It is notable that even though it is an election year, Obama made no
call for voters to elect individuals pledged to implement his proposals.
Rather the speech was an assertion, from an individual who more than
any other has presided over the shredding of large sections of the
Constitution, that the president has the power to act regardless of
opposition. The target of these actions is the working class.
There
was almost no mention of the vast police-state spying apparatus that
has been revealed over the past year. The president sits on top of a
military-intelligence complex that monitors the communications of
virtually the entire planet. The day before Obama’s remarks, the latest
information from Edward Snowden revealed that the US and its UK partners
collect data from cell phone applications in order to determine the
“political alignments” of millions of users worldwide.
Obama’s
only reference to the collapse of democratic rights was to defend the
“vital work of our intelligence community” while promising token reforms
in order to boost “public confidence, here and abroad, that the privacy
of ordinary people is not being violated.” In fact, these reforms are
intended to ensure that the government can go on violating this privacy.
As Obama spoke, Snowden remained in exile in Russia, facing death threats from US military and intelligence officials.
-- Joseph Kishore, "Obama’s State of the Union address: An empty and reactionary charade" (WSWS)