Transcript of the above video:

Wow, the title of this video is probably strange to those who are watching this video. You are probably wondering “what the heck is he talking about?” Well I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that's pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Flexible visas are promoting Thailand's soft power abroad. I made another video contemporaneously with this one where we discussed one visa particularly that we don't often discuss, the so-called Media Visa, but then this article just went down a very strange tangent. Quoting directly, and I urge those who are watching this video, read this article in detail, get your own insight on it. That said, quoting directly: "Soft power has a long history of attempting to influence the support of foreigners, even though the term was unknown. Adolf Hitler, for example, encouraged the creation of a European Writers Union to win support for the Third Reich during World War II. Fidel Castro sent thousands of medical staff to African countries to find favour abroad. But it's doubtful Thailand will go that far." Huh? What? Like I don't even understand the comparison, okay? 

This article sort of starts off talking about hey, Thai Visa policy, they are trying to encourage folks to come into Thailand. We've been discussing this at length in other videos on this channel yeah," and then it does seem to be at least within this new government, there seems to be a sort of meme out there, a narrative if you will that this sort of fits in with the broader notion of enhancing Thailand's soft power. Now when I think of soft power, I often think of initiatives that are undertaken in order to sort of avoid kinetic interaction if you will between nation states and to enhance a country's sort of reputation or prestige via sort of indirect methodologies, soft power. Like changing one's Visa policy to encourage tourism from another country and thereby gain prestige as a result of tourists come to your country, they sort of see what you're doing and they say "oh wow Thailand's a culturally rich place and we want to return to that". They go home and they tell people about it. That's what I think of what I think of soft power. Hitler's initiatives regarding the European Writers Union, I'm not really understanding how exactly that's pertinent to present-day Visa policy here in the Kingdom of Thailand, nor do I really understand how it is comparable to Castro's program of sending medical personnel to other, presumably communist or communist leaning countries, back during the time that the Cold War was going on. Again I am not exactly understanding the full comparison here. If I am being honest to my mind this just looks truly like "an apples to bowling balls" analogy; it is an analogy that's not particularly logically consistent. 

Again I don't really understand what at the time the German Reich's Chancellor's policy toward European Writers has to do with modern visa policy here in Thailand. So again maybe I'm missing something. I'm happy to understand further insight perhaps in the comments below, although quite frankly I'm really not interested in getting into any kind of a prolonged discussion about Hitlerian soft power initiatives. That said I can only read the things and comment on them as they appear in the ether of the internet particularly as it pertains to Thai Immigration so that's why I went ahead and made this video, but I have to say I'm left a little bit at a loss as to how to really even comment on this but it is my opinion that quite honestly present day Thai Immigration policy has little or nothing, in fact I would say has nothing to do with anything associated with Hitler's policies towards Writers within Europe nor does it really have anything to do with Castro's policies toward medical personnel going to other countries during the Cold War, so maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so.