Video from The Event
Nov 16, 2011, Video runs: 01:16:41.
"The rich have the right to buy more gizmos but they don't have the right to buy democracy." -Bill Moyers
Tom Johnson Lecture, Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 6:00 p.m., LBJ Auditorium
In a thought-provoking speech, acclaimed broadcaster Bill Moyers delivered the first Tom Johnson Lecture at the LBJ Library. Although Moyers decries the inherent conflicts in the current political system that maintain the divide between the wealthy and what he calls 'the common run of mankind,' Moyers builds a compelling case about why Americans should be optimistic about the future. Please enjoy Mr. Moyers' brilliant presentation.
The Tom Johnson Lectureship was established in 2010 in recognition of and appreciation for Mr. Johnson's 30 years of distinguished service as Chairman of The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees. Mr. Johnson served as Executive Assistant to President Johnson and, later, as president and then chairman of CNN. The lectures made possible by the Tom Johnson Lectureship are open to the student body of The University of Texas at Austin and the general public free of charge.
Books and a documentary recommended by Mr. Moyers:
A Paradise Built in Hell – Rebecca Solnit
The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell
Winner-Take-All Politics: ;How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class – Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson
The Radicalism of the American Revolution – Gordon S. Wood
Documentary Film – Inside Job
Images from The Event
News Coverage
Two days after Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured in a Tucson shooting, Bill Moyers—renowned journalist, former White House press secretary, and UT alum—found himself sitting in a radiology lab awaiting an MRI for a torn muscle. The only other person in the waiting room was a woman about his age. They made small talk and occasionally watched the muted TV tuned to a film filled with bloody car crashes and shootings.
The AlcaldeMoyers wove this story throughout his lecture to a full house at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum Tuesday night, inaugurating the Tom Johnson Lectureship series. Moyers served as President Johnson's Special Assistant from 1963-1967, including two years as Press Secretary.
The Huffington Post