldn't he take pride in his ability to overcome fear, and in outwitting his powerful enemies? Any man would take pride in those.

Pride is a sin? Oh yeah? Says who?

Pride goeth before a fall, says the christian, but verily I say unto you, with greater accuracy, pride goeth before a rise.

Christianity is despicable for many reasons, but not least because simply saying the right things and passivity qualify you as good. It's a contemptible outward-show religion for people without talent, courage, beauty or anything the world conventionally prizes. Christianity is basically the ugly girl whose advocates pump her "great personailty." Naw, even there you suck too, jesus ninnies.

As if a meth dealer could cause 1/1000th the community damage any given christian preacher does! The meth dealer plucks human weeds for profit, leaving a better, healthier human garden; the christian, by direct contrast, farms these defectives, these weeds, for profit. If anyone deserves the title "good" it's the former. The meth dealer is effectively a eugenicist, the christian a dysgenicist.

Yeah, because pretending your ethics aren't personal but come from on high makes it so. Mere assertion, Ann, mere assertion. Doesn't make it so, no matter how many sad clowns you can pack in a pew. You ever hear the statement "the public is always wrong"? Apply that to your cult, and you won't find it wanting.

Not to mention, Apple Annie - show me the christian who exhibits 1% of the personal loyalty Walter White exhibits towards everyone in his extended family and his business partner. Christians don't act like that. They run their mouths. When the heat comes down, they just run. You mock the pope because you're not catholic, but how are the lesser christians any better? Can you think at all, Annie? Walter White believed his own bullshit and acted on it. By your own admission, the pope can't even do that! That ought to be a hint to you that there's no there there in christianity. But you keep right on pretending your personal ethics reflect something absolute, while the next guy's are velleities blowing in the wind. Whatever makes you feel good, right? Keep pulling your punches when you write about communism or the Hays Code. I guess that's prudence, and a virtue, rather than cowardly self-interest, a sin. It sure doesn't break the commandment against lying does it - I mean of course it does, but you lie passively rather than actively, so I'm sure it's ok and your eternal soul is safe, you quackstress of an analyst. Keep forgetting to mention the jews behind communism and liberalism and everything else you spend your time denouncing. Keep telling yourself you're on the side of truth and justice and integrity and courage, and all the other good things. It's what your low kind does.

Unlike the right way, which leads to...well, it leads to death too, but uh, just ignore that fact, and concentrate on this incredible (imaginary) afterlife you get when you die! I know there's no real "evidence" of such, but hey, you can't prove it's not true! And isn't that really good enough? For a christian, yes. For a man, no.

Great show, great credit to creator Gilligan, and great credit to to the actors who were, with only one exception, exceptional. Watch it and after you watch, think deeply about what it means to be a man, and a white man. It's very far from self-evident. Bring your assumptions to the surface, which this show will help you do, and see if you can figure out a solid answer.

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