We are three days in to 2020 and already we’ve learned three things which should help us redefine our expectations of this year and the decade ahead.

Over 500 million animals have died in Australian bushfires, still blazing. Last night, World War 3 was one of the world’s top hashtags, still trending. At roughly 10 AM yesterday, the average CEO had collected more money than the average worker will all year, still hoarding. Last year, it took them until 11 AM.

As Australians flee the enormous loss of life and watch their homes be destroyed, they have no idea how they will possibly recover — or what the future of a world drowning in climate crisis holds for them. The thing is we’ve done the math, and we know it will only cost $300 billion to start seriously affecting the emergency we face — and no, it shouldn’t be you individually facing this struggle. It’s the top 1% who are most responsible, and the top 1% of companies who directly have blood on their hands.

And despite this concrete knowledge of what can be done to solve these visceral examples of suffering which have long been warned of (with worse to come), centrists wave their hands and question from where will the money come with one breath, while with the next call out to engage the gears of war. Greased by a trillion dollar military industrial complex, no one asks where we’ll get money to bomb fellow working class people, with concerns more similar to you and I than to the select billionaires calling for war. No one asks why we let CEOs take home more every year as inequality and all of her disastrous symptoms across healthcare and social cohesion worsen.

It’s the working class losing our homes while the rich, unattached to the source of their wealth buy luxury homes and flee. It’s the working class whom are seeing wages decline and affordability collapse as the rich fight for higher market efficiencies — solely for the sake of portfolio performance. And it’s the working class who bleed on the front lines of war, fighting our fellow workers. On the front lines of industry, building the tools and programs which will either replace us without benefit, or add to our individual workload in the name of maximized productivity. And on the front lines of climate, battling the fires in our communities, while individually labouring to reduce, reuse, and recycle products made wastefully from billion dollar monopolies.

And yet.

The year is 2020. We’ve seen where this route takes us and if we’re ever uncertain, it’s a 10 second YouTube search or a 5 minute Twitter conversation.

The year is 2020. We have more tools, more stories, and more reasons to unite than ever before.

The year is 2020 and enough is enough. Anger and frustration brims on the tongues of the young born into this madness, and the old are finally waking to the fact that it’s the same flag profiting from this suffering as it has always been. Capitalism.

A revolution is coming, but it’s early days yet. “Agitate. Educate. Organize.” is the mantra of the working classes who’ve achieved higher wages, reduced work weeks, and better working conditions. So too is it our time to assume this mantle and take a step back to rally supporters and start building our tribes for battle.

At this early stage, I’d like to challenge you to do one thing:

Engage. Online, offline, however you socialize, wherever. Get comfortable discussing the news and expressing your opinion. Bosses don’t like when workers discuss their pay for a reason; collective knowledge leads to collective action and collective power. Start building your confidence in building small collectives and learning to ask “what are you going to do about it, and how can I support you”?

That’s it. That’s one small, difficult step in the road forward. And as you build your tribe, as you build your capacity to make and affect change, let me ask you what are you doing about it, and how can i support you?

There’s definite opportunities before us, and there’s some really smart people that will help get us there. Watch this space, there’ll be more to come, but in the meantime also consider joining a union, working with the Bernie Sanders campaign, or finding other socialists attuned to the cause of our suffering and welcoming and supportive toward all people. Inclusivity and collective action is the only way we’ll survive this.

It’s gonna be a rough decade, but you, my friend, are good enough to make it better.