Despite puppy mills being legal and licensed in the U.S. by the Department of Agriculture, animal activists in L.A. are gearing up to take on pet stores they claim are in business with said mills. Rather than engaging in theatrics, the group will operate education tables outside of the stores they have indicted.

Last Chance for Animals and Best Friends Animal Society, two animal welfare groups working together on this issue, will set up education tables outside of pet stores where they will inform patrons of the origins of where the animals come from. They will feature photographs of the conditions in which the animals are purportedly bred and offer shoppers general information about puppy mills.

In contrast to the action we highlighted yesterday’s news report, this technique is especially interesting. Yesterday we highlighted a protest organized by the I.W.W. Starbucks Union—one that placed some focus on the theatrics of political theater. This back and forth between the effectiveness of tactics reminds me a bit of the debate inspired by the piece by Sally Kohn published in the Christian Science Monitor last week (that nearly the whole of the Millennial activist community chimed in on) about whether or not modern activism is effective because it doesn’t have the Situationist sheen of old activism.

Yesterday I stated that it would seem it makes more sense to bring a large group together and inform/impress with a presence rather than to bring together a small group of people and turn off spectators with confused imagery and political theater. Confusion is fine if irony and chaos is what a group is trying to convey, but if there is a message and it is distorted by an unwillingness to connect with onlookers, this is an unnecessary waste of resources. While political theater is not being denied recognition of its importance, applying it to every protest scenario might be ill-advised.

The animal groups appear to be striking an interesting middle ground by coming together to provide a small collective interested in educating the public rather than overwhelming the public or establishment with a presence. As it seems the group’s goal is to discourage support of puppy mills, and since they likely won’t be able to set up a stick-and-carrot model in which supporters agree to buy X so long as the store doesn’t provide Y (in this case, milled puppies), this appears to be a sensible way to engage with patrons.

In your experience, which is the better way to demonstrate? Is theater necessary for informing onlookers? Or is a more concentrated, person-to-person effort important? What, as an onlooker, do you find you’re more compelled to pay attention to when passing a demonstration?

Also in eAction news:

• Public art and collective action.
• Folks come together to fund their own candidates.

-Filed in News