Resistance1000
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May 25, 2026 1:10 AM
Resistance1000
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Huor
They also don't believe Tim McVeigh did it.
gablestout
I don't recall anything more than fringe, tin-foil hat theories that he wasn't responsible. What was more prevalent was the "he didn't act alone" theories: not that McVeigh was framed, but that Nichols, Fortier, militia contacts, or the wider extremist network may have been deeper than prosecutors proved.
Huor
Fringe, tinfoil hat theories are now mainstream, alas.
MeestowKitty
To be fair, one was a domestic terrorist, while the other was foreign terrorists, so it doesn't "feel" the same to the people being attacked (people meaning the nation).
Resistance1000
"To be fair," wouldn't some people (at least) think that it being done by one of your own is worse? As evil as they were, the 9/11 terrorists weren't traitors. they were enemy attackers. McVeigh was a traitor to his own country and fellow citizens, including children in a daycare facility. Shouldn't that "feel" worse?
MeestowKitty
I don't know. It's tribalism, I suppose. Someone within your group "doing what humans do" isn't shocking. The scale of it is immense, but its still just a murderer, murdering. Someone from outside of your group feels more violatory.
Grimlinnan
Republican Bomber.
PineappleLoopsBroether
Remember the guy that set off a camper van bomb in the middle of some town on Christmas morning in 2020? Yeah, it was a redhat.
bourbonandbaddecisions
Left out the part about McVeigh being a gulf between at vet who was radicalized by what he perceived as overreach by the US Govt in the wake of ruby ridge and Waco.
EmilyPseu
It’s a couple of things. The OKC bombing killed 168 people, while 2977 people died in the WTC attack. We saw the aftermath of Oklahoma City on TV, but we saw one of the planes hit the towers in real time, as it happened. The response to two (or three, I believe Terry Nichols’ brother was implicated at one point) American citizens committing a crime was trial and punishment. When we were attacked by a foreign entity, it was an act of war with global repercussions.
causality
I mean, it also killed only 1/18th as many people and didn't involve multiple jet airliners flying into skyscrapers on live TV while we watched. Even so, before 9/11 the Oklahoma City Bombing was a big historical event when I was growing up.
Resistance1000
The size of the TV spectacle doesn't make it worse or less worse. It was still 167 people who were murdered in cold blood, plus an unidentified leg that could have been from an unidentified 168th victim. A rescue worker was killed by falling debris and is counted separately.
causality
The spectacle doesn't make it worse but it does explain why it had such a cultural impact and persistence.
SecurityBadger
In MA we remember it as the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Teaflings
There were many singular days during lockdown when more people died from covid than all of 9/11 but those types of people dismissed it entirely. 9/11 isnt about the lives lost; its just patriotism as an excuse to be racist
thechelonianshelmet
I wonder how much of a calendar you could fill in, if you marked off every mass murder, shooting spree, school shooting, bombing, etc, commited by straight, white, christian, U.S, conservative males.
InablueMule
I was glad to see justice served in this case.
hellfirerains
Can we stop glorifying tragedies?
Resistance1000
Commemorating them and honoring the victims is not "glorifying" them, at least not to people capable of reason and compassion.
hellfirerains
Have you seen the posts and merchandise that comes from these? They have nothing to do with remembering the people. It's never "today we remember the thousands that tragically lost their lives", it is "remember when those bad guys attacked us?"
gablestout
We absolutely remembered the OKC bombing every year...until 9/11, which very much eclipsed the event.
besttom
TLDR: visit the OKC Bombing Memorial/Museum.
I was driving cross country during a Navy PCS and just happened to travel thru OKC during the official opening of the Memorial (2000), long b4 the museum was constructed. The “opening” also happened to occur around Easter. Seeing the lawn of chairs, especially the chairs marking the young dead was difficult. Seeing the stuffed animals (e.g., *bunny rabbits*) on the chairs was particularly painful. I - a grown man in my late 20s at the time, cried…
besttom
ugly, sorrowful tears.
My family and I visited OKC earlier this year, including the Memorial and Museum. The way the “tour” starts is itself harrowing, in a meaningful, dignified way. IDK a “good way” to memorialize the innocent dead, but if there is one, OKC did it right.
I think all Americans who can should visit the site to see/learn about how monsters are made, the lives they ruin, and also how our agencies tracked and found them, and brought them to justice.
oldguyexlurker
Yeah. The guy who shot Kirk fell off the media radar pretty quickly, too.
Toqom
Well the first one arrested was because AI made up who it was when told to enhance the video. The current guy had a manifesto posted to his discord AFTER he was arrested and discord deleted his account after. Likely have the wrong guy again
Pardonmygarlicfarts
Inconvenient demographic
Resistance1000
Indeed it is.
Wolfshead009
Insert "there isn't one" gif.
nation543
/gallery/BXo67xq
Iran claims it was the US Government. It's plausible.
Baggsy13
Besides occurring in cities named after their States, people dying, and involving buildings, what were the similarities?
UnidentifiedWan
The fact that it was a terrorist attack that killed a lot of people is the most important similarity
Ein0r
At this point America has a "never forget" for every single day of the year.
EvilEmperorXurg
It was done by two of them; Timothy McVeigh (pictured) and Terry Nichols, not just one white guy terrorist.
gablestout
Yeah...this is BS..The OKC bombing was widely talked about on its anniversary, UNTIL 9/11...Meanwhile Nichols is currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole by the feds, and THEN 161 consecutive life sentences in Oklahoma. The third, Fortner, only escaped life because he turned state's evidence, served 12 years, and is now in Witness Protection.
Resistance1000
The meme is about TODAY'S attitude towards it, not what people thought in the immediate aftermath and next few years. It's pretty clear if you actually read what it says.
gablestout
What’s actually clear is that this image is propaganda revising why OKC isn’t annually recalled like 9/11: 9/11 displaced it as the defining terror attack, and ~40% of Americans weren’t alive for OKC. Racism and propaganda value affect public memory, sure, but claiming that’s the only reason is reductive and dishonest.
QuatermainFT
he was probably just before his time. they celebrate j6 and that mentally ill guy who caused all his own problems and sic'd the gov't on his neighbors then built the armored dozer. and all the attacks on liberal law makers.
SayWhatYouMeanMeanWhatYouSay
This is some born after 2000 historical inaccuracy. The OKC bombing and Timothy McVeigh were THE trauma device for American media and society pre-2000. I saw references to him and the bombing on the regular as a kid, it was the most talked about American tragedy up until 9/11z
Resistance1000
The meme is about TODAY'S attitude towards it, not what people thought in the immediate aftermath and next few years. It's pretty clear if you actually read what it says.
Keru
I remember this being constantly in the news back then, so no it wasn't ignored or kept silent. This feels like a conspiracy theory.
FjordFiskursson
A conspiracy worldview.
kahlas
It was in the news until the trial was over. After that it died out fairly quickly. People still talk and joke about 9/11 to this day almost 25 years later.
Keru
I imagine if 9/11 hadn't happened, and the OK bombing being a smaller 'event' if you will, we'd still be talking about it and making jokes about it, but at a smaller scale. 9/11 was huge not just for the cost in lives, but for it's impact.
kahlas
Not just the cost in lives. It was a huge tuning point in its becoming super popular for bigots to also hate Muslims. I think these days 75% of what keeps 9/11 in the public zeitgeist is bigots bringing it up to justify why they hate all the Muslims. Don't get me wrong I still get slightly trigger remembering that day myself occasionally. I remember the shock of not just that day but the week or two afterwards while everyone was figuring out how to go on from it. But it doesn't drive me to hate.