Attack the System
Interview with Robert N. Taylor
November 11, 2012
Keith Preston interviews musician and former activist Robert N. Taylor on Taylor’s vivid experiences with the revolutionary, anti-communist, Minutemen organization of the ’60s and ’70s, and his later work with the folk band Changes.
Topics discussed:
- Taylor’s background
- The type of people who made up the Minutemen organization
- Robert DePugh
- COINTELPRO and its infiltration of both left- and right-wing organizations
- Some of the techniques used by agitators during supposedly “spontaneous” protests
- How problems that existed in the 60s have continued to develop and evolve
- How former radical leftists and communists of the 60s went on to become the currrent “establishment”
- Taylor’s move away from politics and toward folk music and folk religion
Robert N. Taylor has played an active and influential role on the outsider Right for decades. In the 1960s, he was closely involved with The Minutemen, a grassroots anti-communist group headed by Robert Bolivar DePugh. Due to a variety of factors, including pressure from the FBI and other organizations, the paramilitary group widely known for its “Traitors Beware!” stickers eventually disbanded; but a template for many future militia groups had been formed. After leaving The Minutemen, Taylor turned to other interests and founded the first incarnation of his folk band Changes with cousin Nicholas Tesluk. In the ’70s, Taylor helped pioneer the growing Odinist/Ásatrú movement and remains involved with various organizations. In the late ’90s, Michael Moynihan—an editor of the radical traditionalist journal TyrTYR—rediscovered Changes and worked to release old and new material by the duo. Taylor continues to record and tour.
79:48 / 279 words
Email Keith:
kppgarv@mindspring.com
