Both global variables and gotos are bad. On the other hand, the contortions some people go through to get the same effect without using the actual construct are

Both global variables and gotos are bad. On the other hand, the contortions some people go through to get the same effect without using the actual construct are often worse. That's the real point. Design and implementation decisions should be judged based on what they do, not their superficial appearance. If code is littered with singletons and often-thrown exceptions, it's worse than if the programmer had been honest about using globals and gotos.