Karl Rove Resignation VIDEO

President Bush's Remarks on Resignation of Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor Karl Rove FULL STREAMING VIDEO, South Lawn 11:31 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Karl Rove is moving on down the road. I've been talking to Karl for a while about his desire to spend more time with Darby and Andrew. This is a family that has made enormous sacrifices not only for our beloved state of Texas, but for a country we both love.

We've been friends for a long time, and we're still going to be friends. I would call Karl Rove a dear friend. We've known each other as youngsters interested in serving our state. We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend. I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit. I thank Darby and I thank Karl for making a tremendous sacrifice, and I wish you all the very best.

MR. ROVE: Today, I submitted my resignation as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor effective the end of the month. Mr. President, I'm grateful for the opportunity you gave me to serve our nation and you.

I'm grateful for being able to work with the extraordinary men and women that you've drawn into this administration. And I'm grateful to have been a witness to history. It has been the joy and the honor of a lifetime.

I've seen a man of far-sighted courage put America on a war footing and protect us against a brutal enemy in a dangerous conflict that will shape this new century. I've seen a leader respond to an economy weakened by recession, corporate scandal and terrorist attacks, by taking decisive action to strengthen the economy and create jobs. I've seen a reformer who challenged his administration, the Congress, and the country to make bold changes to important institutions in great need of repair.

Mr. President, the world has turned many times since our journey began. We've been at this a long time. It was over 14 years ago that you began your run for governor, and over 10 years ago that we started thinking and planning about a possible run for the presidency. It has been an exhilarating and eventful time.

Through it all, you've remained the same man. Your integrity, character and decency have remained unchanged and inspiring. Through all those years, I've asked a lot of my family, and they've given all I've asked and more. And now it seems the right time to start thinking about the next chapter in our family's life.

It's not been an easy decision. As you know from our discussions, it started last summer. It always seemed there was a better time to leave somewhere out there in the future. But now is the time. I will miss, deeply miss my work here, my colleagues, and the opportunity to serve you and our nation, Mr. President.

But I look forward to continuing our friendship of 34 years, to being your fierce and committed advocate on the outside, and to the next journey we might make together.

At month's end, I will join those whom you meet in your travels, the ordinary Americans who tell you they are praying for you. Like them, I will ask for God's continued gifts of strength and wisdom for you and your work, your vital work for our country and the world, and for the Almighty's continued blessing of our great country.

Thank you again for this extraordinary opportunity. (Applause.)

END 11:35 A.M. EDT, For Immediate Release, Office of the Press Secretary, August 13, 2007

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Ethical consumption: Consumer driven or political phenomenon?

The most effective campaigns to encourage ethical consumption are those that take place at a collective level, such as the creation of Fairtrade cities, rather than those that target individual behaviour. These are the findings of a new study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The research suggests that ethical consumption is best understood as a political phenomenon rather than simply a market response to consumer demand.

"For many people, their choice to buy ethical goods or services is shaped by both personal and public commitments" says Dr Clive Barnett of the ESRC's Cultures of Consumption programme. People bring a wide range of ethical concerns to their everyday consumption practices, from the personal responsibilities of family life to more public commitments like membership of a faith community or political affiliation.

The research team found that campaigns aimed at getting people to change what they buy often worked on the assumption that individuals lack the necessary information to make educated decisions about the consequences of what they buy and where they buy it from. However the findings from the study suggest that people don't necessarily lack the information about Fairtrade, organic food, environmental sustainability, or third world sweatshops. They do, however, often lack effective pathways to acting on their concerns over these issues.

By holding a series of 12 focus-groups in different areas of Bristol, the team were able to access a wide range of participants differentiated by class, gender, ethnicity, race, age, income and education. The results from the focus-groups found that individual's ability to adopt ethical consumption practices are affected by different levels of material resources in terms of their income and access to shops that sell ethically sourced goods.

Dr Barnett said: "People actually seem very aware of these types of things, but often don't feel that they have the opportunities or resources to be able to buy Fairtrade products or ethically sourced goods. And it's not as simple as the consumer making a choice to buy an item that is ethically sound".

A great deal of the consumption people do they don’t do as ‘consumers’ exercising ‘choice’. Lots of consumption is embedded in relationships of obligation where people are acting as parents, caring partners, football fans or good friends. Some consumption is used to sustain these sorts of relationships: giving gifts, buying school lunches, getting hold of this season’s new strip. And quite a lot of consumption is done as the background to these activities, embedded in all sorts of infrastructures (eg transport, energy, water) over which people have little or no direct influence as individual ‘consumers’.

In order to successfully encourage people to adopt ethical consumption activities, it is important to call on their specific identities, as for example a member of the local community or faith group, rather than just targeting them as 'faceless' and ‘placeless’ consumers. The most successful initiatives are those that find ways of making changes to the practical routines of consumption. For example, by changing how and what people buy and from where through establishing initiatives such as Fairtrade networks or achieving the status of a Fairtrade town or city.

In order to become a Fairtrade town, the local council must pass a resolution supporting Fairtrade, a range of Fairtrade products must be readily available in the area’s shops and served in local cafés and catering establishments and Fairtrade products must be used by a number of local workplaces and community organisations. Fairtrade town and Fairtrade city initiatives are a means of raising awareness around issues of global inequality and trade justice, as well as transforming collective infrastructures of provisioning so that everyone, irrespective of their ‘choice’, becomes an ‘ethical consumer’.

The research findings present a clear message says Dr Barnett: "If ethical consumption campaigns are to succeed they need to transform the infrastructures of every day consumption rather than focusing on changing individual consumer behaviour". ###

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Dr Clive Barnett on Tel: 0117 3301767 or email: c.barnett@open.ac.uk.
Professor Paul Cloke on Tel: 01392 264522 or email: p.cloke@exeter.ac.uk
ESRC Press Office:
Alexandra Saxon Tel: 01793 413032, email: alexandra.saxon@esrc.ac.uk
Annika Howard Tel: 01793 413119, email: annika.howard@esrc.ac.uk

Contact: Annika Howard pressoffice@esrc.ac.uk 44-017-934-13119 Economic & Social Research Council

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

1. The research project 'Governing the subjects and spaces of ethical consumption' was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of the Cultures of Consumption research programme. The researchers were Dr Clive Barnett at the Open University, Professor Paul Cloke at the University of Exeter, and Dr. Nick Clarke at the University of Southampton and Dr. Alice Malpass at the University of Bristol. http://www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/

2. Methodology. The study used various qualitative methods to generate empirical materials and analyse data. This included: twelve focus-groups in Bristol, six case studies, analysis of policy and campaign documentation, and in-depth interviews with key individuals in ethical consumption campaign organisations and ethical business initiatives.

3. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It supports independent, high quality research relevant to business, the public sector and voluntary organisations. The ESRC’s planned total expenditure in 2007- 08 is £181 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/

4. ESRC Society Today offers free access to a broad range of social science research and presents it in a way that makes it easy to navigate and saves users valuable time. As well as bringing together all ESRC-funded research (formerly accessible via the Regard website) and key online resources such as the Social Science Information Gateway and the UK Data Archive, non-ESRC resources are included, for example the Office for National Statistics. The portal provides access to early findings and research summaries, as well as full texts and original datasets through integrated search facilities. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/

5. The ESRC confirms the quality of its funded research by evaluating research projects through a process of peer review. This research has been graded as ‘outstanding’.

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