Missiles and magnolias

Don't these people remember Sherman's March?

As a recent Yankee transplant to Dixie, I'm fascinated and appalled by the extent of identification with the U.S. military down here.

Missles and Magnolias, a recently published report from the Institute for Southern Studies spells out the South's war machine entwinement with some revealing facts and figures.

• From 1996 to 2002 every region in the country had seen an increase in the flow of military contract dollars. But no region grew as fast as the South: the region’s defense contract base mushroomed by 83%, compared to 62% in the West, 31% in the Midwest and Central Plains, and just 9% in the Northeast.

• 58% of Southerners in the U.S. House and Senate scored in the bottom one-fourth of a scorecard by Peace Action, a yearly roundup detailing the voting record of every Member of Congress on crucial issues of war and peace, such as funding for the occupation of Iraq, arms sales, and support for the United Nations.
  

• Of the U.S. troops that have died in Iraq, 38% were based in the South
  
  
• 47% of the troops that have died in Afghanistan were based in the South

Read the whole report (highly recommended)...