Yesterday I posted “Thank You For The Light Work”. Cummins replied with a hospital maintenance sales pitch. Today they followed up with an America250 sponsorship. Same brand. Two masks. Both designed to make you feel warm while they keep selling the same old power.
Yesterday’s Reply, Right On Cue
I publish a sarcastic thank you note. Cummins drops a new newsroom piece the same day, after it.
Not accountability. Not reflection. Not even a token acknowledgment of why the public distrust exists in the first place.
A service agreement.
The corporate equivalent of being called out and responding by handing you a brochure and a pen like you are the problem for not signing.
“Responsiveness Is Everything”
The healthcare piece opens with the soft focus stuff. Bodies do not follow business hours. Emergencies happen. Downtime can be dangerous.
All true.
Then the hook slides in. Planned Equipment Maintenance for healthcare. A proactive maintenance plan designed to keep power generation equipment ready, reduce unexpected expenses, and minimise risk.
It reads like care.
It is commerce.
Hospitals, Liability, And The Unspoken Fuel
Cummins does not need to shout diesel in a generator piece. It does not have to.
Healthcare backup power means gensets. Gensets mean fuel. Fuel means the ugly reliable stuff that keeps crawling out from behind every glossy “transition” slide deck.
This is the real pitch. Resilience as a moral duty, sold through a contract, backed by a dependency chain that quietly tightens the longer you stay.
You do not just buy equipment. You buy a relationship that becomes harder to escape each year you renew it.
Planned Maintenance, Planned Dependency
The most honest part of the article is the scale flex.
3,300 technicians. 175 North American locations. 24/7 response.
Big enough to feel like safety.
Big enough to feel unavoidable.
That is the trick. Sell planned downtime as responsibility. Sell the network as reassurance. Then make the customer relationship so embedded that leaving feels like negligence.
Cummins calls it partnership. It is a leash with a smiling face.
Today’s Mask, Stars And Stripes Edition
Today they pivot from hospital risk to national ceremony.
America250.
A sponsorship for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, wrapped in the usual incense. Reflection. Renewal. Shared outcomes. The next chapter. Innovation. Resilience.
Corporate patriotism is always the same. A logo near the flag and a statement that says nothing concrete.
It is not history. It is branding.
250 Years Ago, Tell That To Indigenous Peoples
Two hundred and fifty years ago means different things depending on where your ancestors were standing.
Tell Indigenous peoples while you celebrate the birthday of invasion and dispossession. Tell communities whose “progress” started with theft, removal, and death. Tell anyone who does not get to treat national history as a clean, marketable bedtime story.
Cummins wants the glossy chapter. It wants the heroic chapter. It wants to be photographed beside the national myth while remaining untouched by scrutiny.
The Corporate Byline Does The Dirty Work
Both pieces are authored by the same faceless corporate ghost.
Cummins Inc, Global Power Technology Leader.
No human name. No human accountability. No one to challenge.
Yesterday they sold “peace of mind” through Planned Equipment Maintenance.
Today they sold “national renewal” through a sponsorship.
Same machine. Same intent. Keep the reader soothed, keep the customer locked in, keep the brand polished enough to pass.
Back On The Throttle
This is what Cummins does when it feels watched.
It does not answer. It pivots.
Hospitals get the fear of downtime. America gets the sugar rush of patriotism. Cummins gets to look essential in both rooms.
TCAP has not stopped. It has refuelled.
Petrol. Gas o line. Anything that actually exists.
Not hydrogen though. Fucking obviously.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project