Does history repeat itself? Is there no way to counter it?

sometimes, not sure how you would counter it

Many of my family members say that I look just like my grandfather did when he was young.  (Does that count?)

~

I would argue that we might not necessarily want to stop it....;-D....

It does to the extent that people often repeat the same mistakes. A good counter would be to abandon our refusal to learn from past errors.