The O'Jays Unity Lyrics with Jim Mattis and Donald Trump

After reading Jim Mattis's statement on the need for unity in our country in spite of Donald Trump, I happened to listen to The O'Jays song Unity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXu8fhOWTk4. Its lyrics werso apropo to this moment in time. Their jam session at Live From Daryl's House playing all the O'Jays' hot Philadelphia sounds were so cool that reads for society and racial harmony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzWRT-PAGQk

Let's not falling into Donald Trump's divide and conquer tactics which General Mattis referred to and come back to the original idea of our Founding Documents.

The O'Jays Family Reunion album cover

The O'Jays - Live From Daryl's House 2016

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (C) and Energy Secretary Rick Perry (R) listen to President Donald Trump speak during a luncheon with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on April 3, 2018 at The White House in Washington, DC. The President answered questions from the media about a wide range of issues including illegal immigration from Mexico and relations with Russia.

The O'Jays - Live From Daryl's House 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzWRT-PAGQk

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Unity

The O'Jays

Unity, we must have unity
Cause united we stand
Divided we fall

They played a game
Of divide and conquer
Ever since the word began
Tried their best too
Separable the people so
We couldn't understand
Come together and
Show our force
Now's the time for all
The people to speak with one voice
I'm talkin' bout

Unity, we must have unity
Cause united we stand
Divided we fall

Now's the time to
Follow the leader
And give our full support
Listen to the words
Of the faithful teacher
Let's put on end to hate and war
Now's the time to come together
And make a stand
Now's the time for us to
Bring peace and love
All over the land
I'm talkin'bout

Unity, we must have unity
Cause united we stand
Divided we fall

We got to come together, get up, get up, get up
We got to come together, get up,…

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General Jim Mattis' statement:

In Union There Is Strength

I have watched this week's unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words "Equal Justice Under Law" are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a "battlespace" that our uniformed military is called upon to "dominate." At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict— between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part.

Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders

who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that "America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more

forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat." We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that "The Nazi slogan for destroying us...was 'Divide and Conquer.' Our American answer is 'In Union there is Strength.'" We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's "better angels," and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

James Mattis