Congressman Joe Wilson shouting "You Lie" to President Obama. Photo from Fox News web site (credited to AFP)

As I watched President Obama address a joint-session of Congress, I couldn’t help but notice how many times the Republicans remained in their seats while the rest of the people stood up and applauded. I’m not surprised by that, of course. It is what happens to any President, Republican or Democrat during almost any joint-session of Congress.

Of course Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst (You Lie!) was unusual. Where did he think he was? England? (Where they have universal health care.) Well…. There are plenty of other bloggers talking about Wilson’s outburst and apology right now.

What struck me the most towards the end of the President’s speech was just how small that group of Republicans, mostly sitting and scowling for the cameras, was. And I wondered, could such a tiny minority of small-minded people, sitting on their butts, really derail one of the most important social justice advances of our time? And if such a tiny minority of small-minded people can derail such an important movement, one that means life or death to countless Americans, one that means survival or destruction for so many businesses, one that threatens the recovery and future of our economy…. if such a tiny minority of small-minded people sitting on their asses can stop this movement from going forward…… what does that say about those of us who are on the side of progress?

We’re about to have a veto-proof majority in the Senate. We have a massive advantage in the House of Representatives. We have a Democrat in the White House and we have a majority of Americans who want health care reform now, today, before Christmas. We have conservative, evangelical, progressive, Christians and Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and Unitarians and Spiritual Progressives and people of all faiths and humanists who all agree that universal health care is a MORAL issue. This is a tidal wave of support for fixing health care.

What are we up against? A tiny minority of small-minded people sitting on their asses? No. If only that were so. No, we’re up against billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits, made by insurance companies and their senior executives, advertising agencies, drug companies, Wall Street, and the media. We’re up against K-Street and C-Street, and who knows what other streets in Washington. Those folks that were sitting on their asses tonight, and many those who stood up and applauded, are beholden to the money that puts them into and keeps them in office. Those are the powers that stood before the Supreme Court of the United States today, represented by Bush Administration’s Solicitor Olson, arguing that corporations should have free speech rights, and should be allowed to spend as much as they damned well please on political campaigns, claiming that their rights are equal to those of human beings, American citizens. Really? A corporation has the same rights as a person who served in the armed forces, the widow of a soldier who died in Iraq, the parent who works his tail off every day to keep his or her family fed, the adult child who struggles to pay for respite care for her parent with dementia, the cancer-patient who faces life or death if an insurance company (a corporation) wants to approve or deny coverage? Really? Equal rights without equal responsibility or contribution to society?

We know what we’re up against. But for once, will we recognize and seize the power that we, the living-breathing-peaceful-but-angry people, have in our hands right now? A vet0-proof majority in the Senate, a big majority in the House, a Democrat in the White House, and the memory, the certainty that fixing health care is a moral issue, and finally, the inspiration of Teddy Kennedy, cheering us on from the grave.

Will we seize this opportunity? Will we do what needs to be done? Will we tell the tiny minority of small-minded people to get the hell out of the way and let the American people’s will be done? Will we finally listen to real, living, breathing human beings? Or will we let the soul-less a-moral profit-driven corporations win the day?

Get off your asses people. There’s work to be done.

NOTE: As is almost always the case, I start to say something while watching TV or reading the newspaper, like “look at that tiny minority of….” and my husband Derrick jumps in with “small-minded people” and then I add “sitting on their asses” and shortly thereafter, I’m blogging or on the radio, and he’s back at his desk doing some HTML magic to keep Tikkun and Reach And Teach on the web.