Tristan,
Again you're basing your assumptions on faulty information, the corporate media lie about crowd numbers and the people participating. Mate I was at the last outing at the Victorian Parliament, we had 35 men and women there, tops, the Age reported it as 150, CARF and NRFR outnumbered us by about three to one but the media said the numbers were equal.
At the first Bendigo rally in August we had about 600 with maybe 50 from out of town and interstate, at the second which I couldn't attend a petition was circulated which amounted to 1500 signatures, the media on both occasions reported crowds of 300. The core of UPF is less than 20, there are a few dozen supporters like me in each of the cities and a large Facebook following.
Your information comes from ANTIFA and a very small group of reporters working for Fairfax and the ABC who all know each other and all share hard Left sympathies, I mean honestly, are you expecting Ruby Hamad, John Safran and Jeff Sparrow to be objective?
I don't expect those people to betray their principles and jeopardise their standing in the community by being objective, I mean, be realistic Tristan.
As for cynical approaches and entryism, we want to win, by any means necessary under the law, we didn't set the scene, we're just using the rules created by the present status quo to manipulate the mood of workers and the marginalised and demonised White minority.
If you want those people come and get them but you won't get far with progressive rhetoric, Anti Fascism and reliance on Anarchists and outright lunatics like Ruby Hamad,Ezekiel Ox and Mel Gregson.

Tristan,

My experience is that democratic Marxism is a oxymoron, such as the democratic republic of Germany.

Is democratic Marxism where the people are represented by people the "party" chooses, or where only people that the "party" approves can run for election?

If democratic Marxism relies on free and fair elections it will go extinct.

Shadow Minister ; Democratic Marxism is such as the pre-WWI German Social Democrats and the pre-1934 Austrian Social Democrats - who were amongst the first to fight for full, universal and equal suffrage. As for the Austro-Marxists specifically, they won a majority in 1934 - only to be destroyed in a fascist coup. The democratic Marxists were very different from the Leninists, and especially the Stalinists. Karl Kautsky made the point that the Bolsheviks severed the nexus between socialism and democracy. That they discredited socialism in the process. And hence over the long term perhaps did more harm than good to the socialist cause. If socialism fails to succeed it is party because we lift in a society where as Chomsky said 'consent is manufactured'. Genuinely progressive viewpoints are weeded out of the public sphere. The range of debate is very narrow. But again as Chomsky argues debate within that range is very strong - in the process kidding people that we have real pluralism - when we don't.

Tristan,

Considering that pre 1934 Austrian politics consisted of parties with their own paramilitaries shooting at each other, I can't see this being a great example of marxism.

The single biggest problem for marxism is its dismal history, while theoretically it has a lot of merit, its major problem is that it clashes with the mass of humanity who are not morally "pure" enough to accept the yoke of marxism.

As for manufactured consent, while I understand what Chomsky is saying, I believe that he goes too far. My brief interaction with Marketing in my MBA showed me that marketing is primarily finding out what people want and providing it. Advertising can influence desire and make things more desirable, but people can be made to buy what they don't want.

Shadow Minister - You need to look deeper into Austrian social-democratic history. For the Social Democrats in Austria the 'Schutzbund' (socialist paramilitaries) was "an insurance policy for democracy". It was not to be used offensively to conquer state power without the corresponding democratic majority. Right after WWI the social democrats dominated the military and steered the democratic revolution. In that period (1917-1934) a lot happened. There was a massacre of workers/demonstrators in the 1920s and even then the social democratic leadership held their fire. The social democrats overwhelmingly controlled Vienna which post-WWI had a status as a province in its own right - with taxation powers. They built public housing with laundry facilities, pools, communal child care, hot running war ; also they provided for workers' education, sport, libraries, radio stations etc. Vienna was seen as "a showcase for social democracy - even with the advent of the Depression.

Unfortunately the Social Democrats made many strategic and tactical errors. They did not consolidate their hold over the state apparatus after WWI - and that provided scope for the rise of a fascist threat later on. Arguably they should have taken strike action in 1927 to demand action over the massacre of workers and demonstrators. In 1934 they kept holding back on taking any kind of action - even after the parliament in which they had a majority was forcibly dispersed. When the civil war actually occurred most of their leaders had been arrested ; and many of their arms caches confiscated. Austro-Fascism won - but maybe earlier action might have given the Social Democrats a fighting chance.

AGAIN it has to be recognised that for the Social Democrats the Schutzbund was only to be used defensively to protect democratic institutions and rights.

Tristan Ewins, "Genuinely progressive viewpoints.."

'Progressive'?

There is that over-used code word again for the policies (and secret hand shake) of International Socialism.

Marxist appropriation of words to use them for sedition. There is nothing progressive about that.