(1) end the absurd attachment that many people on the extreme left still have to Marxism and Communism. These were, and are, totalitarian ideologies, and any attachment to them is just a disgrace and embarrassment.
I totally agree with this point, but the leftist revolutions of the 20th century cast a very long shadow. People tend to look to the past for a source of legitimacy. You'd be hard pressed to detach any political movement from that.
(2)the mainstream left needs to abandon neoliberalism. Return to strong Keynesian and social democratic economic policies. Post Keynesian economics is the foundation of left-wing economic thought – not Marxism, not neoliberalism, and not watered-down neoclassical Keynesianism.
Haven't read that much into Keynesian economics, but sure why not.
(3) the academic left needs to abandon Poststructuralism and Postmodernism, and all the ridiculous related ideas such as truth relativism, moral relativism and even cultural relativism.
My brief dabbling in postmodern thought makes me wary of doing away with it. I believe you can have relative truths and still have a functioning movement and/or state. Beliving in hardline absolute truth seems to lead to an irreproachable party that operates without any sort of boundaries.
(4) end the climate of political correctness and even hostility to free speech that some left-wing people have. Free speech is sacred in a free society, and you will achieve nothing by demanding that governments silence people whose opinions you don’t like – except to dismantle more of our freedoms and set yourself up for having your own free speech taken away, especially if right-wing governments start imposing their own restrictions on free speech. Hate speech laws, while they are well intentioned, simply go down a dangerous route. There is a real part of the left that is better called the regressive left. It is often intolerant of free speech, is strongly connected with Postmodernism, and obsesses over divisive identity politics.p
Totally agree with this. I would like to see how hate speech laws are connected to Postmodernism, not that I agree with them.
(5) following on from (4), end the obsessing over extreme identity politics, as it tends to divide people and draw attention from the far more serious issues of economic management and economic justice.
I agree with this to a point, but I don't mind discussing identity politics. It's not good to look at those in need of economic justice as the monolithic "masses" of Soviet and Chinese rhetoric.
(6) the mainstream left needs to radically rethink foreign policy and even bring Western war criminals to justice. We have just been through the most bizarre periods where even some mainstream left-wing parties (e.g., Britain’s New Labour) have supported the most outrageously immoral and disastrous wars. Even more disgusting, they never been held to account for it. Just look recently at Tony Blair’s “apology” for the Iraq war. Apology, my eye. Any decent mainstream left in Britain would be demanding that Blair – and his New Labour charlatans who planned the war – face charges for war criminality.
I want basically every president and cabinet member, from the Nixon administration till today, who are still alive brought up on war crime charges. Foreign policy is one of the only times that I'd reach across the aisle to stand with libertarians. The less forceful intervention we do, the better.
(7) the left should strongly defend modern science and secularism, and end the truly bizarre hostility to rationality and science that has emerged from Postmodernism. Related to this, the left should seriously rethink the role of religion in society. Secularism does not necessarily mean hostility to religion, but removing the harmful role of religion from politics, law and society. E.g., there should only be one system of law in a Western secular society, not parallel legal systems for different communities.
Part of that hostility (although I've never seen true hostility towards it) against rationality and science, is because an individual can never be completely rational, nor can science be detached from rhetoric in the way it is presented. That does not mean science should be discredited, and it does not mean behaving as rationally as possible is a good thing. What it does mean is that human shortcomings, and the rhetoric in which information is presented, should be discredited either. I don't agree with parallel legal systems, if a nation is to subscribe to Western secularism. I will always support the religious rights of individuals and communities, provided what they do does not harm society.
(8) the mainstream European left needs to vigorously oppose the Eurozone and European Union, and stand up for national democracy and economic sovereignty. The EU is one of the most outrageously regressive forces in the world today, and it probably should be dismantled.
No comment.
(9) finally, the most painful and controversial issue for most left-wing people: the left needs to rethink whether mass immigration is a good thing, especially in Europe, on economic and social grounds. The public hostility to mass immigration in Europe is rising. If it really gets to the point where a solid majority wants an end to mass immigration and open-doors borders throughout the EU in each nation, shouldn’t a democratically-elected government – even a left-wing one – respect what most people want?
The problem with immigration, at least in the United States, is in the way it is conducted, not in the volume of immigrants. The EU is doing the right thing by helping Syrian refugees. They have an obligation to help the refugees, and to protect their own national interests. To that end, I feel that they should monitor and prevent any potential terrorist actives.
I don't agree with the last point in 9. If the government is a republic, then the people's whims are limited by a constitution. If the people wanted to exterminate or deport an entire race of people, should the government respect that wish? No. If the people are against mass immigration because of security or economic concerns, then those specific concerns should be addressed.