Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
It costs even more to be reckless today.
Re: "whitey on the moon" - I'm not sure the space program would be my first target there but I think it makes a more poetic contrast and forces people to pay attention by targeting a beloved cultural narrative. Cyberpunk - by my reckoning a bit later - has been preaching a very similar message of massive inequality in the presence of incredible technology and wealth disparity and power concentration. And yet that doesn't draw the same ire. I guess in that case it's easier to dismiss the core message because robot limbs and cool neon lights are too much of a distraction.
(Also don't make the mistake of thinking that these groups continually fighting over how the centralized power is used means that any one of them is aligned with individual freedom)