Mo Brings Plenty: ‘We Have to Wake Up’

Moses J. “Mo” Brings Plenty didn’t drive for hours to address a crowd of more than 100 people in Barber County as a famed actor from the hit series Yellowstone this week.

Instead, Brings Plenty hardly mentioned his acting gig and spoke to the people gathered for the Know The Risks public forum as a fellow Kansan, who was concerned for his friends and neighbors in south central Kansas, as well as for the state’s water resources and the condition of the land this generation is going to leave for the next and the ones after.

“(Do) you know how many generations of people that this bottle of water has provided life for,” Brings Plenty asked as he started his speech at the Barber County Heritage Center just east of Medicine Lodge on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

The Native America actor, stuntman and musician told the crowd that no one knows “anything about the data centers.”

“Nothing,” he said. “Not enough to make a decision right now.”

Brings Plenty said the one thing he did know, however, was the importance of water.

“We have to come to that understanding (that water is not a resource) and put and end to that thought that this is a resource,” he said. “It’s a source of life folks. A source of life.

“Everything is dependent upon it. Your crops, your cattle, your children, you yourself – everything is dependent on water.”

The guest speaker said bottom line, “we can’t give it to (data) centers.”

“We need life,” Brings Plenty said.

The actor, who owns a ranch in Miami County, asked the audience to imagine if there are already reports of data centers impacting cattle and crops, “imagine what it’s going to do to you as the people.”

“So why,” he asked. “So some 12-year-old can be on their social media and make a fake video – an AI video – that makes them look cooler or maybe an AI video because they’re mad at one of their own peers?”

Brings Plenty said he was worried not only for the condition of the land that will be left to the next generations, but the mental health of the kids growing up now. He told the crowd suicide rates have “skyrocketed” with the growth of social media.

“Imagine what’s going to happen when AI is going to be accessible to every household,” he said. “I’m worried about children that are 15 years of age and under.”

Brings Plenty said growing up he didn’t quite understand what Scripture meant by the “son shall inherit the father’s sin,” but now he is starting to grasp that concept.

“Because the father doesn’t understand the importance of water, the importance of air, the importance of the environment,” he said. “Well, his child is not going to understand that either, and the only green he wants to pass on is the color green of money.”

He also shared about growing up without running water and electricity in his home.

“I tell you what, those were the best days of my life. I’ll guarantee you that,” Brings Plenty said.

Chores were a way of life, hauling water for not only livestock, but for the family in general.

“So I learned the importance of water,” he said. 

Brings Plenty shared about a cultural ceremony where Native Americans will go out on a hill for four days and four nights without food and water.

“I tell you what, when you go four days without water you learn to respect it very much,” he said.

Pollutants that could be potentially spewed into the air or spilled into the water system is something Brings Plenty addressed. He said farmers could take duct tape and cover a portion of their air filter on the tractor and take it out in the field or with their truck and “take it down the road and see how far you get.”

“That’s what we’re doing to the ground,” he said. “This ground is the filter for our water.”

Runoff, he said, will simply eventually make its way into the ocean and then get recycled over the land as rain with all the pollutants that didn’t get a chance to be filtered out by the ground.

“I’m not a rocket scientist,” Brings Plenty said. “But, I live in the country, and I understand how God designed everything, and I prefer to be a man of God than a man of money.”

For Brings Plenty, right now the conversation boils down to an “obligation” to this generation’s children and grandchildren and the generations to come.

“Think about what we are going to leave behind for them,” he said.

He told the crowd God is not going to bring down a “plethora of fresh water” simply because mankind made some bad decisions.

“We have to wake up,” Brings Plenty said. “You can’t crumble up a dollar or a hundred dollar bill and consume it. That hundred dollar bill isn’t going to give you the nutrients that a healthy corn or nice steak or potato or beans, followed by water, is going to give you.”

Brings Plenty also addressed leadership.

“Utilize your vote,” he said. “Don’t pick a party. Vote as an American. Vote as a Kansan, because we’re all human beings at the end of the day. So, vote wisely. Vote for individuals that are going to stand up and protect what is our yard.”

He said the key is not to be angry, but “be smart.”

“Be proactive,” Brings Plenty said. “We have to vote the right people in. Vote people in that care about you.”