With Love from Mother Russia

OK, guys—time to exercise that dialing finger.

On June 30 of this year, Russian president Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill prohibiting the distribution of “propaganda of nontraditional sexual orientation.” What does that mean?

Welcome to Russia, where laws are made vague for a reason—to allow for selective enforcement and blackmail. But if that weren’t enough, there’s something else going down in Mother Russia.

Gay people are getting the shit beaten out of them.

Or perhaps a video may be more persuasive. But be warned—from the first seconds this clip is scary.

OK—disgusting and awful. But that’s in Russia, why should I get involved?

Well, a whole bunch of companies are sponsoring the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and guess what? The largest of these companies have departments that do nothing but burnish the company’s reputation. So that means that people get paid to read newspapers and keep abreast of what’s going on in the world. Which means that these companies have known about the draconian Russian laws and they have made a simple, though brutal decision: fuck gay people, let’s make money.

And what are the largest corporate sponsors? Here they are, with contact numbers provided:

P&G Contact Number:

Monday-Friday, 9 am - 4 pm ET:

(800) 742-6253, or (513) 983-3034 (outside the U.S. and Canada)

24 hours a day:

(800) 764-7483

Coca-Cola Contact Number:

1.800.GET.COKE

(800.438.2653)

Panasonic Contact Number:

1-800-211-PANA (7262)

Hours:

Mon-Fri 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM EST

Sat-Sun 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM EST

Samsung Contact Number:

1 (800) 726-7864

VISA Contact Number:

1-800-522-VISA

Here are Coca-Cola’s main products: Coke, Sprite, Minutemaid products, Bacardi mixers, Dasani water and Evian water. For the company’s website page of complete products, click here.

P&G? Wow, it’s almost easier to list what’s not their product. But here goes: Oral B, Crest, Gillette, Nice ‘n Easy, Clairol, Mach 3, Olay, Scope, Vidal Sassoon, Tampax, Joy, Pampers, Swiffer, Downy, Comet, Tide, Mr. Clean, Bounty, Febreze, Metamucil, Pepto-Bismal, Bounce, Vicks, Charmin, and Cheer.  For the company’s website page of complete products, click here.

Samsung is easy—all of their products are branded Samsung, including the Galaxy.

Panasonic, besides electronics, sells personal care products like shavers and blood pressure monitors.

And Visa? Well, maybe it’s time to switch to MasterCard.

Get dialing, guys….