The Countertrend

Beware the countertrend that might soon become, seemingly out of nowhere, the new mainstream trend. People in general have a limited time horizon. They feel that whatever is happening of the moment will go on indefinitely, or at least far longer than they expect. But, my friends, there is always a countertrend.

A great example of the countertrend is what separates the moneymakers on Wall Street like Warren Buffett from the Joe blow losers. When the market trend is straight down and the losers are tossing their holdings out the window for pennies on the dollar, when, as they say blood in the street, that is the time Buffett and his ilk are preparing to pounce on great bargain stock prices? Their timing is hardly ever perfect, but still close enough to make them some of the richest men on the planet. To do this requires guts, great knowledge of what they are doing and a board time horizon.

Imagine what many Americans were thinking the day after the Japanese shockingly devastated our Navy’s Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It was December 1941. Freedom around the world seemed to be hanging by a thread. The Japanese in addition to giving America a bloody nose in the Hawaiian Islands were rampaging through China and the Dutch East Indies, the latter chocked full of rubber and other essential war materials, while at once moving against America’s far East holdings of Guam, Wake and the Philippines.

In Europe Hitler had bagged France, Poland and Czechoslovakia and was overrunning Russia. In England Winston Churchill was bracing the British people for a German invasion as their enemy’s submarines threatened to squeeze the life out of that inland nation. Talk about a negative trend for America and her few sister free nations.

But in the end Hitler overplayed his hand in Russia, lacked the naval capability to invade England and America quickly became an overpowering arsenal for democracy as they say, along with building the world’s first atomic bombs — checkmate the good guys.

Okay, so this is an example for America and the world of a bad to good countertrend. How about an opposite example — good to bad?

In 2008 America made a huge leap past its history of slavery and bigotry against Blacks when it elected Barack Obama President. Moreover other forms of xenophobia and socially destructive elements were falling away. Gay marriage became a legal thing and interracial marriage was no longer a big deal anymore and the death machine of big tobacco was on the run and suddenly the more positive pleasure, weed, it became quite socially acceptable. The world appeared to be on an unstoppable positive charge.

But then the hard right lead by the “Tea Party” and cheered on by Fox News began blasting Obama’s affordable care act as some sort of evil — “death pannels” — government take over of the health industry, and spineless Democratic politicians failed to come to its defense. Next political crazies completely grabbed control of the Republican base, throwing wide open the door for a big mouth, phony businessman failure and super con artist, Donald Trump, to slip into the cracks of the White House, acting as Putin’s greatest weapon against America.

So now it would seem to billions of terrified folks around the world that Trump and his other fascist loving types are destined to rules the world forever. This despite the fact that immediately upon Trump’s election there were those massive women’s marches that more than hinted at the start of a positive countertrend followed a few years later by the 2018 election whereby women poured into government and greatly helped flip the House to the Democrats.

And yet we have here on Medium our very own otherwise brilliant thinkers and writers like Umair Haque who seems totally obvious to the possibility of a counter trend developing against the current worldwide fascist tide. Everyday Umair gives us another example of why fascism can’t be stopped, despite countless historical examples of positive countertrends rising up to smack down the world’s evil developments.

Trends and countertrends have been a way of life for humans since the dawn of time, and there is no reason to expect that they will end anytime soon.