Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Because thinking about the death of Christopher Reeve makes me feel just too old and sentimental (not to mention that whole "life-is-far-more-fragile-than-we-like-to-think-and-there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-goes-anyone-of-us" train of thought), I put my free minutes today to other uses.

I decided to try and come up with a post-"Chosen" Vampire Slayers' Union Jingle, instead (very much like the old ILGWU jingle I learned off of the TV ads in my youth -- for a rather touching history of the ILGWU song and its relationship to the notorious Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, check out this link: http://www.nydailynews.com/city_life/big_town/v-bigtown_archive/story/176868p-153941c.html).

"Why a Slayers' Union song?" you may ask?

Well, when I was catching up on the latest installments in TalesofSpike's "Angels and Demons" last Friday (the latest installment in the AU series started with "Spike's Will Be Done" -- see the fiction index at http://www.hesnoangel.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/003FT.htm), I got a major kick out of a scene in which ( Read more... )

I entertained myself for hours afterward spinning fanciful visions of Rupert Giles as Union negotiator for the unpaid and under-appreciated young women whom the Watchers' Council has been using as virtual slave labor for years. Not since the early days of young immigrant women toiling as seamstresses and dying in sweatshop fires has an injustice so cried out for union redress. (Not counting all the sweatshops still operating in the U.S. as in every other country today, of course!)

Especially in a post-"Chosen" world in which young women all over the world have become Slayers, it seems to me more important than ever that the Slayers stand together and refuse to allow any new version of the Watchers' Council to abuse them through isolating and dividing them from one another (perhaps some Watcher-Wannabes might try to develop a pool of 'scab' Slayer labor by brainwashing some newly awakened Slayers before Buffy and her organization can reach them -- and that just wouldn't be good).

So, here is my modest proposal for raising public consciousness of the need to support Unionized and fairly compensated Slaying practices:

Look for the union label
When you need slaying for some stray hell-spawn.
Remember somewhere our union’s training,
Our muscles straining
To win the fight, from dawn to dawn.

We work hard,
But who’s complaining?
For we have Chosen to answer the Call.
So always look for the union label.
It says we’re able
To work together -- Slayers all!

Don't ask me what the label should look like, or where on earth they should put it or wear it -- I haven't gotten that far, yet!