Historical Non-fiction and it's ability to enrage

When I was in New York, I went on a series of book buying excursions to a variety of awesome used book stores in the lower east side of Manhattan, and as always seems to be the case in situations like this, I ended up with a series of non-fiction books about one individual is particular. This time, it was Charles Lindbergh.

Now, if you know nothing about Charles Lindbergh, it's an inspiring story that begins with a truly American story of rags-to-riches of a man that came from a poor Minnesotan farm and became the most popular man in America, nae the world, after performing the first cross Atlantic flight, by himself, in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis. Upon his return and the ensuing fame that followed he married and soon after had his first child, Charles Jr. In one of the largest news stories of the early 30's, his son was kidnapped and eventually found murdered. This was a huge blow to him and his wife and ended up being the major cause of his self imposed exile to Europe.

And this is when golden boy Charles Lindbergh's story starts to go a little darker. As with a lot of "self-made" individuals, people who spend that much time in the lime light, he had long believed in the idea of eugenics, mostly based on the idea that he himself was a prime representation of Nietzsche's superman. And why not? Had he not designed and built the plane that took him across the Atlantic? Had he not helped Nobel Prize winner Dr.Alexis Carrel design his award winning experiments on prolonging human life? These things denoted to him, and other eugenics believers, that he was a superman. This is what got him into his audiences with Hitler and Goering. While on his self imposed exile in Europe, he was invited to take an inspection tour of Germany's newly revitalized Air Force. On this tour, he became very close to Goering and even received an honorary medal from Hitler, a big gaudy cross made of gold and decorated with 4 swastikas.

Upon his eventual return to America, he was placed in charge of modernizing America's air corp, in one of the most obviously warmongering moves of FDR. However, he also formed America First and was their loudest spokesman. America First was an organization that believed in keeping America out of the war in Europe at all costs, however, they also believed that if America should be forced to join the war, that they should be on Germany's side. However, both of these thoughts, up until Pearl Harbor, were held by the majority of Americans. Therefore, these opinions were not what ended up destroying his public image. That job was instead given over to his hugely anti-semitic remarks given as he toured around the United States. Below are some transcripts of a speech given in Des Moines, Iowa to screaming crows and rousing applause.
" Their greatest danger to this country lies in their [the Jewish people's] large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
This statement probably makes him the first person to attempt that perfectly and wholly American excuse for anti-semitism.

Thus forth, Lindbergh was largely forgotten. Immediately following the entrance of America into WWII, no one would listen to him anymore, and it became even more obvious after the war, when intelligence of Nazi atrocities became common knowledge, that America had entered on the right side.

But, that's what reading non-fiction history will do to you. Anyone in history that you thought you might have any respect for, any at all, will be cut open and dissected and laid open at your feet. You will end up hating them. I no longer respect any American President, any major American politician, at least from the modern era of American politics. You end up bouncing from historical figure to historical figure hating each one more than the one before that. But that's what makes History important to me. These people are raised to hero status and their actual thoughts and beliefs are removed from the clean textbook stories of their lives. Someone has to know what was actually there, I am that person.