George Packer profiles Ray Kachel, a down-and-out Seattle man who occupied Wall Street and now finds himself homeless but happy to have found a community. In a follow-up post, Packer contrasts Kachel with libertarian venture capitalist Peter Thiel:
Half a century ago, Thiel would have been a Goldwater Republican, a churchgoer, and a paid-up member of a local business group. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to launch a fellowship program in order to induce young entrepreneurs to leave college. Education wasn’t one more "bubble" back then. Kachel would have been a Kennedy Democrat and perhaps, like his late father, an employee of the city of Seattle, living on a salary that could support a family of four. Neither would likely have felt a strong urge to escape from politics, like Thiel, or to join in the creation of a new community, like Kachel. But the past few decades have destabilized and eroded the institutional identities that used to bind Americans.
The Dish 