Lux Lucet

Yet another week has come and gone, and an interesting on at that. What is more, the week ahead has the potential to prove even more interesting, most and especially due to Sunday’s French elections. Let’s take a look at it.

To Frexit or Not to Frexit

For the past four years of so, every time there’s talk about such and such a country leaving the European Union (EU), the convention has been to tack the first letter or two of said country’s name to the word “exit” to describe the event.

As far as I’m aware, the first time this was done was with Greece back in 2012. At that time, it was common to hear talk about a Grexit (Greek exit) from the EU.

Brexit, British exit, was all the rage last year. An unlike the various and sundry other “-exits” threatened the past few years, it appears that this one actually will happen. The Brexit win in last June’s vote was a joyous occasion, almost enough to make this Yank break out into a chorus of Rule Britannia.

This brings me to the possibility of a Frexit, which as I’m sure you can guess by now is short for French exit from the EU.

The first round of the French elections will be held Sunday, with the top two vote getters moving on to the final round on May 7.

This year, the buzz is all about Marine Le Pen, representative of the National Front party, whose platform includes cracking down on Muslim immigration and removing France from the EU and the ending France’s use of the EU’s common currency, the Euro.

The polls are close, and not being much of an expert on French politics, I won’t venture to predict the outcome of Sunday’s vote. But I will say that if Le Pen succeeds in winning one of the top two spots Sunday, there is an excellent chance your 401(k) plan will take notice on Monday.

This is another way of saying that should Le Pen make it through to the final round of France’s presidential election, we’re probably looking at a period of significant market volatility over the next few weeks, by which is Wall Street code speak for “this sucker’s goin’ down.”

If Le Pen wins the final election on May 7, that likely will signal the end of the EU as we know it. Frexit will be on like Donkey Kong and the euro, the world’s second leading currency behind the dollar, may very well be a thing of the past.

Globalism in the sense of centralized world political authority, of which the EU is but one expression, is ultimately a doctrine of the Roman Church-State. That is to say, it is the product of the mind of the papal Antichrist, who hates self-governing, independent nation states, for they represent an affront to his majesty, power, and right to rule the world.

To the degree that globalism prospers, Rome rejoices. To the degree that it is rejected, the followers of Christ take heart.

Another Day, Another French Terror Attack

Radical Islamic Terrorism in France has become so common that it’s hard to keep all the attacks straight. Here a bombing. There a shooting. A massacre by truck. Next a beheading.

While France isn’t the only European nation to experience the joys of jihad, it’s had more than its fair share of it.

Thursday’s shooting of three French police officers on the Champs-Elysées by Islamist Karim Cheurfi is but the latest such occurrence.

Instructive has been the reaction of French mainstream politicians. The Financial Times reports that, “Bernard Cazeneuve, prime minister, called on the French people not to let the attacks shift their vote, saying they should ‘not succumb to fear, manipulation, division’ ” and that “nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country.”

Yep. An Islamist spraying bullets with an AK on the Champs-Elysées. Why would any sane person let that change his vote?

Really. Just how tone deaf can these folks be?

It is reactions like this from the mainstream that make people flock to outsiders like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen.

Mainstream politicians, journalists, and academics throughout the West show themselves to be invincibly ignorant of the fact that ordinary people, with very good reason, hate and despise their globalist policies. Policies that, among other things, import millions of unassimilable Muslims to their countries, that subject them to terrorist assault by these individuals, and that stick them with the bill for the privilege of being raped, shot, slashed, stabbed, bombed, subjected to riots and run over. Frequently these atrocities are committed to cries of “Allahu Akbar!”

What is more, if anyone raises even the mildest complaint about any of this, he is immediately denounced as “deplorable,” “racist,” and “xenophobic” by the globalist Pharisees, who use the occasion to virtue signal their righteousness to anyone who cares to notice.

Modern day Marie Antoinette Joachim Gauck, the German President, highlighted this lord-it-over-the–rabble arrogance last year when he said, “The elites are not the problem, the people are the problem.”

Let them eat cake.

A Spiritual, Not a Political, Problem

Ultimately, the problem with political leadership in the West – and it doesn’t really matter what country you’re talking about, this is true throughout the Western world – is not one of political theory, but of spiritual ignorance.

The West was built on the widespread preaching of and belief in the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone. But this Gospel has all but disappeared in the West. As a result, we are reverting to more primitive, authoritarian forms of government.

Speaking about leadership, Jesus told his disciples that those who would be first must be servants of all. This is in stark contrast to the type of leadership that prevailed at the time of Christ, and today, which Jesus described as rulers of the Gentiles lording it over them.

The globalist elites of the West lord it over the people.

If we are ever to have any hope of pushing back against them, it will be because the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone is once again widely preached and believed.

Electing a new boss to replace the old boss just won’t cut it.

French Elections, The View of the Financial Powers That Be

As mentioned above, the French elections have significant implications for US financial markets. Writing in USA Today, Adam Shell notes, “Sunday’s vote, which is too close to call, could upend the political status quo and inject anxiety into global markets.”

Shell goes on to cite a report issued by Citigroup. According to Shell,

The biggest market fear – which Citigroup dubbed the “nightmare scenario” in a recent report for its clients – is that the two candidates who are perceived as threats to growth and financial stability – Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon [Melenchon is a communist] – make it out of the first round of voting. That pits them against each other in the final round of voting [the final round will take place on May 7] and means one of them would become France’s next president.

Another analyst cited by Shell is Daniel Christen, who believes that a Le Pen Melenchon run off “has the potential to cause shockwaves in the market.”

The basic message from USA Today and the financial analysts is “everything’s awesome, stay the course.” That’s what they want you to believe.

But everything isn’t awesome. The Western world is in the process of civilizational collapse. And staying the course will only serve to guarantee the final collapse.

Voting for a populist candidate such as Trump or Le Pen may stave off the collapse for a time, but it will not prevent it.

The only thing that can save the West is a complete repudiation of the erroneous ideas, be they secular or religious, that dominate the Western mind and a return to the Biblical faith that lifted the West out of the barbarism of the Middle Ages.