http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
i looked at the wikipedia definition of socialism, from which you bit the one sentence definition of it--that definition focusses on the usage of the term in the writings of marx and represents but one strand of current usage. more often, when folk use the term these days in anything like a meaningful sense, the reference is to democratic socialism. the split in ways of understanding the term "socialism" came about in the context of the 2nd international across the debate within the german communist party over whether to support war credits in parliament. behind this was the question of whether revolution was a short or long term horizon for political action. democratic socialists hold to the latter position, and so see intervening in the organization of capitalism with the aim of bettering the living conditions of working people in real time as a desirable goal.
democratic socialism is an alternative conception of how capitalism could work.
it is coherent and in general far more functional that neoliberal style regimes.
no wonder, then, that so often you see in spaces like this folk from the right who feign ignorance of the matter.
anyway, this usage is not new.
it has been around since world war 1, seaver.
as for the subject of this thread, i only looked in on it to see if there really was a debate about whether george w. bush at some point was an actual plant...you know, like an azelia or something...once i saw that it was a conspiracy theory thread, i lost interest. but i scrolled through, just to see if someone would float the theory that george w bush was, in fact, a potted plant. not that i had anything to say about it. i was just curious. it is like another thread title from a while ago, "nochld left behind my ass" which i took to be a debate about whether there were children left behind someone's ass or not. there too, things did not pan out as hoped.