ustxtxb_obs_1995_04_21_50_00018-00000_000.pdf

markable about the Chambers’ story is how essentially American it is, how much in common it has with conventional corporate rags-to-riches tales. Adler takes great pains in showing the businesslike procedures of the Chambers organizations, how they analyzed their markets, recruited and managed employees, controlled quality and costs. They had learned early, well and intimatelytheir mother sold whatever was at hand, including herself, to get bywhat is necessary to get ahead in the U.S. of A. The most illuminating document in the book is Lan -y Chambers’ set of posted fines for various employee infractions \(stealing, lowed by Larry’s “comments” on the basic principles of financial success: “One will be promoted & graded according to his work and conduct. “If you are planning on getting rich forget about you[r] girlfriend & family. “You will not have too much time for parties and concerts…. “Hard work & dedication we will all be rich within 12 months. ‘`Your success are [sic] going to depend on how well you follow instructions.” Larry’s principles, though not Larry himself, would have been welcome and right at home at the Lee County Chamber of Commerce. Adler is no sentimentalist, and though he tells the Chambers’ story as clearly and forthrightly as he can, he doesn’t waste much sympathy on them. Although Larry, long a professional criminal, was much quicker to use brutality than his younger brother, like tobacco dealers or arms merchants both of them shrugged at the consequences of their transactions, even in their own neighborhoods. They saw themselves as filling a demand; if their customers were fools it was their own fault. Their product was not just illegal but viciously poisonous \(although it’s worth noting, in the overall scheme of things, less socially deadly than the legal ones, alcohol and tobrothers frowned on crackheads \(with the exception of one or two who were useful fitting that they were convicted on the basis of the largely fanciful testimony of a vengeful former employee, Terry Colbert, who had been kicked off Larry’s payroll for using. Colbert was so desperately addicted that he recited whatever the prosecutors’ wantedas long as they gave him enough money to buy more crack. Very striking in all this sordid and intriguing tale is how little “anti-drug” campaigns have to do with it; how not just wrongheaded but beside-the-point and irrelevant “just-say-no” rhetoric and programs are, in the almost total absence of any sustaining institutions of education, culture or industry, at either end of the Marianna-to-Detroit highway. When Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and and Detroit Piston’s star Isiah Thomas sponsored a “No-Crack Day” in Detroit, Larry saw a marketing opportunityhe put his rocks on sale at 2-for-1. If people have no honest work, no chance for real achievement, and no honored place in the society, they will do whatever they must to escape or transcend their circumstances-if it means cannibalizing their brothers and sisters, or destroying their own minds. Land of Opportunity is a sobering examination of the staggering and inevitable results of generations of national injustice. \(One footnote Adler’s considerable diligence has not been well-served by his publishers. The book’s large cast of characters and complicated chronology demand photographs, charts, and timelines, of which there are none. Worse, the complete lack of an index is a burdensome insult to writer and reader. This is an inexcusably corner-cutting production of a fine and well-written book, which deserved CLASSIFIEDS ORGANIZATIONS WORK for single-payer National Health Care. Join GRAY PANTHERS, intergenerational advocates against ageism and for progressive policies promoting social and economic justice. $20 individual, $35 family. 3710 Cedar, Austin, TEXAS AIDS NETWORK dedicated to improving HIV/AIDS policy and funding in Texas. Individual membership $25, P.O. Box 2395, Austin, TX LESBIAN/GAY DEMOCRATS of Texas Our Voice in the Party. Membership $15, P.O. 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CLASSIFIED RATES: Minimum ten words. One time, 50 cents per word; three times, 45 cents per word; six times, 40 cents per word; 12 times, 35 cents per word; 25 times, 30 cents per word. Telephone and box numbers count as two words, abbreviations and zip codes as one. Payment must accompany order for all classified ads. Deadline is three weeks before cover date. Address orders and inquiries to Advertising Director, The Texas Observer, 307 West 7th, Austin, TX BOOKS 18 APRIL 21, 1995