Posted on 06/16/2007 3:08:21 PM PDT by jedward
Where's one of the best places to learn about the United States? Let's take a visit to the US Department of State's website and see what we can find. When you first get to http://www.state.gov you are presented with the wonderful colors of Red White and Blue. It's very easy to immediately see that a great deal of effort has gone into this wonderful place of learning. So, back to the goal at hand, let's find the United States. From the homepage you see an option to click on "Regions" and listed under that heading is the "Western Hemisphere". That looks like the place to go, so let's click there. Now, at this point we are at the "Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs". Now along the left hand side we see a link for "Countries and Other Areas", so naturally we click there expecting to find the United States. We see many countries listed like Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia and even Mexico, but for some reason the United States is not listed.
Well, surely the webpage didn't load properly, so we refresh the page and scroll back down and it's still not there. At this point it's easy to say, I've missed something, so let's go back to the Homepage. Now, we click on "Countries" again from the Homepage and immediately see a "Counties A-Z" link. That's it, let's click there and stop all this searching. Ok, the A-Z list is showing now, we see Cuba, China, Venezuela, Iran, Syria and North Korea. We get to the U's and we don't see the United States. Maybe they called it America instead, so let's scroll up and look under the A's. The United States isn't listed there either. While wondering in confusion we see near the "A's" a link titled "Independent States of the World", not Countries, but States. So we click there and finally find the United States listed under the "U" section, only to my surprise there's no link on any of the "States" listed, just a name and number.
Last but not least, let's just go back to the Homepage and type "United States" in the search box and see what shows up first.
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US Department of State - Home Page
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Shown above is what we see. It gives us a link back to the Homepage, so that wasn't exactly helpful.
Let's play one more time. Let's start at the Homepage, Click on "Western Hemisphere". Now stop! Look at the second item on the left side, the one that says "U.S. and Organization of American States". Apparently the OAS (Organization of American States) can be spelled out, but not the United States, at least on the United State's Department of State's website anyway. So click on that link and look for the United States link next to the Organizations of American States. Or look below, and here's what we see:
The U.S. and the Organization of American States
--- OAS Background Information
--- Hemispheric Security
--- Organization of American States' Website
--- OAS General Assembly
--- Releases
Don't worry if your having trouble finding the United States listed above, because its not there.
You have found what the Department of State recognizes as your Country.
http://www.state.gov/countries/
http://www.state.gov/p/wha/ci/
http://www.state.gov/misc/list/index.htm
http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/oas/
So you don't see the United States, let's see what information is presented.
The U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States (OAS) is headed by Acting U.S. Permanent Representative J. Robert Manzanares. The OAS is the premier multilateral forum in the Western Hemisphere. Its 35 members are countries from North, South, and Central America, the Caribbean, and Canada. The charter of the OAS states that its basic objectives are to:
As a member of the OAS, the United States is committed to strengthening and working with the organization. This reflects the U.S. Government's determination to make optimal use of multilateral diplomacy to resolve regional problems and to engage its neighbors on topics of hemispheric concern.
Inter-American Democratic Charter
Remarks on the Occasion of the Special Meeting of the Permanent Council to Commemorate the Fifth Anniversary of the Adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter
The particulars of social and economic development are addressed through the commitments our leaders make at the Summits, and carried out through the Summits of the Americas process. That includes commitments to concrete, measurable actions, such as those which empower our people through property rights, remittances, and small business loans. The IDB’s new initiative, "Building Opportunity for the Majority," addresses these critical needs for the 40% of the people in the hemisphere who live on $3 a day or less, at the base of the pyramid.
Question: Is there an American Union? Answer: Yes, there is and always has been one as originally titled such back in 1890. Today, it's still an American Union, only it goes by a different name (see the "Established" below). That should end any questions regarding whether there is or isn't one. If there isn't, then the Department of State might want to consider including the United States as a Country in the Western Hemisphere some day.
May 30, 2007
Established: April 14, 1890, as the International Union of American Republics. Became the Pan American Union in 1910, then the Organization of American States in 1948 with the adoption of the OAS Charter in Bogotá, Colombia.
SPECIALIZED ORGANIZATIONS AND OTHER ENTITIES
Much important inter-American business is conducted by separate entities, some of which are independent, some fully or partially funded by the OAS, and others consisting simply of periodic hemispheric meetings which receive support from the OAS Secretariat. Subjects covered include agriculture, labor, copyrights, private international law, highways, ports and harbors, railways, telecommunications, health and sanitation, statistics, travel, child welfare, women's issues, Indian affairs, and tourism. The conferences are attended by high-level officials and technical experts to further inter-American cooperation in these fields.
The Inter-American Children's Institute (IIN) http://www.iin.oas.org
The Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) http://www.oas.org/cim
The Inter-American Defense Board (IADB) http://www.iid.org
The IADB has as one of its principal organizations the Inter-American Defense College http://www.jid.org/en/college/
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) http://www.iidb.org
The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) http://www.iica.int
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) http://www.paho.org
The Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH) http://www.igph.org
The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) http://www.padf.org
Question: Is the 2007 Amnesty Bill a joke or a diversion of some kind? Answer: You should be able to answer that question by now...
Message to ALL Republicans & Democrats: Unless you're ok with the dissolution of the United States and your Country not even getting a link on the Department of State's web-site, then stopping this Immigration/Amnesty bill should be your priority right now. This is the first step in "We The People" meaning something again!
jedward
huh?
“Congrats! Dumbest post this week!”
I haven’t done a count, but at this point, it’s probably safe to say that you’re in the majority of those that have posted here. Congratulations back atcha :)
To make it a little easier, I’d suspect that taking the current “U.S. and Organization of the Americas” link and doing either of the following is something that they won’t ever do.
— Remove the “U.S.” from the link (the majority of posters on this thread have already shown how silly it is...at least to them)
— Separate the “U.S.” from the OAS and provides its own link.
The majority of posters thought it absurd to even have the U.S. listed, so the case is already made to perform the first of the two suggestions. To do anything, they have to acknowledge them being together to begin with.
I’ll sign off now.
They do educate the people about the US - as it relates to the State Department! You're not going to find anything about agriculture in the US on that site. Nor information on mining within the 50 states. And don't expect to find anything about City Hall office hours in Peoria, because that's not what they do!
OK then CA, can you explain to me why the State Department site links directly to http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Travel.shtml which has topics like:
Historic preservation, National Register of Historic Places, White House, historic landmarks.
and
Gas prices, National Scenic Byways, road closure and traffic information, Amtrak, rail travel information
I hope we both agree that the State Department doesn't have much to do with road closures or historic landmarks. My point is that they link to that information because it would be helpful to visitors or others who arrive at their site. And my suggestion was simply that they set up a place-holder country page for the USA and have the exact same kind of links and information there. Why not, it would be handy for site visitors just like their links to usa.gov elsewhere on the site.
And by the way, I'm not "you guys", at least in normal English.I haven't ever even suggested I even remotely agree with the originator of the thread, or any of the other posters.
Apparently you just don't get the point of my comments. I simply suggested that the best way to allay the kind of concerns expressed by the initiator of the thread, and to provide a useful service was for the State Department site to have a country page for the USA -- if for no other reason than to provide a useful reference for people who ended up there and wanted general information and links to related resources. No doubt it would not be of great utility to people doing in depth research, but it would, among other things, provide users of the country pages with a benchmark to compare against the other countries.
What is interesting to me is the extent of your opposition, and that of the State Dept. employee. To me it seemed like a pretty innocuous suggestion -- to have a country page for the USA on the State Department web site -- since it would just contain information already present on other parts of the same website. Why is it such a big deal to you?
My apologies if I’ve upset you.
It’s late, so if you like, I’ll address your concerns in your last post in the morning. If you’d rather I not, we can just let the thread die. That might be the most diplomatic course to take.
You’ve undoubtedly turned in by this hour, so I’ll end by wishing you a good day tomorrow.
CA....
bookmarking for later read....thanks for the ping.
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